Finding a Budget Amid the Typical Political Antics

Assemblywoman Audie Bock, the first-ever Green Party legislator, showed more sense than any of them. Shortly before midnight Tuesday, she walked onto the Assembly floor in her Bugs Bunny slippers, wearing purple pajamas and carrying a plaid blanket around a fluffy, flowery pillow. With her engaging smile.

“She won,” declared an AP photographer to no one in particular, lifting his camera.

She won, first of all, because amid all the insider political machinations that hardly anybody cared a hoot about beyond a one-block radius, hers was by far the best photo op. And that’s something politicians die for.

Bock, 53, also won because her outfit was practical. Amid stupefying state budget carryings-on, with no end in sight, she was getting comfortable. She strolled to her seat far off the beaten path and soon was dozing--while Democrats meandered and mumbled and confused Republicans caucused.

“Why not?” she commented, settling in. “Who knows how long we’re going to be here.”

They would be there until 2:14 a.m.--and later practically all day Wednesday.

But Bock, a two-month rookie from Alameda County, really won because she decided at the last moment to vote for the $81.7-billion budget after issuing a press release indicating that she would not. She didn’t like a car tax cut and complained there wasn’t enough money for schools. But she did like the emphasis on environmental protection. So on balance, she concluded, it was a pretty good deal.

In her bunny slippers and PJs, the Green was the only non-Democrat who didn’t look silly.

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The sorry situation was this:

The California Constitution requires the Legislature to pass a state budget every year by June 15. But there’s no legal penalty for disobeying, as the law-and-order Assembly Republicans disdainfully did Tuesday night.

Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco), a onetime college basketball player, threw a head fake 10 days ago that Assembly Republicans bought. They actually believed the wily old pro when he characterized the June 15 date as a “snooze alarm” for the real deadline of July 1, the start of the new budget year.

Burton and everybody else--Democrats and Senate Republicans--got up early and did their negotiating work while the Assembly GOP snoozed.

Tuesday, on deadline, the Senate passed a compromise budget, 36 to 3. It was the Senate’s most lopsided budget vote in 13 years. Twelve of 15 Republicans voted for the spending plan. “The people of California,” noted Senate GOP leader Ross Johnson of Irvine, “expect us to discharge our duty in a timely and mature manner.”

Next up: the Assembly. The Legislature had a chance to meet its legal deadline for the first time in 13 years. But the debate had barely begun when Republicans felt compelled to caucus--for three hours.

Afterward, new GOP leader Scott Baugh of Huntington Beach stood at his mike and rehashed tired party dogma: “Government has been on a spending jubilee . . . Families know how to spend their money better than governments . . . “ He was the only Republican to speak, although not one supported the budget, which fell six votes short (48 to 31) of the required two-thirds majority.

“Why do you just block? Why do you just obstruct? Why do you just whine,” asked Assemblywoman Carole Migden (D-San Francisco). “What do you need specifically?”

And that was the problem. Republicans didn’t know. They didn’t have a goal, let alone any idea of how to achieve it.

They vaguely talked of more tax cuts--and a guarantee that the latest car tax cut would be permanent, regardless of economic times.

“This budget is going to be the budget,” Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) proclaimed. “It’s not going to change by your playing a waiting game . . . You’re going to have to go back to your district and explain why you couldn’t vote for a budget that your senator voted for.”

Senate Republicans, by contrast, had set early goals and achieved them--including the car tax cut, university fee reductions, some local government help and more highway money.

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Villaraigosa turned up the lights full glare--an old speaker trick--in an effort to wear down the culprits. Like in a police station. It didn’t work. Seldom does.

Myself, I would have banged the gavel at midnight and sent everybody home. Let the Republicans stew in their mess, knowing that ultimately enough would be shamed, cowed, beaten into voting for this budget.

And more than enough were by late Wednesday, as the budget passed 69 to 10. Twenty-one Republicans joined Audie Bock in recognizing a good deal and political reality. Too bad they looked like fools for missing the deadline.