This might be the worst trio to manipulate California in a protracted time.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, House Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President Mike McGuire emerged at the top of this yr's legislative session, which ended Saturday, as independent autocrats against a functioning team of Democrats. They weren’t united. They proposed major reforms on the last minute. Too often they failed.
And although they will now not embarrass themselves on this session since it is fortunately over, there isn’t a reason to imagine that they’ll have the option to conduct the affairs of the people any higher within the near future.
The low points of this session began with the failure of efforts to unravel the state's power crisis and the skyrocketing bills of investor-owned utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric. For weeks there had been talk that Democrats would make some effort to lower consumers' electric bills, but there was no actual laws. The whole concept seemed dead.
And then, just days after the session ended, Democrats unveiled complex bills. The centerpiece was House Bill 3121, by Rep. Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine). It proposed giving the tens of millions of consumers of those for-profit utilities one-time refunds of an estimated $30 on their electric bills. But it will have done so in a highly destructive way, diverting funds from existing programs designed to support schools and low-income Californians.
McGuire led the Senate in introducing this so-called “California Made” reform package. However, shortly after its introduction, AB 3121 was rejected in a Senate committee.
The demise of AB 3121 was a blessing that needed no disguise. It was designed to lower electric bills with a one-time refund that wasn't even enough to refill a tank of gas. It wouldn't have lowered the actual cost of electricity by a penny.
As it seems, the leadership breakdown over that bill was only the start. Newsom made good on his threat, calling a right away “special session” on Saturday to ram through one other last-minute idea, this time requiring the state's oil refineries to stockpile more reserves to avoid price spikes during production declines.
But McGuire ignored Newsom's maneuvers. The governor's ability to truly force a session and a vote is as questionable as a barrel of crude oil. And in the long run, outmaneuvered and out of time, Newsom canceled his session as if that motion had any real significance.
This dysfunction starts at the highest. Saturday night showed just how tyrannical and distant Newsom is and the way he has a terrible relationship together with his Democratic colleagues within the legislature. He treats them more like children than partners. Newsom runs his country like an island unto himself, which has now relocated to Marin.
Rivas and McGuire have merely imitated Newsom's poor governing style. They have change into islands. Neither of them seems to care what the opposite two think. They lack the civic sense to place the general public first, put their egos aside and make some really tough decisions. They all prefer the island life now.
Real answers to all our crises – housing, insurance, power, homelessness, climate change – should not going to be popular. For California's top three Democrats, real change means working together respectfully, constructing consensus, maintaining a tally of one another and dealing with lawmakers on each side. And that's just not happening.
Good governance is an endangered species in Sacramento. With the trio of Newsom, Rivas and McGuire, it’s on the verge of extinction.
Tom Philp is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee. ©2024 The Sacramento Bee. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
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