|
March 24, 2004
Part-Time This
By Carl J.
Luna/HispanicVista.com
Governor Schwarzenegger wants to move
California to a part-time legislative
model in which legislators would have a
"real job" and only go up to
Sacramento once in a while to do vote on
a few bills, then get back to the
"real world." Apparently
the Governor hopes this will cut down on
all the strange bills legislators like to
banty about when they're actually
spending any time on the job at
all.
As attractive as the idea of further
diminishing our state legislature may be
(and, now that we don't have Gray Davis
to kick around anymore, the legislature
has become the next best thing) there are
no end to reasons why moving to a part
time legislature in California would be a
disastrous idea. The basic logic behind
such a move is that the legislature is
doing a bad job running the state on a
full time basis so moving them to
part time would at least minimize the
damage they do. By that logic, if
an emergency room is overwhelmed by its
case load, the best solution would be to
reduce the number of ER docs.
Politics has got to be the only endeavor
known to man where inexperience on the
part of a practitioner is assumed to be a
plus. How many of you would
want to go to a doctor who only messes
with medicine on the side while working
full time as an insurance broker?
Or a car mechanic who puts in a few hours
a year in the shop while spending the
rest of his time mowing lawns?
The whole idea that
"professionalism" in politics
is an evil derives from the false logic
of the conservative revolution of the
last 40 years that representative
government is actually the enemy of the
people and therefore must be reduced to
its barest minimum. Many
conservatives like to quote the old adage
that the government that governs best
governs least. Like many old adages
that we mindlessly repeat without
thinking through, it is full of
hooey. The government that governs
least produces anarchy - look at Iraq,
where government has been reduced to a
non-entity. The correct adage is
the government that governs most
efficiently in achieving the maximum
public good for the smallest public costs
governs best-but then that doesn't fit on
a bumper sticker as well.
California has already tried one
experiment in moving away from a
"professional" legislature to a
"citizen" legislative model
with the adoption of term limits in the
1990s. And hasn't that turned
out well? Sacramento is now populated by
a legislative class of perpetual newbies
who've barely learned where the bathrooms
are in the capitol before they're termed
out let alone how to actually put a
budget together on time and
balanced. Turn them in to
part timers on top of it and you might as
well ask yourself, what's the point in
even having a legislature? Why not
just turn things over to the full time
Governor - and the full time lobbyists
who will be working their whiles in
Sacramento come hell or high water
as that's what they're paid for.
Then again, maybe that's what's behind
the Governor's thinking.
The Governor's off the cuff suggestion
about a part time legislature is about as
naked an attempt at intimidation and a
grab for power as you're ever going to
see. A part time legislature -
hmmmm, who would that benefit? Under the
Schwarzenegger model of government, the
Governor will be the font of all
legislative virtue, churning out, with
his staff, all the laws California needs,
while the legislature becomes essentially
a California version of the old USSR's
Supreme Soviet, their ersatz congress
that meet every few years to ratify all
the edicts produced by the communist
party overlords. That's
democracy?
Of course, the state legislature should
take the Governor's proposal for what it
is - a shot across their bow.
"Get in my way," the
Governor snarls from his blue Hawaii
vacation, "and I'll take yet another
proposition to the voters and turn you
all into part timers looking for
supplemental income at the local
Walmart." I'm not
accusing the Governor of being heavy
handed or anything (well, actually I
guess I am) but can such strong arm
tactics be conducive to long term
bipartisanship? Then again,
given that the Governor has won yet
another one with the legislature on
workers comp, maybe such tactics do work.
In any event, the Governor's claim that
most states have part time legislatures
is factually incorrect. True, only
four states have full time, professional
legislatures on the California model -
but they include the other biggest states
of the Union like New York and
Pennsylvania. Only the
smallest states have a true citizen
legislature-does anybody out there
think we can govern a California with the
world's sixth largest economy the same as
New Hampshire or Utah? The
majority of states have legislators that
devote 70% or more of the time to public
business. The real change needed in
Sacramento is structural - our
legislatures do need more discipline in
dealing with issues in a timely
matter. For that, more staff and
real leaders (as opposed to the faux
legislative leaders we now have who
become lame ducks by the second term in
office)-like we had before term
limits-would be needed. Say what
one wants about him, but when the right
honorable Willie Brown strode Sacramento
like a colossus, the legislative
trains ran on time.
Maybe Schwarzenegger is on to
something. Since we've already
effectively emasculated the legislature
with term limits, maybe we should just
completely put it out of it and our
misery and just go to direct Executive
rule. Hey, Arnold's popular enough
for it. Anybody for a little bit of
Post-Soviet Putin style government?
Go to a part time legislature and you'll
be most of the way there.
_________________________________________________
Carl J. Luna, Ph.D.,
a HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com)
contributing columnist, is Professor of
Political Science at San Diego Mesa
College. Contact at cluna@sdccd.net
|
