I started to write about the missing-in-action state budget. How the inability of California’s state senators to agree on how to effectively spend the money we give them is on the verge of creating major problems for many segments of society. How childcare centers, some 11,000 nursing homes, facilities for the developmentally disabled, and many other Medi-Cal-funded institutions just aren’t being paid and are having a tough time paying their employees and other bills. How funding for community colleges and Cal Grants to students are held up by the Senate’s 25 Democrats and 15 Republicans. Of course, how we’ve managed to create such a dysfunctional legislative system is beyond the understanding of most of us. California joins Arkansas and Rhode Island as the only three states in the Union that require a two-thirds vote in both houses of their legislatures to approve a budget. So while our Sacramento solons fiddle, the world’s sixth-largest economy is brought to a standstill. Healthcare issues; highway and other infrastructure repairs; water issues; and just a few other such unimportant matters lie unattended to so that legislators can blame “special interests,” each other and anyone but themselves, for the current situation. If you log onto the State Senate website, (www.senate.ca.gov), and go to the page of schedules, you’ll be informed that a month-long “summer recess” begins on July 20, “provided (the) budget bill has been passed.” No budget bill has been passed, but try to find any of our senators in the Capitol. Comedienne Lily Tomlin might have been speaking of our Sacramento leaders when she said, “Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.” The Economist says of California’s budget-setting impasse that, “the legislature was debating a budget that one senator described as having been written by chimpanzees.” The truth is, they’re making monkeys out of themselves and yes, we get no bananas. But I decided not to write about the budget impasse it’s too depressing. Instead, I considered moving to Nebraska. Why Nebraska? It’s the only state in the nation with a unicameral legislature meaning one house. And to make it even better, Nebraska’s 49 legislators are elected on a nonpartisan basis. Senators are elected to four-year terms and receive a salary of $12,000 a year. The state is divided into 49 legislative districts, each containing approximately 35,000 people. (By comparison, California’s Senators each represent 846,791 people in one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation.) In Nebraska, a candidate’s political party is not listed on the election ballot. The two candidates who obtain the most votes in the primary election face each other in the general election. So, unlike our fair California, Nebraska’s legislative leadership is not based on party affiliation. A new experiment in governance? Not exactly, Nebraska has had a single legislative house since 1937, thank you. And they’re very happy with it, those Cornhuskers. What would such a system mean in California? No party bosses or group voting; no expenses for 80 Assembly members and 40 Senators for a total of 120 elected officials, their staffs and their expenses; and no wrangling over minor language in bills in committees representing the two legislative houses. The truth is, whether we adopt something similar to Nebraska’s 70-year-old approach to the legislative branch, keep what we have, or simply blow up the system, there’s an old saw that’s operative here: People get the government they deserve. Until we have the political will to really teach our elected officials, at all levels of government, that they work for us, we don’t work for them; until we find a way to let them know that their focus on scoring political points works to the detriment of the people and is unacceptable; and until we find our way out of this quagmire of partisan bickering, our state and our nation will continue to flounder. Of course, Nebraska doesn’t have Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, or “girlie men.” Maybe I’ll stay here after all. How bad could it really be? “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” —Otto von Bismarck First Chancellor of Germany Martin Cooper is president of Cooper Communications, Inc., marketing and strategic planning. He is the immediate past chairman of VICA; past president of the Public Relations Society of America-Los Angeles Chapter, and of the Encino Chamber of Commerce; president of the Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission; and a member of the Los Angeles Business Retention and Attraction Task Force. He can be reached at [email protected].
