news story / By Bob Doran

Can 1A Stop the Bleeding?

(May 7, 2009)  Retired teacher turned farmer Roger Smith says he’s torn. He’s a true blue Democrat who feels like he’s supposed to support Props 1A and 1B, and he knows the state budget situation is critical. He’s hesitant to “throw his lot in with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers League.” Nevertheless, he’s decided to vote no on 1A.

“You don’t put a band-aid on a hemorrhaging wound,” said Smith. “You sew it up.”

There’s no one arguing that California isn’t in bad shape. The general economic downturn has the state budget bleeding like the victim in a slasher flick. But major disagreements arise when you suggest a remedy for the multi-billion dollar deficit.

The propositions up for a vote on May 19 are a result of a last ditch effort to end a protracted standoff in the legislature. After months of budget wrangling, with the Republican minority standing firm, Governor Schwarzenegger hammered out a compromise with the Democratic and Republican leadership that neither side seems to like all that much.

Both parties held state conventions recently. The anti-tax Repubs came out against all six props. While more than half the Dems were ready to endorse 1A, convention rules required a 60 percent majority, and supporters couldn’t get it, so there was no endorsement.

Props 1A and its school funding companion, 1B, are the linchpins of the governor’s plan to mend the budget. They’re complex measures, hard to fathom, even harder to sum up in layman’s terms. What exactly does 1A do? It depends on who you ask — and when you do, prepare for semantic traps.

One key element is a complicated “Budget Stabilization Fund,” a reserve procedure described by the crafters as a “rainy day fund” — progressives in opposition call it a “spending cap.” The nonpartisan Calif. Budget Project boils it down: “[It] requires the state to deposit an amount equal to 3 percent of estimated General Fund revenues in the BSF annually until the balance in the BSF equals 12.5 percent of General Fund revenues as estimated in the Budget Bill for each fiscal year.” Got that? And, the CPB notes, “Governors would gain the unilateral authority to make mid-year reductions in state spending.”

Will it work? The Governator thinks so, and so do some Dems, including 1st District Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro, who describes 1A as “good policy,” adding, “I know there are labor unions, some public employee unions and some members of the legislature who think it’s not. It’s not perfect. There are things [in the propositions] I’d do differently if I’d written them. They constitute a compromise, but I don’t think the Democrats gave up hard felt principles in order to agree to them.

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