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Help Make the State Budget Hijack-Proof

It’s time to work on budget process solutions

Last year, Governor Schwarzenegger and a minority of ideologues in the legislature held the budget hostage, and the drawn out negotiations resulted in many upsetting losses for the environment, education, healthcare and more. This process is broken and becoming messier each year. It’s time to make sure the hijacking of the state budget never happens again.

Here’s a quick breakdown of last year’s budget crisis:

• Beginning in the winter of 2008-2009, a minority of legislators exploited the state’s financial crisis (and its 2/3 supermajority requirement for a state budget) to repeal laws that protect the health and safety of Californians—which had nothing to do with the budget.
• The budget resolution reached by legislative leaders and the Governor in February 2009 was dependent on the passage of several initiatives placed on a special election ballot.
• After the failure of the initiatives on May 19th, legislative leaders went back to negotiating the multi-billion dollar budget shortfall.
• In June 2009, the Governor vetoed a comprehensive package of budget solutions supported by majorities in both houses of the legislature that would have resolved the then-$20 billion deficit, left a $4 billion reserve, avoided the cash crisis and prevented IOU’s.
• In late July 2009, an agreement reached by the Governor and legislative leaders (the so-called “Big 5”) to solve the $26 billion deficit went to a floor vote in the state Senate and Assembly. The Senate passed all of the bills in the budget package, but the Assembly rejected two of the measures, including a proposal by the Governor to allow new offshore oil drilling in California for the first time in 40 years.
• Upon receiving the budget package, Governor Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto at the last minute to slash an additional half billion dollars from the state budget.

The bottom line: Governor Schwarzenegger and a radical minority of lawmakers hijacked not only the budget, but the constitutional process by which Californians enact environmental protections. By exploiting the budget process they used the closed-door negotiations to successfully extort delays in implementation of and exemptions from bedrock environmental laws established through a public, democratic process.

The ongoing stalemate brought massive public works projects to a halt, earned California the lowest credit rating the U.S., and forced the majority in the legislature to give in to the ransom demands of a small minority of legislators in order to produce an agreement on the budget. In addition to shredding the social safety net for the state’s most vulnerable families, their outrageous demands will result in the closure of up to 100 (a third) of the state’s parks, devastating cuts in local funding for the California Conservation Corps, delayed clean-up of dirty diesel pollution from off-road equipment, and the exemption of several highway construction projects from the state’s most important environmental quality law (CEQA). And, they came very close to overriding a decision by the State Lands Commission, which would have overturned a 40-year moratorium on offshore oil drilling near California’s pristine coast.

CLCV is working with our environmental community colleagues on efforts to prevent a future manipulation of the budget process. Possible solutions include:

• a law to make it illegal to modify state policies unrelated to budgets in budget talks; and
• an initiative to repeal California’s unique status as one of only three states requiring a supermajority (2/3rds vote) to pass a budget.

Last year, the budget system was manipulated and used to subvert our legislative process. It’s time for those who care about the future of our state to work for reforms that will protect Californians and keep environmental and health protections from the chopping block in budget negotiations.

What You Can Do

Please contact your state Senator and Assemblymember and ask that they support efforts to reform the budget process.

See our sample letter and send one to your Assemblymember and State Senator!

Your State Senator
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 651-40_ _

Your Assemblymember
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 319-20_ _

(fill in the last two digits with your Senate or Assembly district number respectively)

Not sure who your legislators are? Use the legislature's "Find Your Representatives" page and enter your address in the form in the bottom left corner of the page.

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