Sacramento — Sacramento
It wasn't supposed to have played out this way. Given the numbers, it shouldn't have: Republicans rolling over Democrats in a manner unseen in Sacramento since at least the Ronald Reagan era -- and probably not since the GOP-dominated 1950s.
Most people -- most people who were not Republican legislators -- believed it was simply impossible to close a $38-billion budget hole without raising taxes.
It was, of course, but now we get into semantics. The car tax was tripled, but by Gov. Gray Davis on his own, not the Legislature. This will generate $4 billion. A bunch of fees also rose, especially for university students.
So this budget did require some tax hikes. And even then, the budget structure isn't fixed. There's already a $7.9-billion deficit projected for the next budget year. The newly passed $100-billion budget for the current fiscal year is balanced, but with costly gimmicks, including nearly $20 billion in various loans and fund shifts. In all, there are maybe $11 billion in actual spending cuts.
But Republicans did manage to avoid voting for a tax increase, despite Davis and Democratic legislators pushing for higher sales, income and tobacco levies. This is a remarkable achievement, since Republicans have little clout in Sacramento.
Democrats control -- at least ostensibly -- both branches of government. The GOP's only leverage is California's unique requirement of a two-thirds majority vote to pass budgets and tax hikes. For that, Democrats need some Republican help. And while Republicans can tie up a budget all summer by refusing to vote for it, they risk being branded by the public as obstructionists. So getting a budget passed to their liking on July 29 -- although four weeks tardy -- is a great triumph.
How'd they pull it off? They executed the right strategy and capitalized on an opportune situation.
They decided to focus on one issue, have just one major priority: taxes. So when Davis and Democrats came at them with offers to trade tax votes for business-friendly bills -- like reforming workers' compensation insurance -- they weren't interested. Wouldn't budge.
"I just thought we should pick a fight and win," says Senate Minority Leader Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga), who negotiated the final budget with Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco). "And taxes seemed to be the fight I could rally most of our guys around. In the end, we rallied all of our guys around it. We didn't have them all at the beginning."
