To believe it was Democrats, not Republicans, who ended the budget negotiations yesterday, you would have to overlook quite a bit:
• You would have to ignore the anti-tax ad campaigns that began running in two Republican Senators’ districts who seemed they might support placing revenue extensions on the ballot for voters to decide.
• You would have to ignore the threat at the recent California Republican Party convention not to fund or support any Republican candidate who supported the people’s right to vote.
• You would have to ignore the Republican Party’s threat to label as “traitors” (yes, traitors!) any Republican who supported putting a tax extension on the ballot.
• You would have to ignore Grover Norquist’s assertion that supporting the people’s right to vote on a tax is the same as supporting the tax.
• You would have to ignore the 6-page, 53-item special interest wish list that the Republicans submitted as the price of 4 of their votes.
In other words, you'd have to deny quite a bit of reality.
Let's put this in the context of national events and what is happening here to the California Republican Party. The party is a mere shadow of its former self in a state that has historically elected Republicans. Its radical agenda simply does not have the support of Californians. Registration in the California Republican Party is at an historic low. Less than a third of registered California voters are Republicans. Both houses in the Legislature are only 2 seats short of a Democratic supermajority. No Republican holds statewide office. The voters recently and resoundingly rejected Republicans Meg Whitman for Governor and Carly Fiorina for US Senate, despite their record spending.
While California continues to reject Republican candidates, the party continues to push their candidates further to the right. With the influence of radical tea partiers on the rise and the upcoming “top two” primary system projected to increase party-loyalist dependence, it is becoming increasingly impossible for moderate Republicans to be elected.
The failure of Republicans to participate in the difficult decisions necessary to guide California through the greatest economic challenge since the Great Depression is quite simply a failure of leadership on their part. As a member of a staunchly Republican family, it pains me to see the demise of this once-great party. As a Democrat worried about the future of our great state, it pains me that my Republican colleagues refuse to be partners in solving our problems. As a legislator, I believe the choices we now face, as Democrats make these decisions on our own, are grim. The budget cuts we must make in order to close the remaining $15 billion budget gap will cause enormous suffering throughout the state. They will raise the unemployment rate and add to our economic pain. They will impair our ability to borrow, costing us all more in the long run. Schools will close, roads will deteriorate, and public safety will diminish as local communities lay off teachers, road crews, police officers, and firefighters.
In times of great societal peril, it is necessary for us to put partisanship aside and make difficult decisions for our greater good. Now is the time for us to behave as Californians, not as Democrats or Republicans. It is truly saddening to see my colleagues put their party ahead of our state.
Note: To see where tax revenues and expenditures are coming from and where they're being spent, see these maps below:
