Deep Six the Big Five

In Sacramento, the term “Big Five” has nothing to do with the Kings’ basketball team or a chain of sporting goods stores. It is government-speak for a state budgeting process that essentially hands over power to a few top politicians operating out of the public eye.

The new leaders of the Legislature are determined, however, to diminish the role of the Big Five significantly during this summer’s budget deliberations. In this case, less is better. If they can, they should end the role of the Big Five altogether.

The back room negotiation of difficult state budget issues by the Big Five--the governor and four top party leaders, one Democrat and one Republican from each house of the Legislature--developed in the 1980s during a series of fiscal crises and then became routine. But the process is not good policy because of the secret nature of the negotiations and the fact that the Big Five’s choices often negate key, hard-fought decisions already made by the Legislature.

Sen. John Burton (D-San Francisco), the new president pro tem of the state Senate, says he wants to restore most budget decisions to the Legislature itself. His counterpart in the state Assembly, Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), reportedly concurs.

There is no way to eliminate some deal-making in the formulation of a $74-billion state budget. But the time to do it is while the Legislature is assembling the spending plan, out in the open. If critical issues are left to the very end, a governor is able to dominate the process because of his veto power over any budget item.

The checks and balances of government can easily shift too far one way or the other. Eliminating the Big Five will restore some equilibrium to the scales of government.