Where did the senators go? (May 28)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
It has seemed to me lately that the California Legislature hasn’t been doing much of anything. Now, along comes the San Francisco Chronicle to confirm it. In a Page A1 story in its Thursday edition, the Chronicle points out that state senators are gone so much that the Senate can’t get any bills passed.
You might think that is odd. The Senate is packed with Democrats. There are 25 Democrats to 13 Republicans. You would think the Dems would be able to pass anything they wanted. But no. The Chronicle reports that 22 of the 38 Senators have been gone at least one day in the past month. On May 20, more than a third of the Senate failed to show up.
The president pro tem of the Senate, Darrell Steinberg, says he doesn’t think the Senate will make its bill-passing deadline. He may be right. That deadline is today.
Aw, what the heck. If you’re a senator, maybe you don’t care. What’s a deadline, anyway?
It’s all a good argument for making the Legislature part time. Maybe it should meet no more than six months a year.
Think about this: Some 90 bills may not be passed because the deadline won’t be met. Yet, life will go on. We really don’t need any of those bills. Nothing will change if none of them passes.
But, we do need a budget.
That brings up another deadline. The budget should be passed by June 30. There have been some conversations about the budget, but nothing concrete. The governor has submitted his proposal, but the Democrats already have laughed it out of the Capitol.
Here’s something to think about. The senators get paid whether they come to work or not. Plus, they get $141 a day for pocket money, even if they are out sick or absent on state business. What if that ration of cash was taken away on June 30? That might get their attention.
