Can the Valley Elect the Right People to Drive the Bus?

CAPITOL OFFENSES Brendan Huffman I am re-reading “Good to Great,” Jim Collins’s bestselling book from 10 years ago that profiled businesses that had blown away their competition by, among other things, getting the right people “on the bus” and the wrong people off the bus. After reviewing a number of bills still moving through the legislature, it is easy to conclude that job creation is not a priority and that “good to great” is not as prevalent a concept as “bad to worse” in Sacramento. Among the most feared pieces of legislation in Sacramento by Valley businesses is AB 350, which would require any successor contractor for “property services” to retain the employees of the former contractor for at least 60 days. In other words, anyone buying commercial property would have to keep employing security guards, window cleaners, janitors and cafeteria workers for 60 days. Never mind if the existing crews were unsatisfactory and needed to be let off the bus, the new owners would need to keep paying them anyway — even if it means that their own building crews have to wait 60 days for their turn to get paid. As I sat through several recent meetings with lawmakers in Sacramento with the Valley Industry & Commerce Assn. (VICA), which vehemently opposes the bill, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if lawmakers applied the AB 350 logic to themselves? What if freshman legislators had to retain the staff members of their predecessors for 60 days before they could bring on their own teams? Somehow, I think the legislators would flip out if they had to retain the staff of their predecessors, some of whom they may have defeated in the last election. And rightfully so. Another example of “bad to worse” legislation is AB 10, which had it not unexpectedly stalled in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, would have annually indexed the state’s minimum wage so that it unpredictably increased every year based on inflation. If there is anything that Valley business owners don’t need during these economically uncertain times, it’s more uncertainty. Or, how about SB 432, which seeks to require hotels to use fitted sheets instead of flat sheets on their mattresses? Yes, the Valley’s hotels, already experiencing higher than normal vacancy rates during the post-recession, would be forced to spend millions of dollars on replacing their bed sheets. As sympathetic as I am to the sore backs sustained by hotel workers, shouldn’t we all be concerned with the unusually high unemployment rate in the Valley and how new costs on businesses will further stall any prospects for economic recovery? During VICA’s trip to Sacramento, it was disappointing that so many legislators failed to recognize the relationship between rising business costs and rising unemployment. Speaking of being disappointed with lawmakers, it was alarming to me that some lawmakers still don’t realize that the state is broke. “No, we just passed a balanced budget,” one of them tried to explain to me (even though revenues are already 10 percent behind expectations). “That might be true, but the state has no cash,” I politely said. “Well, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree,” was his response. Sakes alive! Does California, the world’s 17th largest economy, have senior managers who don’t know that being out of cash means you’re broke? Apparently — and sadly — so. While voters have occasional opportunities to get these mathematically-challenged lawmakers “off the bus,” we rarely bother to follow through. For Valley voters in particular, the 2012 election cycle will be exciting with many incumbents running in districts redrawn by the independent citizens redistricting commission. Some of these races will even feature intra-party battles here in the Valley. To make things more interesting, the “top-two” primary adopted by voters in 2008 as Prop. 14, will allow more voters to hold their lawmakers accountable through more competitive elections. For those who dream of applying the “get the right people on the bus” theory to our legislative process, 2012 is your opportunity. We may not see California become great again in our lifetimes, but at least we should try to go from bad to good. Brendan Huffman is the owner of Huffman Public Affairs, a San Fernando Valley-based political consulting firm, and he’s the co-host of Off The Presses, a politically-themed radio show streaming live on LATalkRadio.com every Thursday at 11 a.m.