Shady Maneuvers at the State Capitol? Say It Isn't So!

There are few people in California which have had a greater grasp on Capitol shenanigans than the incomparable columnist for CalMatters, Dan Walters.

GOC has been round so long as Walters has been masking California politics – which is near 50 years. He’s a straight shooter who calls it as he sees it – and this week his sharp pen honed in on a sleazy legislative ruse that has caught some with their pants down whereas giving a well-deserved nod to GOC’s late founder, Senator HL Richardson. If there have been ever two people who’ve understood the ins-and-outs of legislative crappery, it’s Walters and Richardson.

It is a story of what occurs when the Legislature passes a truckload of payments with out studying them. Whereas it might sound again ass-wards (it’s), the truth is that it’s executed every single day – particularly at funds time. And though it may well chunk politicians within the fanny, the actual victims are all of us – the residents of California.

Again in 2022, utility firms needed to makeover how electrical charges had been calculated, and they also moved in the direction of charging shoppers a set fee every month. This concept was put right into a invoice that Governor Newsom submitted as a part of a sweeping funds revision. In 4 days, the invoice (AB 205) was handed out of an Meeting committee with zero debate, given the thumbs up by the total Meeting and Senate and signed by Newsom. Price range associated (trailer) payments go into impact the second the Governor indicators them.

Walters factors out that this explicit invoice “was enacted with nearly no dialogue – a traditional instance of how trailer payments have turn into automobiles for governors and legislators to make main coverage modifications on the sly.”

Sounds a bit sleazy, eh – it’s made lots of people mad, and it’s justifiably created a dicey scenario for some legislators – particularly the Democrats. Though not humorous within the “ha ha” sense, it’s comparatively amusing to be taught as Walters writes, that “most of the legislators who would later criticize the change truly voted for AB 205 with out figuring out – or caring – what impact it could have.”

No matter what one thinks about how new electrical energy costs might be calculated and billed, we agree that “there’s the whole lot flawed with the way in which through which the brand new pricing scheme was enacted.”

And that’s the place the knowledge of GOC’s founder is available in. Take a look at how Walters closes his piece:

“The late H.L. Richardson was a Republican state senator within the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties who pioneered the usage of know-how in political campaigns, with notable success. He additionally wrote a e book, printed in 1978, entitled “What Makes You Suppose We Learn The Payments?”

The query is as related immediately because it was 46 years in the past.”

Walters is correct.

The actually scary factor is that as a part of Newsom’s new revised 2024 funds, he has put forth a whopping checklist of 64 “trailer” payments for the Legislature to move. Provided that these payments can common between 45 to over 100 pages, what might go flawed?

Understanding {that a} bunch of left-wing radicals management the whole lot on the Capitol – just about from who can go the toilet and when to what’s in a invoice, the chance of some nefarious, anti-2A invoice being slipped into an obscure paragraph of one of many many funds payments wouldn’t be a shock. As Richardson mentioned quite a few occasions, “canines bark, snakes wiggle, jackasses bray, vultures vomit and radical leftists lie. It’s of their nature to take action.”

Critically now – what makes any of us suppose they learn the payments?