By 12:01am on September 1, 2018 the current Sacramento legislative session will have ended. In the next three weeks the Capitol will be awash with 1,000 pieces of legislation to be heard, numerous fund raisers EACH night and bills amended at the last minutes, with no hearing as that will raise the cost of doing business in California or force firms to close or move out of State.
“Three years later, in the last hours of the 1999 session, the Legislature passed a measure granting state employees a very large retroactive increase in their retirement benefits on assurances that it would cost nothing because the California Public Employees Retirement System could easily cover the higher pensions with investment earnings.
Local governments largely followed suit, but after CalPERS lost $100 billion in the recession a decade later, both they and the state were hammered by sharply increasing demands for mandatory “contributions” to cover the losses and pay the enhanced pensions. Much like the electric power debacle, the expedient pension grab is costing Californians tens of billions of dollars.
This trip down memory lane cautions us that Californians should be leery of two big issues – both dealing with electric power – that could be decided this month.”
Walters is talking about the two most economically destructive measures passed in the last twenty years in Sacramento—all done in the dead of night. When you go to sleep, do not sleep easy, the Legislature is still in session.
Big issues mean big trouble at end of legislative session
By Dan Walters, CalMatters, 8/8/18
Tanned, rested and presumably ready, the Legislature reconvened this week for the inevitably hectic final weeks of its annual session.
The pressure cooker atmosphere that always envelops the final days is, history tells us, not conducive to thoughtful policymaking.
Preoccupied with pushing hundreds of their own pet bills through the Capitol’s sausage factory, legislators pay too little attention to larger issues with potentially huge long-term impact on the state.
Lobbyists for powerful interests thrive on the inattention, seeking measures that enrich their clients at the larger public’s expense.
That’s how, in the dying moments of the 1996 session, the Legislature passed, without a dissenting vote, a misnamed “deregulation” of the state’s electrical power utilities.
It promised to benefit consumers but wound up picking their pockets for many billions of dollars while driving one major utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, into bankruptcy and almost making another, Southern California Edison, insolvent.
Three years later, in the last hours of the 1999 session, the Legislature passed a measure granting state employees a very large retroactive increase in their retirement benefits on assurances that it would cost nothing because the California Public Employees Retirement System could easily cover the higher pensions with investment earnings.
Local governments largely followed suit, but after CalPERS lost $100 billion in the recession a decade later, both they and the state were hammered by sharply increasing demands for mandatory “contributions” to cover the losses and pay the enhanced pensions. Much like the electric power debacle, the expedient pension grab is costing Californians tens of billions of dollars.
This trip down memory lane cautions us that Californians should be leery of two big issues – both dealing with electric power – that could be decided this month.
One is the plea by PG&E and other utilities for relief from laws that can hold them financially liable for damages from the wildfires that strike California with increasing regularity and intensity.
Without relief, they say, they can be driven into insolvency and their pleas are being backed by their employee unions and Wall Street banking and investment houses which have huge stakes in keeping the utilities financially healthy.
Wildfire victims, their insurers and attorneys who specialize in personal injury cases – the latter two the strangest of political bedfellows – want to keep “inverse condemnation” laws in effect as vehicles to gain compensation.
Gov. Jerry Brown, for whom this legislative session is the last of his career, is trying to work out a compromise, but with moneyed interests on both sides, it’s a tough slog.
Brown is an advocate, rather than a mediator, on the second issue – whether California will merge its electrical grid with those of other Western states not only physically but politically, allowing a new regional entity to decide who gets juice and who pays for it.
Brown’s advocacy is apparently driven by assumptions that a regional grid would make it easier for California to peddle its surplus renewable power, and also provide backup power so the state can wean itself from carbon-emitting coal and natural gas generation.
However, there’s stubborn resistance from some environmentalists, who worry aloud about the state’s losing its political accountability for power system operations. Not surprisingly, they compare the regional plan to that disastrous 1996 “deregulation” scheme as an example of what happens when big decisions are made at the last minute.
They’ve got a very strong point.
Get over the fact that the interests opposing the utility bailout are “strange bedfellows.” This IS California, after all . . . Screwing around with a constitutional principle so that huge private corporations can avoid financial accountability is a matter of genuine concern.
Walters is right again. Sneaky stuff in the middle of the night, and w/o the 3 day notices………. To me, it is the shear volume of bills that come and go every year. Need Caps for each legislator on number of bills……… Personally, I am watching SB 1316 like a hawk. This bill is to appease locals at the expense of all Ca residents. One of the sellers of land to State Parks, has filed lawsuits and secured 2 bills, SB 249 last year, and SB 1316 as “insurance” in case the lawsuits fail. Of course, both of these bills secured the wrath of the environmental community, who signed on and the various committees (Dual Referred Bill) and passed out of committees along partisan lines, and is now in Assembly. This is a bad bill because the locals want to stop the property from being used as intended by the legislature, and turn it into preserve which just happens to be a fence line neighbor who sold the property to the state and wants a “permanent buffer zone” and pulled all the stops out to secure this if SB 1316 should pass. Parks Department does not support this action, but will be in the Gov’s hands. What this means, IMHO – it sets a precedent that State Parks land can be taken away from public use as intended and agreed to a time of sale, and possibly sold below market value. Senator Glaser dropped to his knees and accepted the bill as author, and as he stated “It is this District” in Committee hearings. Note the amended version on August 8, a few days ago, shows reimbursement cost of at least ( 9 million) which was the selling price 20 years ago. Can you imagine what 3,100 acres in Alameda County in this hills would cost today? One big ripoff to the taxpayers. If this bill passes out of the Assembly, will the Gov have the brass to VETO this bad, narrow focused, punitive and discriminatory bill? I hope so. It would take a State Park away from millions of the people of Ca for just the benefit of the local community. This is wrong. Who benefits? The seller of the property 20 years ago Celeste GARAMENDI Connelly, and yes she is the sister of Congressman John Garamendi. Looks like a lawsuit in the future if this bill passes. This is the corruptive nature of the way our legislature bows to local people with political connections for personal gain. This is a BAD bill, and just plain wrong. Shame on the Democrats who voted for this in committee’s………………. And shame on Alameda County who voted to throw State Parks under the bus, and ditto East Bay Regional Parks District, City of Livermore for also throwing State Parks under the bus too……… ALL of whom sent employees to committee meetings to vote in support of this bill. Seems to me, the TAXPAYERS paid for them to attend all those meetings and the costs involved to do so. Time off of regular work duties and driving time with probably County or agency vehicles…………………. NO on SB 1316!
More details in SB1316, please. Where is the affected property?
Please break up the long paragraph to make it more readable.
From some of the smallest cities in the State to the largest entities it is baloney!
You know High Fat, Plenty of Nitrates, and hard on the arteries.
Yep and you voted for them….Democrats and RINO’S