Panel Kills Proposal to Cut Off Salaries of Lawmakers During Budget Deadlock

The Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday killed legislation that would have cut off the salaries of legislators and the governor for each day that approval of the state budget was delayed beyond the June 15 constitutional deadline.

The proposed constitutional amendment by Sen. Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco), similar versions of which have been scuttled in the past, died for lack of a motion to approve it.

Committee members argued that lawmakers would be under pressure to settle budget disputes and would not give important issues careful deliberation.

Last summer, the Legislature and then-Gov. George Deukmejian went a record 31 days into the new fiscal year before putting a state budget in place. As in previous stalemates dating from the 1960s, much of the blame was placed on the requirement that the budget be approved by a two-thirds vote.

Kopp said cutting off the salaries of the governor and legislators, who also would forfeit their tax-free expense allowances, would impose a “self-executing motivator” to pass the budget.

“People understand that,” he said, stressing that there presently is no penalty for failure to pass the budget on time.

But Sen. Henry Mello (D-Watsonville) noted that in addition to receiving his Senate salary, Kopp is a highly successful lawyer. He told Kopp that for other legislators to forfeit a chunk of their pay “is easy for you to say. A lot of us cannot afford it.”