Email This to a Friend:

July 22, 2003

California Democrats Discuss Dereliction of Duty for Political Benefit

Here’s how it ended:

After about 90 minutes, a staffer interrupted to alert lawmakers that their meeting was not private at all:

“Excuse me, guys, you can be heard outside,” an unidentified staff member said.

“Oh [expletive], [expletive],” Goldberg said.

They’d been caught red-handed.

Via JunkYardBlog:

Democrats Discussed Extending Budget Crisis

SACRAMENTO In a meeting they thought was private but was actually broadcast around the Capitol on Monday, 11 Assembly Democrats debated prolonging California’s budget crisis to further their political goals.

Members of the Democratic Study Group, a caucus that defines itself as progressive, were unaware that a microphone in Committee Room 127 was on as they discussed slowing progress in an attempt to increase pressure on Republicans to accept tax increases as part of a deal to resolve the state’s $38-billion budget gap.

The conversation was transmitted to roughly 500 “squawk boxes” around Sacramento that political staff, lobbyists and reporters use to listen in on legislative proceedings.

Participants in the meeting appear to have been looking at this as a strategy to make it easier to raise taxes.

According to Republican staff members who captured parts of the meeting on tape, Los Angeles Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg and others discussed holding up the budget to dramatize the consequences and build support for a ballot initiative that would make it easier to raise taxes.

...Campbell said Democrats also discussed whether delaying the budget would increase the chance of a union-backed initiative that would lower the threshold for new taxes to a 55% vote of the Legislature. The state Constitution currently requires that budgets pass by at least a two-thirds majority, which today would require that a few Republicans join a united Democratic majority.