By Marc Korman.
In Parts 1 and 2 we explored California’s flawed political structure and failed reform. Today, we will see what warning signs there might be for Montgomery County in California’s troubles.
Before delving into some of the disturbing parallels between California and Montgomery County, we should make clear that the two are quite different in their size, political structure, and problems. But that does not mean we cannot learn some lessons.
Leadership Vacuum
Unlike California, Montgomery County does not have term limits. But a series of retirements, electoral defeats, and deaths have left the County Council short on experience. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that each year the Council has a new President and Vice President. Just as sooner or later, every Californian will be Speaker of their Assembly, every Montgomery County resident will have a crack at Council President.
A change should not be rushed into, but the County should consider increasing the length of the Council President term to two or four years but still have the Council elect one of their own or convert it to an elected office where candidates could specifically run for Council President. A new leadership position could improve political stability and reduce Council infighting.
Flawed Political Systems
Until this past November, Montgomery County had a sensible charter limit on property taxes. It kept the rate low, but allowed seven of nine councilmembers to agree to raise rates above the limits if absolutely necessary. With such a small legislative body, it made sense to have such a high standard to pierce the limit. If voters did not think an increase justified, as one notable regular reader of Maryland Politics Watch would argue, they could make it an issue at the next election.
Unfortunately, the Ficker Amendment turned a sensible policy into a ticking fiscal time bomb. The Amendment to the charter which passed into law in 2008 requires nine out of nine members to agree before the charter limit is pierced. In fact, the Amendment specifically requires nine members, so if there is a vacancy during the budget process, as there was this year, it would be legally impossible for the Council to break the charter limit regardless of the need or popular support.
Rule by Initiative
And speaking of the Ficker Amendment, Republicans in Montgomery County seemed to have discovered their love for direct democracy by embracing ballot initiatives. Robin Ficker has been pursuing his policy agenda that way for years, but last year saw an attempt by some to petition the County’s transgender protections to the ballot with a fear mongering campaign. The ballot initiative was averted only due to a technicality. Complicated legal and political questions should not be dealt with that way. Done poorly, it could lead Montgomery County towards a California-style system where laws are a patchwork of poorly understood charter amendments and repealed statutes with no sensible structure and a complete lack of accountability by elected leaders.
Unlike California, the government in Montgomery County still works well. But seeing what institutional failings have brought California to the edge can serve as a cautionary tale for our county and other places throughout the country.
Friday, June 05, 2009
At Least We Aren’t California, Part Three
Thursday, June 04, 2009
At Least We Aren’t California, Part Two
By Marc Korman.
In Part 1, we briefly looked at California’s current budget problems and some of the institutional barriers to any real change. In Part 2, we will look at California’s missed opportunity for reform. Then in Part 3 we will draw some parallels with Montgomery County.
In 2002, as Democrats went down in defeat all across the country, California’s unpopular Democratic Governor, Gray Davis, was reelected (Full disclosure, I spent approximately a year interning in Governor Davis’ office and volunteering on his campaign). At the time, California was going through severe budget problems exacerbated by the Internet bubble burst. Even before he was inaugurated for a second term, Davis’ opponents were circulating petitions to recall him. They would succeed in forcing a special election to decide the recall less than a year after Davis was reelected, largely thanks to the funding by wealthy GOP Congressman Darrell Issa.
The 2003 recall ballot was bifurcated. Question 1 asked California’s voters whether they wanted to recall Governor Davis. Regardless of their answer, voters could pick a replacement candidate in Question 2. 135 names would appear in the list of replacements.
The initial Democratic strategy was to encourage voters to vote no on Question 1 and leave Question 2 blank. For at least a week, party officials and Gray Davis tried to convince potential Democratic candidates to stay out of the race, most notably Dianne Feinstein. But the strategy collapsed when Insurance Commissioner John Garimendi, an elected office in California, filed for the ballot. A new strategy was quickly initiated, “No on Recall, Yes on Bustamante,” with the then Lieutenant Governor bumping the Insurance Commissioner out of the race and serving as the consensus Democratic candidate in case the recall succeeded.
Of course, the real notables in the field were not on the Democratic side. On the Republican side, Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped into the race, bumping aside 2002 Republican nominee Bill Simon, Congressman Issa, and former LA Mayor Richard Riordan. On Election Day, Davis was recalled and Schwarzenegger became governor.
Having beaten an establishment Democrat and a conservative Republican (Tom McClintock), Governor Schwarzenegger was positioned with his large personality to bring the state together. His first proposals were basically a rehash of Davis’ solutions to the immediate budget deficit, massive government bonds. But unlike Davis, the new Governor could sell the proposals to the public. He also began courting legislators of both parties, famously setting up a cigar smoking tent outside of the state house to woo them. Of course, it was not a golden age. Schwarzennager also reversed a car fee being used to help balance the budget, a decision he would later regret due to the cost, and spent a lot of time blaming his predecessor and the Democratic legislature for the state’s problems.
But instead of boldly pursuing bipartisan efforts with the Democrat dominated legislature and seeking fundamental reform to the way California does business, the Governor backed a package of four ballot initiatives in a special election in 2005 that managed to anger the Democratic legislators he needed and cause the voters to turn against him. The package included a proposition setting overall spending limits and altering California’s required education funding, an initiative to require independent redistricting of legislative and Congressional districts, an initiative to make it easier to fire teachers who have worked for between two and five years, and a proposal to limit political spending by public employee unions. All went down in defeat.
Some of these reforms might have been necessary, but they also favored the right wing and outraged the dominant left leaning interest groups in California. Had the Governor combined these efforts with some left leaning or moderate reforms, he might have gotten at least some passed. Instead, he spent the next year fighting for reelection and has been treading water since then. Governor Schwarzenneger is very popular at press conferences and Sunday morning talk shows, but the Democratic legislature ignores him and the California Republican Party does not even invite him to their statewide conventions.
The question for California is whether any of the prospective gubernatorial candidates for 2010, when Schwarzennger is term limited, can do any better. The question for Montgomery County is what can we learn from California’s turmoil? We will take a look in Part 3.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
At Least We Aren’t California, Part One
By Marc Korman.
At the last Montgomery County Young Democrats meeting, Councilmember Elrich was summarizing the County’s dire budget situation. One Young Democrat leader joked “at least we aren’t California.” Everyone laughed, but the thought of the comparison should give us brief pause. In Part 1, we will look at California’s institutional barriers to real reform that are deepening its budget crisis. In Part 2, we will discuss California’s missed chance of reform. Finally, in Part 3 we will examine some of the emerging comparisons between California and Montgomery County.
California and Montgomery County are both wealthier than most of their state or county peers. They are also both dominated by Democrats. Montgomery County’s elected leadership is entirely Democratic. California Democrats are not quite as dominant. The state’s governor is a nominal Republican, though what few friends in the legislature he has are on the Democratic side of the aisle. The state Senate has 26 Democrats and 14 Republicans. The Assembly has 51 Democrats and 29 Republicans.
Earlier in May, California voters (or at least the 28% or so who showed up to vote) rejected five of the six statewide propositions that were designed to save the state from its budget turmoil. California is facing an approximately $24 billion budget deficit. The package of initiatives that recently failed would have plugged most, though not all, of that hole through a combination of fund shifting and borrowing.
Although popular news stories are linking California’s problems to the general economic crisis, they are only tangentially related. It is true that California’s revenues have declined with the economy and California’s massive borrowing has gotten more difficult with the recession. But California was in trouble long before the housing bubble burst and the finance system collapsed.
Those on the left lay the blame for California’s woes at the feet of Proposition 13, the 1978 ballot initiative which capped property taxes at 1% of the property’s assessed value and limited increases in property taxes to 2% a year until there was a change of ownership. Those on the right blame California’s problems on its spending, which has grown quickly despite two major destabilizing California specific economic events in the past quarter century: the end of the Cold War which hurt the aerospace industry and the bursting of the Internet bubble which sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley.
But California’s current structural problems did not begin with the so-called tax revolution or the liberally spending elected leaders from Earl Warren to Arnold Schwarzenneger. Progressive Governor Hiram Johnson helped bring about the initiative, referendum, and recall in the state in the 1910s, firmly establishing California as a bastion of direct democracy. Since then, further statutory and constitutional changes have made California virtually ungovernable by elected leadership. Among the institutional barriers to reform are:
The 2/3 Budget Rule
In order to pass a budget, 2/3 of the legislature is required to vote in favor of it. Even the dominant Democrats have not been able to muster the type of numbers necessary and the partisan politics in Sacramento have prevented most legislators from crossing party lines. This has led to gridlock and brinkmanship during annual budget negotiations.
Overuse of the Ballot
California has a low standard to petition initiatives to the ballot, which can either be statutes or constitutional amendments. Constitutional amendments require an amount equal to 8% of registered voters who voted in the last gubernatorial election. Statutes, just 5%.
These low barriers to the ballot have led to major, complicated legislative packages being passed by the ballot box. The vast majority are bond and budget bills. As a result, California has a debt servicing level of 6% of its budget, compared to just 2% for Maryland. 85% of the state’s budget is controlled by state initiative, as opposed to legislative action. Meaning when it comes time to negotiate that budget requiring 2/3 of the legislature, they are really only negotiating around the edges.
Term Limits
California has strict term limits, holding Assembly members to three two year terms and State Senators to two four year terms. No state has shorter limits than California, though other states share the same length. These have led to three major problems:
1. Expertise in the legislature is almost entirely with the staff, not the elected officials. When I lived in California we had a joke, sooner or later every Californian would be Speaker of the California Assembly. That was because the Speaker would either be a new legislator who did not know what they were doing or a veteran legislature who was about to be term limited out. The job had a lot of turnover.
2. Elected officials care less about the long term effects of their action because they will not be in that office when problems arise.
3. Elected officials are constantly looking for their next political job, even more so than the usual politico. That means they are constantly playing to their base, raising money, and generally ignoring their actual work.
Recall
California famously recalled its sitting Governor in 2003, the second time in US history that has occurred. But recall efforts are being funded on a semi-regular basis to seek political vengeance. To get a recall on the ballot, supporters need to collect signatures equaling 12% of those who voted in that race in the last election. Most recall efforts do not get past the signature gathering stage, but that energy would be better served towards defeating candidates for reelection.
Next time, we will look at California’s missed chance at reform.
