Legislature has made governor irrelevant

Published online on Sunday, Aug. 09, 2009

As Arnold Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial tenure winds down, I keep thinking about California's historic recall election almost six years ago, and whether all the uproar was worth the effort.

In the Golden State, we do things in a big way, and the 2003 recall election was classic California. It had a carnival atmosphere and was covered on the late-night talk shows as much as in the mainstream media. So the entertainment value was high.

But are we any better off than we were six years ago? Not even close. The recall election set the stage for a meltdown of California government that has brought us to the point of paying state bills with IOUs and dismantling the social safety net for our poorest residents.

I can't imagine us being worse off if recall voters had thrown up their hands and elected one of the flakier candidates that were on the ballot in 2003? You remember them. They included pornographer Larry Flynt, one-time TV actor Gary Coleman, a woman who sold thong underwear on her Web site and a man who wanted to legalize ferrets as pets.

But the voters took a chance on a mega star, and told Gov. Gray Davis they'd had enough of him. Schwarzenegger billed himself as a reformer, but he turned out to be a mainstream governor who couldn't get much done. It wasn't all his fault because the Legislature and the special interests stood in his way.

Republicans in the Legislature didn't trust the GOP governor, and Democrats tolerated him because he at least would listen to ideas that didn't come from the fringe.

Schwarzenegger's instincts were correct. State government needed to be reformed and the out-of-control spending would eventually bankrupt California. But he hasn't fixed the state's finances, no matter how he spins the latest budget agreement. With the exception of redistricting reform, Schwarzenegger has not solved the state's other governance problems, and there's no reason to believe that will change in his final 17 months in office.

But while Schwarzenegger will have to accept the mess created on his watch, it is the inept Legislature that caused most of California's problems.

The Democrats have been led around by the special interests, and the minority Republicans are only a political factor by holding up the state budget. (Can you imagine a political party telling its supporters that it's only reason for existence is to block tax increases and hold the state budget hostage?)

Even with all the hand-wringing, the state kept spending more than it took in and the budget hole kept getting deeper. Historians will look back at the legislative leaders in this decade and conclude that they were among the worst politicians California has ever seen.

Term limits are to blame. We've cycled through most of our decent lawmakers and now we are left with people who wouldn't have been elected without term limits. And today's legislative leaders would not have been in the inner circle of powerful politicians of the past. Most of them would be legislative staffers without term limits.

The Schwarzenegger era didn't have a chance because of the Legislature. And that's why it really didn't matter who voters selected in the 2003 gubernatorial recall election.

There's already a large field of candidates running to succeed Schwarzenegger as governor. But the next governor will meet the same fate because the Legislature is incapable of performing its duties. If they can't even get a balanced budget on time, how are they going to solve the state's biggest problems?

We need major reforms, starting with abolishing the Legislature and replacing it with a nonpartisan unicameral system. Otherwise, the next governor will be spending all his or her time trying to get lawmakers to agree on a balanced budget.