Polarized California lawmakers reflect voters

From Sacramento — 

If examined closely, a new poll explains why the Legislature is so politically polarized. It’s not a big mystery. The lawmakers merely reflect the voters who elect them.

That’s how it was all set up, after all, 221 years ago in Philadelphia. It’s called representative democracy.

There’s more to it than that, of course.

Gerrymandered districts drawn by the legislators themselves, combined with a semi-closed primary election system, have tended to send the most extreme, non-pragmatic ideologues to Sacramento in the last decade. Voters can correct both flaws when they cast ballots this year.

And unique to California, rendering our Legislature particularly dysfunctional, is a two-thirds majority vote requirement for both passage of a budget and an increase in taxes.

So if 51% of voters do agree on how to stanch the profusely bleeding state budget, it still must be approved by two-thirds of each legislative house. And that’s a formula for gridlock.

Moreover, the political insecurity and dearth of legislative experience wrought by Draconian term limits tend to stifle any thought of courageous leadership, especially in the entry-level Assembly.

And that creates a chronic Catch-22: Voters apparently won’t reduce the two-thirds vote threshold or relax term limits because they’re disgusted with the Legislature for not doing its job. The lawmakers can’t do their job because they’re shackled by the supermajority vote and career instability.

Voters favor “limiting the legislators’ scope of power anyway they can” and “sending a message to the leadership,” says Mark Baldassare, pollster and president of the Public Policy Institute of California.

“They’re not happy with Democratic or Republican legislators. There’s a perception that they and the governor are not able to work together.”

In Baldassare’s new statewide poll, 80% of likely voters doubt Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature will “be able to work together and accomplish a lot this year.”

That’s one big reason why Schwarzenegger’s job approval rating has descended to an all-time low in Baldassare’s polling, only 24% among likely voters. The Legislature’s approval is even lower, 11%.

But the only way out of the Catch-22 is for the Legislature, somehow, to begin acting expeditiously on truly important issues — such as passing an honestly balanced budget by July 1, the start of the new fiscal year. Earn back some public respect.

It’s not likely to happen, however — not this year, with a $19.1-billion deficit.

And about the last place the Legislature should look for guidance is the public. Voters are totally conflicted.

“The governor and the Legislature are down to having to make decisions that the voters are not going to be happy with,” Baldassare says. “On the other hand, voters are not happy with the fact that the governor and Legislature are not making decisions that permanently solve our problems.”

Although Baldassare’s poll of likely voters shows that 88% agree the bleeding budget is “a big problem,” there’s little consensus on how to make ends meet.

For example:

• Half would accept tax increases along with spending cuts. But although 61% of Democrats think that way, only 29% of Republicans do.

• What kind of tax hikes? Soak the rich. Never mind that the wealthiest 1% already pay nearly 50% of the personal income tax, leading to an unreliable boom-or-bust revenue system. But 62% of voters favor hitting them harder. The vast majority (80%) of Democrats agree. Only a minority (39%) of Republicans do.

• A slim majority (51%) of voters favor raising corporate taxes. Democrats and Republicans have polar opposite views.

• Only 35% favor extending the sales tax to services, a long-overdue updating that would help bring California’s tax system into the 21st century. Not even a majority of Democrats want that.

• Voters of both parties agree that their top spending priority is K-12 schools. And 79% of Democrats and 51% of Republicans say they’d willingly pay higher taxes to avoid further spending cuts.

• To head off deeper cuts in higher education, 64% of Democrats would be willing to pay more taxes. But only 32% of Republicans would. And there’s an even wider divide over health and human services, such as welfare and Medi-Cal.

“There’s no consensus on what the fix should be, so we’ll have a summer rerun over and over again of the same old bad TV show,” says Democratic consultant Kam Kuwata.

“The arguments over this budget will be reminiscent of the arguments they had last year and the year before that. ... It just reinforces the public perception of Sacramento not getting anything done.”

Republican consultant Ray McNally says: “In an election year, the politically expedient thing [for a legislator] to do is to do nothing, but pretend you’re doing something — so you can write in your brochure that you’re protecting voters from tax increases, or not cutting human services.

“It’s about, ‘How’s this going to look in my next TV commercial or next brochure?’ instead of, ‘How’s this going to look in the [law] code?’

“We’ll see how many courageous legislators there are who actually want to make the process work.”

At some point — and it’s long past — legislators should disregard special-interest bullying and voter anger and do what they think is best for the state.

That’s also the way it was set up by the Founders.

george.skelton@latimes.com