Aftermath

Yesterday, California voters had their say, turning thumbs down on five of six propositions put on the ballot by the Governor and Legislature. The only one approved was a "punish the politicians" measure that will have little impact.

Although we had early morning cloud cover in Ventura, it does not appear that the sky has fallen. Passage of the messy package of borrowings, diversions and spending formulas would have only reduced the State's looming fiscal train wreck from a $21 billion fiasco to a $15 billion crisis. But the fed-up voters have sent an overwhelming message to Sacramento. The problem is: what is the message?

We've already heard from an organized email campaign today that voters were saying: NO NEW TAXES!!! But in fact, there were no new taxes on the ballot yesterday. The closest was a future extension of the recently imposed sales tax increase -- and that was tied into a complex spending limitation measure imposed by the Governor and the handful of Republican legislators that agreed to the current State budget. What went down to defeat was a messy package of borrowings, diversions and the spending limit spilling out of the budget "compromise" that barely cleared the Legislature last fall.

So what were California voters really saying?

"We hate you, but we keep electing you!" is a pretty murky message. "Don't raise taxes and don't cut spending!" is pretty clear, but pretty unrealistic. "Go back and try again!" sounds reasonable, except that the ugly compromises in the ballot measures can now only get uglier as the Governor seeks alternatives that can get two-thirds approval in the Legislature.

Voter John Brockage spoke for the disgruntled majority in a newspaper story this morning. "We have a dope for a governor and the legislature is completely incompetent," he told Reuters. "I voted 'no' on all of them." Like most California voters, he rejects responsibility for the mess we find ourselves in. How could voters be blamed for electing a governor with no grander vision than his own political career - and then recalling him and replacing him with a foreign-born movie star? But if we elect dopes and incompetents - what exactly does that make us?

The road ahead is not promising. The State will run out of cash again this summer - unless the Governor and the Legislature can go back and come up with a new package of really horrible decisions - emptying out prisons, slashing public school funding, hiking college tuition, borrowing money from local governments that they have no realistic source of repaying etc. There are better alternatives, but no political support for pursuing the difficult, fundamental and long-term changes our state needs to restore the California dream.

The State's stalemate will have a direct impact on us. Cities and counties are howling, but it will be hard to stop the State from exercising its constitutional right to "borrow" 8% of our local property tax revenue next year. For Ventura, that is more than $2.6 million. Having already cut $11 million, chopping another $2.6 million would trigger drastic service and job losses. But that makes no sense. The "least worst" alternative will be to muddle through by borrowing from our reserves and waiting for the State to figure out how they will ever meet their constitutional obligation to pay us back within three years.

What is less certain is the impact of all this on local voters. Will it make them more or less supportive of a local sales tax, like the one recently passed in Oxnard? At least they would know that all the money generated would stay here - but whether the desire to punish politicians applies locally, who knows? All this must be weighed by the City Council as it weighs the wisdom of placing a measure on the November ballot.