Opinion: The real reason the budget vote isn’t set for Saturday?
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State Democratic leaders have set a budget vote for Sunday. But the deadline for getting spending reform on the November ballot is supposedly Saturday at midnight, and reform is said to be a huge part of any budget deal. They should be voting Saturday -- unless, of course, they’re going to be somewhere else that day. Could this note from the Democratic Party to active members hold a clue?
‘You may have heard that Barack Obama will be visiting Orange County this Saturday to participate in a community forum with John McCain at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest. What you may not have heard is that California Democrats will be turning out in large numbers to greet him. If you’d like to be part of the crowd cheering Barack Obama on, please grab your Obama gear and come join us!’
Lake Forest is in south Orange County. The Saddleback Church event isn’t exactly public, but it’s not exactly a secret, either.
Here’s a warning from and to Democrats:
‘There will also be McCain supporters in attendance, so it’s important that we counter them with a strong showing of support for Barack Obama and his positive message for hope and change in America!’
So will state Democrats and Republicans miss their chance to get any budget reform on the ballot? After all, Secretary of State Debra Bowen reminded Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger back in May that the legal deadline for a legislative ballot measure was June 26, and we’re WAY past that. But if the Legislature and the governor are OK with putting something on a supplemental ballot, they have until Aug. 4. Yet we’re past that too. So they can pass a law that truncates the statutory public display period for ballot titles and summaries, in which case the absolute, drop-dead, no-more-time deadline is midnight, Aug. 16. Saturday.
Except that there are those in the Capitol who say, quietly, that the Legislature can do away with the public display period altogether, and buy themselves, oh, maybe eight more days of wiggle room.
Then ballots and supporting materials have to go to the printer if they are going to get them out in time for voting by mail, which starts Oct. 6.