A Legislature of far too little impact

The California Legislature wrapped up its session last week, hustling through a bevy of bills in its final hours, as is customary. The results were sadly predictable. Although legislators passed a few worthy measures, more time was spent pandering, rewarding special interests, ducking tough issues and denying the public information to which it is entitled.

Some work got done. The Legislature passed bills to discourage smoking and to distribute clean needles to drug addicts. It approved tax relief for homeowners hit by natural disasters, and extended public oversight over college fundraising. It objected to Uganda’s demonization of gays, and honored California’s Sikhs. All well and good, if at times trivial.

And there were some more far-reaching accomplishments too. The Legislature broke important ground with bills to establish a state exchange through which individuals and small businesses can shop for health insurance (AB 1602 and SB 900). It enacted new rules for reporting the use of tax incentives by public companies (AB 2666), and it required that future tax breaks be monitored and benchmarked more closely so that officials can gauge their effectiveness (SB 1272). The state’s elected leaders also adopted a small but nifty bill (SB 1381), introduced by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), that thoughtfully phases in a requirement that all kindergartners be 5 years old when they start school. That sounds like a small change, but it acknowledges the transformation of kindergarten from a play year to an introduction to school.

Unfortunately, those successes must be regarded as exceptions. Smart and important legislation, much of it propelled by substantial public support, fell by the wayside in the final days. Indeed, what is most notable about the recently concluded session is not the little bit of good policy the Legislature made but the great deal that it did not. Not to mention the bad bills it passed.

Legislators continued their trend toward faux tough-on-crime bills, for example — good for reelection, not so good for criminal justice. By a narrow margin, they rejected a modest attempt to introduce humanity into the treatment of juvenile offenders. The bill that was defeated did not go so far as to do away with life-without-parole sentences for children; it merely would have allowed a judge to review such sentences after 15 years. While rejecting that, the members enacted a new one-strike sexual predator law (AB 1844), the latest in a long line of bills that confuse heartfelt sympathy for crime victims with sound public policy.

On the environment, the state’s elected leaders dropped an easy one. They had before them a proposal to ban the use of plastic bags in grocery stores (AB 1998), a measure that would have served our oceans well. It ran afoul of the plastic bag industry, however, and a craven Legislature folded. Similarly, broad support in the Legislature and the governor’s office wasn’t enough to win passage of a bill that would have required one-third of California’s power to come from renewable sources such as the sun and wind (SB 722). Both of those bills deserve reintroduction in the next session.

And on public accountability, the Legislature renewed its reputation as the protector of state secrets rather than as a guardian of public trust. It turned back bills, introduced in the wake of the Bell salary scandal, to make public employee salaries more readily accessible to the public that pays them. (On this issue, public employees have only themselves to blame. Their unions opposed such openness when they perceived it as intrusive, then supported it, too late, when they realized top officials took advantage of secrecy to lay off low-paid workers while enriching themselves. Oops.)

In the same vein, the Legislature enacted a goofy law to amp up the penalties for paparazzi who break traffic laws in pursuit of pictures (AB 2479); it’s easy to bash paparazzi, but this law is so vague it will surely be ruled unconstitutional, and violating traffic laws already is a violation of, well, traffic laws. And, finally, the Legislature allowed the families of children who are murdered to demand sealing of coroner’s reports to protect their privacy, even if judges and public officials believe openness would serve the public interest (SB 5). As with so much in the area of crime, with that bill the Legislature again misconstrued its mission: It exists not to console families but to supervise a coherent system of criminal justice. Or, rather, it should exist for that purpose.

This, then, is your Legislature at work. It passes what it perceives to be popular and rejects what it fears opponents could use to make an issue at reelection time. Members pass the days avoiding tough issues and spend their evenings circulating through Sacramento’s bars and restaurants to scoop up money from lobbyists whose clients’ bills are being evaluated by day. It is a cynical and broken system, managed for the benefit of officeholders, not the public.

We had hoped a California constitutional convention might break some of these calcified routines, but that idea was set back earlier this year when sponsors were unable to get it to the ballot. Meanwhile, a few more modest reforms — championed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has struggled with some issues but shown resilience and initiative on reforming California politics — have won approval and may soon start to make a difference. Voters in 2008 approved a citizen redistricting commission to begin drawing legislative lines. (Today, that process is handled by the Legislature itself, with the predictable result that members look out for themselves.) And the electorate this year authorized the so-called open primary, in which the top two finishers in primary elections, no matter what party, face off in general elections. That replaces the partisan primary system and offers hope that candidates will appeal to voters across the spectrum rather than just to ideologues in their own party.

Bemoaning the Legislature is nothing new, of course. As long as there have been legislatures, there have been legislative letdowns. But this session’s modest accomplishments and significant failings must be considered in light of an overriding fact: By law, California’s Legislature has a duty to approve a state budget by June 15. And though we are more concerned in the long run with a responsible budget than a timely one, the session that ended last week produced neither; indeed, no budget is even in sight. That’s become so commonplace that it’s hard to muster outrage anymore. Still, the truth remains: California’s elected leaders, who take an oath to defend the state Constitution, are openly in contempt of it. If they want to reclaim some measure of public trust, they could start by fulfilling their most basic public duty. Pass a budget.