Out of Step in the Dance to Deadline

It has returned, as it invariably does each June: the 100-degree heat that bakes the Sacramento Valley and signals the opening of batty season in the Capitol.

Not to be confused with baseball, where three strikes and you’re out. Most of these legislators have been swinging for years and still haven’t made contact with political reality.

For seven years straight, the Legislature has missed its June 15 constitutional deadline for passing a state budget while the boos of the public have intensified. And for six years, a governor has missed his July 1 deadline for signing the budget. Gov. Pete Wilson now has a two-strike count.

This is batty as in wacky.

It is no secret that one of the biggest errors ever committed in the Capitol was the installation of central air conditioning. Before that--back in the sweaty era of ceiling and desk fans--lawmakers passed the budget and finished all their other business in time to escape Sacramento’s oven. These summers, the Capitol is much too comfortable.

There also is a theory that the unrelenting valley sun sears politicians’ brains when they venture beyond their Capitol cocoon. I do know that their thinking has changed since a month ago, when it was a serene 70 degrees and all the spring flowers were blooming. Then there was cheerful talk of this year being different.

An amiable meeting had just been held between the governor and legislative leaders. They had come away talking confidently of compromise and doing their work on time. There even were vows of passing workers’ compensation reform by Memorial Day. And for good measure, they would toss in Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s two bills to help first-time home buyers.

But the governor and legislative leaders have not met since. The housing bills have gotten only to the Senate. The workers’ compensation drive is plodding along in a two-house conference committee. And on Tuesday, the Legislature missed another budget deadline.

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Still, there was one hopeful sign as the deadline passed in the night. Legislators began performing their “Dance of Death,” a ritualistic prerequisite to breaking a stalemate.

In the “Dance of Death,” noted a legislative strategist, “everybody dances around the fire. They throw stuff at us. We throw stuff at them. Everybody falls over dead and we start all over.”

Starting all over on the major steps--shifting property taxes from local governments to schools, extending a temporary half-cent sales tax, rolling over the deficit into future years--could mean backtracking to January, when the Legislature first convened and the governor proposed his budget.

In Tuesday’s dance, a $53.3-billion budget approved by the Democratic majority of a conference committee--without any Republican support--was offered to both houses for floor votes. The results were preordained: Republicans voted against it unanimously, denying Democrats the two-thirds majority needed for passage.

But legislators got to vent their emotions, record their positions and educate their colleagues.

For example, it was learned from Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin (D-Fremont), as she protested proposed Medi-Cal cuts in dental care, that “Theodore Roosevelt himself died of bad teeth.”

Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), the conference committee chairman, officially named his product “The Smart Budget.” Assemblyman Dean Andal (R-Stockton) counter-named it “The Not-so-Smart Budget.”

In the Senate, GOP Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno--one of the wiser veterans--called the evening’s performance “a charade.” President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) also spoke the truth when he observed that the state still doesn’t have a budget because “Republicans are not in agreement among themselves. They are running away from the governor’s budget.”

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Later, Maddy conceded privately that “nobody knows how to do it. That’s the problem.”

It is closing a $9-billion shortfall while meeting the state’s legal obligation to schools. The governor says shift $2.6 billion in property taxes. Most Republicans don’t want to shift that much. But they reject the Democrats’ idea of extending the half-cent sales tax beyond the six months Wilson has proposed. Spending already has been cut deeply.

This is gridlock.

One freshman lawmaker had it right during Tuesday night’s dance. Said Assemblywoman Julie Bornstein (D-Palm Desert): “My voters are far more concerned with us meeting our constitutional duty than listening to us (and) the details. We were elected to provide leadership. Part of leadership means compromising.”

It might work to switch off the air conditioning and sweat--then turn over the energy savings to local government.