14 White Men Hold CA Budget Hostage

Republicans won’t vote for schools & hospitals without the promise of dirty(er) air

Sacramento – That’s the headline all the papers should have written today. Instead they wrote about the slugfest between Democrats and Republicans. It’s understandable because Wednesday morning the California Senate Democrats blasted their 14 Republican colleagues for holding the entire state budget hostage until their demands are met to “eviscerate” the state’s Environmental Quality law.

Senator Perata set out to prove once again that he is a better poker player than his colleagues across the aisle, saying “I will not bargain away California’s environment to oil refiners or multi-state developers.” Perata vowed not only to wait out the Republicans on the budget, but to hold up the entire business of the legislature while waiting for one of that “Gang of 14” to cross over and support the budget package that Democrats have hammered out with Republican Governor Schwarzenegger.

Sierra Club’s Bill Magavern [so I don’t become another Mirthala Salinas (I look a lot like her), full disclosure: Bill is my husband] named names, “I came here this morning to induct some new members into the California ‘Hall of Shame,’ and these are the new inductees, Aanestad, Ackerman, Ashburn, Battin, Cogdill, Cox, Denham, Dutton, Harman, Hollingsworth, Margett, McClintock, Runner, and Wyland. This gang of 14, all privileged white men, is obstructing the budget for the entire State of California, holding up funding for health care, for schools, for parks.”

Drawing a firm line in the sand may be a risky strategy for the Democrats. Unquestionably, Republicans are out of step with the mainstream of California on the environment and many other issues. But traditionally Republicans and Republican primary voters love the idea of bringing the legislature to a halt. They may want clean air, good schools and health care but they fantasize that the government has nothing to do with that. So holding up all other legislation may be much tougher on Democrats and their constituents than Republicans and theirs.

Still, if any single one of the Gang of 14 have aspirations for statewide office, this is their time to get out of the entrenched minority and into the mainstream. Otherwise, we can write the attack ad now, “Tom Harman says he’s for better schools and a better life for California, but in 2007 he held up money for schools and health care for 3 months to help out-of-state developers clog our communities and roads.”

Better yet, let’s get 2/3 Democrats in the next election and render them completely irrelevant.