Yes, They Do Always Vote ‘No’ on Budget

As legislative leaders search for ways to break a frustrating budget impasse before California runs out of cash this summer, they won’t be turning to eight or so Republicans -- members of a group proudly and consistently committed to voting “no” when it comes to state spending.

They are Sacramento’s most stalwart conservatives, lawmakers who promise to vote only for a budget that would veer far, far to the right of anything that stands a chance in this overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature.

They came here with one overarching goal: to reduce the size of government. They consider their refusal to compromise a badge of honor.

“It’s my 11th year in the Legislature and I have yet to vote for a budget,” said Assemblyman Ray Haynes (R-Riverside). “I’ve never voted for one. I’ve got 10 ‘no’ votes.”

Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), who has served 17 years in the Legislature since 1982, hasn’t voted for a budget in more than a decade. He complains that even the budgets that fellow Republican Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law “spilled red ink from one year to the next.”

Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) is part of a dynasty of budget no-votes. He’s winding up to vote against his third budget, continuing well into its second decade a family tradition that started with his father, Richard, a former longtime legislator.

“They say the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree,” said the younger Mountjoy.

They all cite specific things in various budget proposals that they abhor. The most often mentioned is state funding for abortion services. Taxes being too high is a close second, followed perhaps by the billions of dollars of debt the state has taken on.

Many of those criticisms are shared by their colleagues in the Republican Party, who as a group deplore the spending increases of recent years. But those who vote against the budget year after year represent the edge of that critique -- the toughest advocates of their deeply felt philosophy that government is just too big and too involved in areas where it does not belong.

“They are red-state politicians who find themselves in a blue state,” said Jack Pitney, professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College and author of books about conservative Republicans. “California public policy has been turning in a liberal direction for close to a decade. Voting against the budget is one way of registering their dissatisfaction.”

The lawmakers say they are so offended by the way state money has been spent that give-and-take negotiations are out of the question. Some say they will gladly vote for an Assembly Republican plan now on the table, but only if it is not altered to include a penny more of spending, and the recently enacted $4-billion vehicle license fee hike is immediately repealed.

Political oddsmakers say such a budget stands almost no chance, because Democrats, who hold the commanding majority in both houses, as well as the governorship, will not back it. In California’s landscape of “safe” political districts, these Republicans are rewarded by voters for their firm stand.

“They can’t imagine themselves individually having any retaliation for being obstructionist,” said Gary Jacobson, a professor of political science at UC San Diego. Jacobson notes that the districts these Republicans hail from are so conservative that doing whatever they can to shrink the size of government trumps all else -- even as the public statewide demands that lawmakers compromise and get a budget passed.

“From their perspective it is a costless thing to do, but it probably isn’t costless for the party as a whole,” Jacobson said.

In their search to peel off Republican votes for state spending, Democrats have long since gotten used to the unyielding determination of these conservative lawmakers. Before budget negotiations had even gotten underway, party strategists had counted them out of any possible solution; they have looked elsewhere for the eight Republicans they need to approve a spending plan to meet the constitutionally required two-thirds majority.

“They are irrelevant,” said Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla (D-Pittsburg), who has worked with moderate Republicans in search of budget solutions. “You know they are always going to be ‘no,’ you know they are always going to be negative, you know they are not going to be useful. So they are irrelevant and I think they shortchange their constituents.”

The no-voters don’t see it that way, although they acknowledge their votes have inhibited their ability to bring state projects to their districts.

“The only thing you get for voting for a budget is pork,” said Haynes. “I’m a small-government guy.... I don’t believe in running around and cashing in whatever chit I have to make government bigger.”

Haynes recalls that in headier times the Legislature’s appropriations committees used to hold “member request days,” on which lawmakers would ask for specific projects for their districts. He quickly realized he wasn’t welcome.

“I did it my first year and figured out [that] unless you are going to vote for a budget, you are not going to get anything,” Haynes said. “I quit going.”

With no regrets.

“My response to our local-government guys who get a little unhappy about that is, ‘Well, gee whiz, I thought you were also small-government conservatives. All you get there is money to expand government, and I ain’t gonna help you do that,’ ” Haynes said.

In his early years in the Legislature, Haynes said, many of his budget ‘no’ votes were because the measures included money for abortion. This year, however, he says he is prepared to suspend that conviction and vote for a budget if it has absolutely no new or increased taxes -- including the vehicle registration fee.

“I don’t think it would be right of me to sit on the sidelines after all these years of saying you can do it without taxes,” he said. “The good news is I won’t have to vote for the budget this year either, because there are enough of my [Republican] colleagues that will vote for a budget with a car tax in it.”

For other conservatives, however, the $24-million Medi-Cal allotment for abortion services is an automatic deal breaker.

“I can’t put my name on killing babies,” said Dennis Mountjoy. “It is something my conscience won’t allow.”

Mountjoy has pushed hard to ban state universities from using public money to purchase fetal tissue for scientific research. During a recent budget debate on the Assembly floor, he read what he said was a list of the price paid for each part of a fetus.

“They pay $500 to $800 for a baby’s brain,” he said in an interview. “They pay $600 for the trunk, with or without limbs.... These are little human beings and I’m not going to have it.”

Bob Cielnicky, director of the Life Priority Network in Fountain Valley, says his organization expects all politicians who have committed themselves to an anti-abortion position to reject any budget that includes money for such procedures.

“We are not talking about dollars,” he said. “We are talking about flesh and blood.”

When told by a reporter that abortion opponents Haynes, McClintock, Sen. Rico Oller (R-San Andreas) and Sen. Richard Ackerman (R-Irvine) said they would consider voting for a no-new-taxes budget even if it paid for abortions, he said he would call to remind them of their “promise.”

For some lawmakers, such interest groups are a key part of their political base. “They certainly put some steel in the spine of those who oppose the budget to the end,” Pitney said.

Oller, who has voted against six of the seven budgets that have come before him in his career as a legislator, said, “It would take a lot to get a ‘yes’ vote out of me, a lot.... I am as strongly pro-life in my view about the nature of man [as] anyone you will meet.”

Unlike Cielnicky’s group, the larger California Pro Life Council gives anti-abortion lawmakers some flexibility on the budget by not taking a position on it.

“We just made a political judgment that when it is impossible to do otherwise, it may take one or two pro-life votes to pass a budget,” said Jan Carroll, legislative analyst for the council. “We have a difference of opinion [among anti-abortion activists] on whether we hang these guys by their toes on this issue.”

Other lawmakers, like McClintock, say their refusal to vote for a spending a plan is not about abortion or any other particular payment the state would or would not make. They say a truly balanced budget is free of accounting shifts and gimmicks, borrowing against tobacco settlements and pension funds and dependence on a car registration fee increase that they insist will be struck down in court.

“I’m not asking for a lot,” McClintock said, after acknowledging that he hasn’t voted in favor of a spending plan since George Deukmejian was governor. “I’m just asking for what the state Constitution requires: a budget that is actually balanced.”