The California Budget Impasse: Political Chicanery or Democracy in Action?

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bob Campbell
Member of the California State Assembly, 1980-1996

I know that many of you who will be reading this article will do so with one of the above thoughts in mind, which scenario is the right one? I suppose that how you, the citizen and taxpayer, view what took place in Sacramento these past two months will depend upon several things: your general political perspective, your knowledge about how the system works, your political persuasion, and whether or not you were personally affected by the delay in passing a budget on time.

You may also be swayed by your sense of American Democracy and what results it was designed to produce. To understand just what happened in California’s recent budget deadlock, I believe it is essential to recognize that when our forbearers designed the US and State of California Constitution’s, they emphatically believed in three separate but co equal branches of government (Executive, Legislative and Judicial); the operative word being co-equal.

They believed, and rightfully so, that separate but co-equal branches of Government would be the single best deterrent to a dictatorship. In fact, some people think this division and balance of powers was so well crafted that it prevents our government from working effectively and efficiently, that in fact it was designed to work this way so that everyone would have their say and less chance of foul play or of harm from ambitious persons if power was not concentrated in anyone branch of government

This explains what happened in Sacramento these past almost sixty (60) days after the State Budget deadline had passed, and to a lesser degree during most of the past thirty years--in fact during my sixteen year tenure (1980 to 1996) we only passed the budget on time twice. In short, this was a democratic government at work. Sometimes we have a strong willed executive, the Governor, elected by the citizens of the State of California. We also have one hundred and twenty (120) state legislators also elected by the citizens of the State of California (40 Senators and 80 Assembly Members). Each legislator comes to Sacramento (some are Democrats and some are Republicans) with his or her own set of beliefs and ideologies and representing certain constituencies. Take this scenario and it is no wonder that deadlocks often happen.