Mike Duvall and the Legislature

In a column this morning George Skelton, the LA Times veteran columnist argues that a) sex scandals are not new in politics and b) that the recently concluded session was actually pretty good. I think he is partially right on both counts, and really right on the first. Duvall is just another member who got caught with his pants down. As Skelton reminds us, one of WIllie Brown's better lines was "politics is the ultimate an aphrodisiac"

But there is another point of view. Indeed, as Skelton points out the legislature was able to work through a very tough budget problem for this fiscal year. What concerns me is that some of the fundamental issues facing the state are nowhere closer to resolution. I would list a few.

#1 - Our revenue system is broken - Every expert on our revenue system argues that our revenue system is uneven (in an economist's terms too elastic). The Governor and the Speaker created a commission to look at alternatives and the majority came up with some interesting alternatives. But those efforts were frustrated by two leftists who cared more about ideology than practicality.
#2 - We still have not fixed the governance issue - Proposition 13, and many of its successors (both on the left and the right) separated revenue raising and decision making authority. School boards and local government look to Sacramento for their dough. Sacramento is never very good at understanding the nuances of local issues.
#3 - The state's educational system is not producing what it needs to - We've made some progress on improving performance and preparation for college but not enough. The Public Policy Institute estimated that we will be about a million degrees short over the next decade and a half to fill the needs of the state's information based economy. That should be job one.
#4 - The partisan bickering is still too high - In the sixties and early seventies, the legislature was seen as one of the best in the country. It now enjoys an 11% approval rating. (Which is probably too high.) There is too much nonsense. Some would attribute that problem to term limits (Proposition 140) - Skelton would be one of those. That is just nonsense. The level of bickering in the political class is higher than in previous years in all types of legislatures regardless of whether they have term limits. That might be attributed to the 24/7 news cycle or the ability of this generation of legislators to seek rents and perks. But it needs to be turned around.

In the middle of his column Skelton offers some gratuitous response to the movement by some in the state to go back to a part time legislature. He writes "Some say that the latest sex scandal is more evidence that the current Legislature should be demoted to part-time status. But Samish reigned as the self-proclaimed "Secret Boss of California" back in the era of a part-time Legislature. And, compared to now, there was more women-chasing back in 1963 when the Legislature still was ostensibly part-time -- it met until late June -- and virtually no legislators brought their wives to Sacramento." From my perspective Skelton has a series of non-sequitiurs strung together.

Job one on #3 above is to reduce the possibility that members will be able to choose their constituents. The first step was taken when we altered redistricting on the ballot. But more may need to be done. The proponents of a part time legislature suggest that by making the job less lucrative that two things might happen. First, you might well get people who are satisfied with working on the state's problems not because they want a career but in a sense of civic duty. If that it true it would improve the situation quickly. Second, by limiting the amount of time that legislators can spend they might become more acquainted with their own areas and also might have less opportunity to be silly. Times have changed. In the 1960s one of the reasons that members did not bring their wives to Sacramento was that most of them drove to the Capitol. A lot of the hijinks that were present when I first started working in California (the Torch Club and Fat's, the Derby Club) are gone. People generally drink less than they did and Proposition 9 limited the ability of lobbyists to finance legislator's life styles. The part time legislature might be something which could help improve our situation in California.