Crude Budget Bribery

Passing California’s yearly budget always takes horse-trading because the required two-thirds vote allows the minority party to hold the budget hostage while bargaining for principle or pet projects. But the outright buying of budget votes this week was especially blatant and crude.

Getting the budget passed in the Assembly cost California taxpayers $79 million in goodies for three Republican holdouts--Mike Briggs of Fresno, Anthony Pescetti of Rancho Cordova and Dick Dickerson of Redding, who finally agreed to vote “yes” Monday night. As The Times’ Julie Tamaki reported, the porky bribes included $6million for the Lodi and Galt police departments, special tax breaks for selected forestry and farming businesses and aid to beleaguered Klamath Valley farmers in need of irrigation water.

The Senate is expected to approve the $101-million budget later this week and send it to Gov. Gray Davis, long after the constitutional deadline for passage, midnight June 30. This year’s budget-buying was so egregious because the Democrats needed so few votes. Those few were lavished with more than they could think to ask for

The remedy? The Legislature should be able to pass a budget with a simple majority vote, as in Congress, reducing the impetus for semi-bribery.

The tawdry process tainted everyone involved, including Assembly GOP leader Dave Cox of Fair Oaks, who led the pig-headed budget holdout, and Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), who doled out the pork.