Posted on 12/17/2011 10:14:55 PM PST by SmithL
Now that Gov. Jerry Brown has decided to take his tax hike initiative directly to the voters, will Republicans have a role to play in the Legislature in 2012?
Or will they be relegated to little more than a cranky but irrelevant presence in the Capitol, holding fast to their anti-tax ideology but with little to show for it?
Increasingly marginalized with dwindling statewide registration numbers, Republicans have already lost leverage on the budget and may soon lose it on taxes if new district lines leave them short of a simple one-third minority.
Perhaps the Republicans' last chance to have a legislative impact was in talks with the governor last spring, but that blew up in their faces when they wouldn't budge on allowing a temporary tax extension to go before voters.
"They're taking a stand on principle, but the price of principle is exclusion from decision-making," said Jack Pitney, an ex-GOP Congressional operative who now teaches government and political science at Claremont McKenna College. "For the time being Republicans have very little influence in the Capitol."
The state GOP has been partially incapacitated this year after voters approved a ballot measure in November 2010 allowing budgets to be passed by a majority -- rather than a two-thirds -- vote. That allowed Democrats to approve this year's budget -- on time for a change -- without a single Republican vote.
Republicans, however, still have the power to block taxes because Democrats don't have a two-thirds majority in either house. California law requires supermajority in the Legislature to pass taxes
But even that point of leverage for Republicans may become obsolete if the newly drawn legislative districts hold and provide Democrats the opening to capture four Senate and Assembly seats -enough for the magical two-thirds majority -as many political observers predict.
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
At some point, California will go over the edge and that will Republicans.
As long as socialism sort of seems to work, dependent people will vote for it.
As soon as the power to raise taxes in California becomes a reality... you’ll see a quiet, but massive, flight of productive people from California.
Which will leave the state even more under the control of the left.
Who will then turn and eat their own.
You can bet money on that.
I meant favour Republicans.
Sometimes a population must be battered and bruised for them to learn.
California is a hopeless toilet. The best the GOP can do there is try to hold as many US House seats as possible. Forget everything else. The most important thing nationally is that US taxpayers NEVER have to bail the place out. As long as the GOP holds the House we should be safe. Eventually California’s parasites will eat each other.
As someone once said, “if Satan ran as a democrat in CA, he’d win easily!
My answer is what else would Satan be, other than a RINO that is.
And, he already has.
Other one two year period of the Assembly in the mid-90s, the CA legislature has been entirely controlled by the Democrat Party.
Making it even more Democrat will not solve the state's problems. It never has.
What is the solution?
We have almost 40 million people here. Maybe it’s time to split into two states. There is a proposal out there but it never registers with people that such things have happened in the past and there’s no reason they can’t happen again.
Part of me is hoping that the Mexicans in California become so overwhelmingly prevalent there that they force a secession from the US to adjoin Mexico once again. This will purge the California Scourge from our Electoral College once and for all. There is no hope for California now that illegals, liberals and Democrats have a stranglehold on it now.
I’d get the hell out. I feel that way about NY, Massachusetts and Illinois too! Let the D’s have it. Don’t be stuck with the Rats on a sinking ship!
I’d get the hell out. I feel that way about NY, Massachusetts and Illinois too! Let the D’s have it. Don’t be stuck with the Rats on a sinking ship!
Huh. Unless it is a "eat the rich" kind of taxes, the initiative sounds like a loser...
Newt will solve this. His amnesty plan gives power to local boards to grant amnesty to people who can fabricate some handwritten evidence of being illegal in the us for some time.
CA can legalize everybody in Mexico.
Then the ex-illegals can storm other states and complete the takeover.
“The most important thing nationally is that US taxpayers NEVER have to bail the place out.”
Amen to that.
While I feel bad for the millions of decent peopel who still live in California, it’s better that the process of trhe state’s implosion accelerates....the correction, and rebirth, can’t start until it hits bottom. There will be NO federal bail out for California...so they are goign to have to make hard decisions..
Danged bitter clingers.
I have no doubt that will occur in the future. The demographic trends are moving hard and fast in that direction. As America continues to weaken, few options will be available to keep it from happening.
You mean bright Commie red.
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