Feb 05 2009
The Secrets In The Capitol
Do you know how many elected representatives there are in the Capitol?
There are 120, 121 if you count the Governor. He’s elected to represent the whole state.
These representatives were elected by their constituents to represent their districts. Everyone has three representatives: Assembly, Senate and Governor.
How many are involved in the negotiations on the budget?
It varies between 4 and 5. That means only 3-4% of the elected representatives are involved in the budget negotiations.
The stated reason for this is that if the negotiations are not kept secret, then special interests will start putting their nose in and nothing will ever get done. Special interests would start putting their two cents and ideas into the mix if they got wind of the budget deal. But why should that make the elected representatives of the people nervous?
It makes them nervous because of the massive amounts of money special interests have to help them or hurt them. It doesn’t make them nervous to know that their constituents might have something to say about the issues. Instead, the legislators are nervous about special interest groups.
What has this state come to when the electorate isn’t even a factor when considering why to keep things secret?
Why does the budget deal have to be secret? If the special interest groups want to take issue with the budget, let them. People will eventually tire of hearing their noise, just like people are tired of hearing about the budget deficit.
Nothing should be done in secret. This budget deal will not have gone through the committee process. It will go to a floor vote. No one is going to know the exact details. There will not be time for members of the public, the electorate, to learn what is included and not included in the package. Instead, the budget deal will simply happen.
One morning you will wake up and the news will be about a budget deal.
Of course this doesn’t solve California’s problems. California has the worst credit rating available and has a structural problem that will not be fixed with cuts and new taxes. There is an enormous amount of stress on the California social system and nothing is going to fix that in a fly-by-night budge deal.
Bring the deal into the open. At least tell the other legislators what is happening. I dislike the thought of 5 peole making policy for millions. Isn’t that why there isn’t a king in California?
