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                <td class="apbody"> <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="edit" -->03/14/2011
                    <h4 style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom: 0;"><br>
  
  'Big 5' meetings foster secret Calif. budget deals</h4>
                    <p>                    <br>
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) &mdash; Millions of dollars for one lawmaker's home county, billions in tax credits for businesses and an open primary election system designed to help a moderate Republican's political ambitions.</p>
                    <p>Those are among some of the concessions made during the past three years to lawmakers and special interest groups during closed-door negotiations between the former governor and legislative leaders as they negotiated budget deals in secret.</p>
                    <p>Since taking office in January, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown has been more transparent, meeting with rank-and-file lawmakers of both parties as well as the legislative leadership as he strives to reach a deal on closing California's $26.6 billion budget deficit. He even took the exceptionally rare step of testifying in public before a legislative budget committee.</p>
                    <p>But the secretive &quot;Big 5&quot; sessions of recent gubernatorial administrations have left a deep mark on the Capitol, raising questions about how much of the budget negotiations can and will be done publicly.</p>
                    <p>Some of the so-called &quot;Big 5&quot; meetings hosted by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger were held inside a smoking tent in the courtyard of the governor's office. Other times it was in the governor's conference room, where the actor kept his &quot;Conan the Barbarian&quot; sword.</p>
                    <p>But for all his powers of persuasion, Schwarzenegger left office without fixing the state's structural fiscal problems and, in one of his final acts, had to declare fiscal emergency just weeks after signing the most overdue budget in state history &mdash; a plan hatched in another secret meeting of the &quot;Big 5.&quot; The term refers to the governor and the four Democratic and Republican leaders of the Assembly and Senate.</p>
                    <p>Former and current lawmakers say the exclusive, closed-door meetings have created an atmosphere in which rank-and-file lawmakers &mdash; not to mention the taxpayers &mdash; feel excluded from the process and don't have to be accountable for making tough choices. Budget deals are crafted in secret at the last minute, and then get only cursory public review before lawmakers begin voting.</p>
                    <p>It's part of why many of the budgets passed in the last few years have been filled with accounting gimmicks that balance the budget only on paper, but not in reality.</p>
                    <p>&quot;The problem with 'Big 5' is they create a cycle much like a dog chasing its tail,&quot; said former state Sen. Jim Brulte, who served 14 years in the Legislature and led Republican caucuses in both the Senate and Assembly. &quot;Politicians are really good at allocating pleasure, but they really suck when it comes to allocating pain. Everybody wants to show up at the groundbreaking, but nobody shows up at the park when it closes.&quot;</p>
                    <p>Brown, who previously held the office from 1975 to 1983, served his first two terms during an era before &quot;Big 5&quot; meetings became commonplace.</p>
                    <p>He so far has conducted budget talks without relying on private meetings with only the legislative leaders. Instead, he prefers to meet with lawmakers from both parties individually or in groups. But it's unclear whether he will have to resort to the back-room brokering with just the legislative leaders to reach a final agreement.</p>
                    <p>Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said he has been pleased with the apparent change, which he hopes will force Republicans who are reluctant to support the budget to negotiate in public.</p>
                    <p>Democrats, including Brown, want to ask voters in a June special election to extend temporary increases in the personal income, sales and vehicle tax increases for an additional five years to raise $9.2 billion a year. The tax increases were enacted in 2009 and are scheduled to expire this year.</p>
                    <p>Brown also has proposed cutting $12.5 billion in spending and some internal borrowing to close the budget shortfall.</p>
                    <p>&quot;We've been able to do it in the light of day, and I'm hopeful we can continue to be able to do in the light of day,&quot; Perez said. &quot;I'm hopeful that Republicans in the next few days will come forward with the ideas that they think are necessary to get them to agree to not only the cuts, but to put the extension before the voters.&quot;</p>
                    <p>It was Brown's successor, former Republican Gov. George Deukmejian, who initiated &quot;Big 5&quot; meetings in 1983. Before that, governors presented their budget proposals and lawmakers got to work making their own adjustments. Governors would then make cuts through line-item vetoes.</p>
                    <p>Former lawmakers and aides said the process changed over the years into one that concentrated almost all the important budget decisions in the hands of a few people meeting in secret. The meetings were continued by every governor after Deukmejian, including Republican Pete Wilson, Democrat Gray Davis and Schwarzenegger, said Steve Merksamer, an attorney who served as Deukmejian's chief of staff.</p>
                    <p>&quot;It evolved. What you understand to be the 'Big 5' is completely different from what the 'Big 5' was when we started,&quot; Merksamer said. &quot;'Big 5' under the Schwarzenegger years and to some extent maybe the Davis years, became a substitute for the legislative process. It never began that way. It began as a way for the leadership to resolve the few remaining intractable issues that were holding things up in the legislative process.&quot;</p>
                    <p>As the meetings consumed more and more of the budget process, it led to a series of secret vote-trading that often resulted in giveaways to lawmakers or special interests. And because the deals were struck without public vetting, they also tended to rely on more gimmicks and borrowing that balanced the budget on paper only.</p>
                    <p>Lenny Goldberg, a tax lobbyist who has been a critic of tax breaks given to corporations, said the closed-door meetings play into the hands of special interests that use the &quot;Big 5&quot; process as a way to push their agendas outside the public committee process. He cites corporate tax breaks awarded two years ago in exchange for Republican votes on a midyear emergency budget plan.</p>
                    <p>&quot;They were never recommended in the budget committees. They were never part of the conference report that went to the floor,&quot; said Goldberg, executive director of The California Tax Reform Association, based in Sacramento. &quot;They came as a way of getting particular votes.&quot;</p>
                    <p>One of those breaks awarded during the February 2009 emergency session allowed multistate corporations to choose between tax formulas for figuring how much income or losses they want to attribute to California.</p>
                    <p>Lawmakers thought it would result in a $300 million hit to the state's revenue. It turned out to have cost California about $1 billion. Brown has proposed to fix the problem by requiring one formula, a change that would restore $800 million for the budget if the Legislature goes along with it.</p>
                    <p>&quot;This is what happens when you're doing it last-minute in the budget,&quot; Goldberg said. &quot;That was a big mistake, a big failure.&quot;</p>
                    <p>Before voters passed Proposition 25 last fall, California had an unusually high two-thirds legislative vote requirement to pass budgets, putting pressure on the governor and the four legislative leaders to get the votes they need in each house. That invited the need to give favors to recalcitrant lawmakers of both parties.</p>
                    <p>Sen. Lou Correa, D-Anaheim, was the only Democrat in the Legislature not to voice initial support for the mix of tax increases and budget cuts intended to close what was then a $42 billion deficit in 2009. Representing a battleground district, Correa withheld his vote until Democratic leaders inserted language into the budget bills that would send millions of dollars to Orange County each year.</p>
                    <p>As a result, the county received $70 million in additional property tax revenue over two fiscal years and $50 million each year after that &mdash; a move Correa defended as securing his district's fair share of tax revenue.</p>
                    <p>Then-Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria softened his stance on taxes once he got changes to the election system that would be helpful to moderate Republicans like him who often find it difficult to win GOP primaries, which are dominated by the party's conservative wing.</p>
                    <p>He won support for a ballot measure to change the election system and create open primaries, which send the top two vote-getters to a runoff election regardless of their party affiliation.</p>
                    <p>Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said he had little choice but to consent to the giveaways during the &quot;Big 5&quot; meetings, given the state's perilous financial position at the time. He said former Sen. Dave Cogdill, then the Senate's minority leader, didn't have the votes he thought he had to pass a budget.</p>
                    <p>&quot;When you look at what happened, you had a situation where Senator Cogdill thought he had three Republican votes and he only had two,&quot; said Steinberg, D-Sacramento. &quot;And we came to the deadline and there weren't the votes to deliver. So we had to spring into a different negotiating mode.</p>
                    <p>&quot;Had we not gotten that vote, I fear what would have happened to the California economy and to people who rely upon the services our state provides,&quot; he said.</p>
                    <p>But former Sen. Dick Ackerman, who served as Republican leader in the Senate from 2004-2008, said the &quot;Big 5&quot; meetings led by Schwarzenegger were not always productive.</p>
                    <p>&quot;I felt we could have more productive negotiations outside,&quot; he said, noting he could get more done working with his Democratic counterparts. &quot;That actually worked out.&quot;<br>
                      <br>
                      <br>
                      03/15/2011<br>
                      <br>
                      <strong>Some Calif lawmakers pass on perks, seek reforms</strong> <br>
                      <br>
                    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) &mdash; A record number of state lawmakers is taking a pass this year on a perk unique to California &mdash; taxpayer-subsidized vehicles for rank-and-file legislators.</p>
                    <p>Others have introduced bills taking aim at the Legislature's highest-in-the-nation compensation, the gifts given to them by lobbyists and the state boards and commissions that provide some lawmakers with soft landings &mdash; and $128,000-a-year paychecks &mdash; after they leave office.</p>
                    <p>Despite those laudable intentions, there has been little institutional change since The Associated Press and other news organizations began reporting on some of the benefits lawmakers permit themselves and the secrecy they enjoy under the Legislative Open Records Act. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said there are no plans for sweeping changes this year.</p>
                    <p>&quot;I just think we're focused on the budget and job creation,&quot; said Steinberg, D-Sacramento, referring to efforts to close a $26.6 billion deficit.</p>
                    <p>Nevertheless, some individual lawmakers are seeking reforms in a time of widespread criticism of taxpayer-funded largess in California and across the nation.</p>
                    <p>Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, thinks legislative leaders will have to make at least some symbolic changes, driven by tea party activists on one side and frugality already shown by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who has cut the state's vehicle fleet, reduced the number of government-issued cell phones and stopped agencies from giving away taxpayer-funded trinkets.</p>
                    <p>&quot;They have to show that they're cutting back on their perks, on their spending, as well,&quot; Stern said.</p>
                    <p>California is the only state to provide rank-and-file lawmakers with vehicles for their unlimited use. The AP last year reported that Legislature spent $5 million in taxpayer money for its latest fleet of vehicles, including a $55,000 Cadillac sedan and a $52,000 Lexus hybrid.</p>
                    <p>And only California gives its lawmakers state-issued credit cards that let them charge taxpayers for the cost of gasoline and other expenses, the AP found in a separate investigation in 2008.</p>
                    <p>The AP obtained the information under the California Legislative Open Records Act. However, lawmakers give themselves wide discretion to deny information that likely would have to be disclosed if the Legislature were covered under the California Public Records Act, which governs other state agencies.</p>
                    <p>For instance, the Legislature provided cost information for an AP story last year disclosing that legislators billed taxpayers more than $2 million over a 2 1/2-year period for airfare. But officials refused to provide actual documents so the billings could be verified independently or even give lawmakers' flight destinations, citing security risks.</p>
                    <p>The Legislature also would not disclose lawmakers' daily calendars when the AP tried last year to learn how often they meet with lobbyists and campaign donors.</p>
                    <p>The Assembly and Senate began posting staff salaries on their Web sites last year and began webcasting budget hearings after the AP and other news organizations in the capital wrote stories about legislative spending.</p>
                    <p>Some lawmakers are going further.</p>
                    <p>Eleven of the Senate's 40 members are refusing their taxpayer-subsidized vehicles this year, up from six who declined in 2009 and three in 2005. Seven of the 11 who declined vehicles are new to the Senate.</p>
                    <p>In the 80-member Assembly, 27 declined any subsidized rides, up from 12 in 2009 and six in 2006. Twenty of the 27 are Assembly newcomers.</p>
                    <p>&quot;There are people in my district who are sitting around the kitchen table and trying to figure out how to make ends meet,&quot; said freshman Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, who refused a vehicle. &quot;To be told basically, 'Go out and buy yourself a new Christmas present' was appalling to me, absolutely appalling.&quot;</p>
                    <p>Between both chambers, 20 Democrats and 18 Republicans declined vehicles.</p>
                    <p>Most of the bills aimed at reforming the Legislature have been introduced by Republicans. Steinberg spokesman Mark Hedlund said he was unaware of any such bills proposed by Senate Democrats. Shannon Murphy, spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said bills by Democratic Assembly members were primarily aimed at reforming local governments following a corruption scandal in the Los Angeles County city of Bell.</p>
                    <p>&quot;The speaker is continually looking at ways to make the Legislature more open and efficient. Those discussions are continuing,&quot; Murphy said.</p>
                    <p>Democrats control both the Assembly and Senate, making it unclear whether the Republican bills will advance.</p>
                    <p>Assemblyman Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga, said he has been told by other lawmakers and staff that his AB998 will not survive. It would require that budget bills be publicly available on the Internet three days before they are taken up for a vote.</p>
                    <p>He introduced the measure after he had to vote on preliminary budget bills that he had no chance to examine, a common practice in the Legislature.</p>
                    <p>&quot;We're letting citizens have three days' notice instead of things being passed or deals being cut in back rooms,&quot; Morrell said of his bill. &quot;It helps citizens become more engaged.&quot;</p>
                    <p>Morrell also declined a subsidized vehicle after he was elected in November.</p>
                    <p>&quot;I knew it would be an unpopular thing right now,&quot; he said. &quot;The citizens I think are very skeptical. I heard that the rating here in Sacramento is at an all-time low. I didn't want to do anything that gives an appearance of wrongdoing.&quot;</p>
                    <p>Among other reform bills:</p>
                    <p>&mdash; Grove proposed AB1078, which would prohibit former lawmakers from being paid to sit on a board or commission within four years of leaving office. Currently, it is common for governors and legislative leaders to appoint sympathetic lawmakers to bodies such as the Agriculture Labor Relations Board or Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. Grove said that creates the appearance of a conflict of interest. Both boards pay $128,109 a year.</p>
                    <p>&mdash; Assemblyman Paul Cook, R-Yucca Valley, introduced AB1012, which would dock legislators' $141.86 daily expense payments each day they are late or miss a legislative session. Rank-and-file lawmakers have annual base salaries of $95,291 a year.</p>
                    <p>&mdash; Sen. Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, proposed SB18, which would prohibit lobbyists and special interest groups from giving lawmakers certain gifts such as sports tickets and spa treatments. His SB17 would require all budget bills to be made public at least 72 hours before a vote.</p>
                    <p>&mdash; Sen. Mark Wyland, R-Solana Beach, would go further by requiring the budget be publicly available 21 days before a vote. He wants to etch the requirement into the state Constitution with SCA3.</p>
                    <p>&mdash; Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries, R-Lake Elsinore, wants to amend the state constitution to require the Legislature to publish its agendas at least 72 hours before hearings. A second proposed amendment would prohibit dead-of-night legislative sessions, requiring lawmakers to meet between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. unless they are responding to a natural disaster. His proposed amendments are ACA1 and ACA2.</p>
                    <p>&quot;I think it's politically astute. I think when some of these legislators are thinking of re-election, they want to show voters they have adopted fiscally responsible behavior,&quot; said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, an anti-tax group. &quot;If the leadership wants the voters to sign off on massive tax increases, which they do, then at the minimum they have to adopt some of this internal housekeeping.&quot;</p>
                    <p>The measures will be heard in committees in coming weeks, as lawmakers first consider Brown's request to declare a special election to ask voters to extend temporary increases in the sales, personal income and vehicle taxes another five years.</p>
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