Cooperation reigns: Local Leaders Work Together in State Legislature PDF Print E-mail

Excerpted from: Mother Lode News
By Mike Roberts
October 05, 2009

El Dorado County's two fresh-faced Assembly members made a rare joint appearance at the El Dorado County Association of Realtors annual Government Officials Luncheon on Friday.

Rookie District 10 Democrat Alyson Huber hails from El Dorado Hills, the only portion of the county in her district, which includes parts of three other counties. Republican Ted Gaines resides in Roseville. He won District 4, which includes the balance of El Dorado County, in 2006.

At first blush, these two well-spoken local "pols" seem to come from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, but the room full of real estate professionals, developers and a who's who in local government were, for the most part, impressed by the refreshingly cooperative bipartisanship they witnessed on Friday.

This ideological odd couple has found large land masses of common political ground upon which to lay the foundations for a better California.

Huber, the more effusive of the pair, said she and Gaines agree on much more than they disagree on, specifically, "We agree on reforming how we govern the state of California, and also on tax reform."


Swollen government

Gaines led off by lamenting the size of California's state government and the breadth of services it tries to provide. "We just can't be all things to all people," he said. "This government has its hands in way too many areas of our lives."

Gaines advocates pushing the power base, including funding, down to the local level wherever possible. "The pyramid needs to be inverted," he said.

Since Gov. Schwarzenegger was elected in 2003, some 30,000 new state employees have been hired, he said. "That doesn't make sense. We should be mirroring what local government and business are doing around California, and trimming the ranks of state employees."

He also said that state employee benefits are "way out of line," and called for reducing retirement benefits and reviewing current salaries.

The state budget currently pays $3.5 billion each year to state retirees, he said, adding that the state's pension obligation is currently $48 billion, and it's not funded.

Huber agreed that more cuts are needed, adding that the low hanging fruit might be state board members, some of which make well over $100,000 per year to attend one meeting a month. She has a bill on the governor's desk that forces an examination of their workload and salaries.


Regulation reform

Gaines cited a recently released study that put the overall cost of regulation in California at $492 billion per year. "It amounts to a hidden tax," he said.

Environmental regulations have gotten out of hand, said Gaines, who earned applause from his development-friendly audience by calling for a simplified California Environmental Quality Act, "so that builders can address the environmental concerns, mitigate them, move on and build."

Huber echoed the sentiment in softer terms. "I spent 10 years fighting those fights as a business litigator," she said. "I know the impact of regulations like CEQA on business."


Constitution 101

Huber said she is frustrated by a lack of vision in state government. "I don't think anyone can say that the track we're on is good for the state of California," she said. "No one is looking 10 or 20 years down the road. We're just filling holes and spending money on programs we don't understand."

She proposed an automatic "sunset date" on every program, commission and agency.

Eleven other states have sunset review commissions that measure each department to glean how well it's addressing the problem it was created to solve, she said.

Gaines concurred, suggesting that the review be extended to boards and commissions, many of which he said have no legislative oversight.

"A lot of them are running amok," he said, citing a recent move by the California Air Resources Board to increase gasoline vapor recovery at the pump. "For 20 years we've pulled back 95 percent of the vapors," he said. The California Air Resources Board's recent regulations would have captured another 3 percent at a cost of $11,000 per pump before the Legislature intervened.

Huber attributed some of the state's governing problems to term limits, which force out roughly one third of the Assembly every two years. "Think if you had to fire a third of your employees every two years," she said. "Think what it would do to the expertise and accountability in your organization."

The unintended consequence is that politicians aren't around to justify, defend or amend their legislation. The laws and regulations keep piling up, with the ever-present batch of freshman legislators eagerly creating new ones, demonstrating to their constituents, as Huber has, that they're working hard for their district.

To make her point she held up a copy of the svelte federal Constitution in one hand, and the much more portly California Constitution in the other. "Our constitution reads more like a book of statutes than a visionary governing document," she said.

In addition to the tidal wave of legislation initiated by the Senate and Assembly each year, California's initiative process creates another layer of laws that bypass legislative scrutiny and often fail to take long term costs or impact on other programs into account. "The initiative process has tied the hands of the governor and state Legislature," said Huber.

Micromanagement at each layer of government has become pervasive, she said. "When one school in LA gets caught using out-of-date textbooks, we pass a law that every school has to replace their books."

Her call for a state constitution review, including the initiative process, sparked a whoop of support from county District 5 Supervisor Norma Santiago from the back of the room.


Septic

Both Assembly members called AB 885, the state Water Resources Board's recent attempt to mandate septic inspections and expensive upgrades statewide, another example of California legislation run amok.

Both introduced alternate legislation. Gaines' AB 268 would have left the matter entirely up to local environmental health departments, but was defeated in committee.

Huber's bill, AB 580, allows local control, but provides downstream counties a remedy to septic negligence from their upstream neighbors. It has garnered bipartisan support in the Assembly. Gaines signed on as a co-author.

The state Water Resources Board backed off the proposed regulations for now, said Huber, but is planning revised legislation later this month that will reflect the concerns of the rural communities. "Our bill is there just in case."


Taxes

"People in California feel overtaxed because they are over taxed," said Huber, sounding almost Republican. "If you are part of the goods market or manufacturing, you are overtaxed. The result is that we're nowhere near competitive."

The state was a largely manufacturing economy in the 1930s when the tax structure was set up, she said. As the manufacturing sector shrank, the Legislature tried to make up the tax revenue by raising taxes on the remaining businesses.

"We need to diversify our portfolio," she said.

The difficulty for the right is that the conversation includes the word "tax," she said. The problem on the left is preventing the size of the pot from growing.

Gaines backed up Huber's position with some hard facts. California's manufacturing base has decreased 28 percent in the last eight years, he said, citing the 4,700-employee Toyota/GM plant in Fremont as a likely casualty.

Gaines attributed some the plant's fiscal struggles to California's 9 percent equipment tax. "Every model change costs an extra $27 million in taxes that 47 other states don't charge."

"We've got to find a sensible way to raise revenue," he said, adding that a whopping 50 percent of tax revenue comes from just 3 percent of the population. "Those folks are very mobile. They can leave the state, and they are."


Dredging moratorium

District 2 Supervisor Ray Nutting voiced concern over the Legislature's recent approval of AB 670, which outlawed all gold dredging on California rivers for two years while an environmental study is conducted to measure the impact on water quality and protected fish species, mainly salmon.

The bill was the result of a lawsuit brought by the Karuk Indian Tribe to protect their salmon rights on the Klamath River. "It morphed into eliminating suction dredging throughout California," said Nutting. "But there are no salmon above Folsom Dam, and we have thousands of people that love to mine."

Dredgers clean refuse from the river, and the dredging actually clears mercury from the water, improving water quality, said Nutting. "It's also a $16 million industry in California."

Gaines, who voted against the bill, added that fees paid for dredging permits aren't being refunded. "You can't just take people's rights away like that, especially after they've paid for them. Mining has a long history here."

Huber defended her vote for the dredging moratorium as support of California's $48 billion agriculture economy. "We are shutting off pumps to save fish in this state, and it's causing us not to grow food," she said. "My vote was part of a larger conversation ... that gets those pumps turned back on."

Nutting will introduce a proclamation at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting opposing the dredging moratorium.


Biomass utilization

Biomass utilization projects hold the promise of generating clean energy while reducing fire risk in the forests. Both Huber and Gaines support them. Huber said she's got an active biomass project in Amador County.

Gaines took the opportunity to question the science behind global warming claims. "Worldwide, we haven't had a temperature gain in the last decade," he said. "Now the expert U.N. advisor says we may not have any temperature change for the next decade or two, so I have a jaundiced eye on [environmental legislation] that is effectively an energy tax."


Timber harvest plan reform

El Dorado County Chamber President Kirk Bone commended both politicians for supporting AB 1066, which would extend time limits on timber harvesting plans. He lamented the closure of the Sierra Pacific mill in Camino, calling the mill "an important economic engine in the county."

"It's not just the logs," he said. "It's the 150 people who work there and the 500 people who are affected financially."


Water rights

In response to a question about the preservation of legacy water rights from a member of the Georgetown Divide Public Utility District, Gaines promised to fight to protect water rights from a sometimes overzealous Delta Commission, but added, "We are in crisis; we need additional water supply and more water storage."

He spoke out against liberal opposition to surface water storage projects. "I'm hoping we can work with moderate Democrats to pull a water deal together, but I won't do it without protecting our water rights."

"Ditto," said Huber, adding that she was one of the moderate Democrats who opposed the last-minute water bill in the waning moments of the legislative session.

The governor is threatening to veto all legislation currently on his desk "because he didn't get a peripheral canal before we left session," said Huber. "A peripheral canal that ships more water to Southern California when we don't have enough to satisfy water rights up here is pretty much a non-starter to me.

"The problem is that we have eight times more water rights in this state than water," she said. "We have three times more water rights than our wettest year ever."

Huber insisted that the state's water solution include at least one new dam. "And Southern California needs to do some work," she added, criticizing a lack of conservation programs in the south, while commending Serrano's water recycling program. "There's only one similar program down south."


New home tax credit

The continuation of subsidies for new home buyers was a high priority in a room containing the county's leading real estate professionals.

Huber took credit for escorting the state Senate's $10,000 tax credit for new home buyers through the Assembly, and promised to support its extension. "As long as we have excess [housing] inventory on the market we're not going to see a recovery."

Gaines agreed and promised to continue to work with Huber to extend the tax credit.


Transportation Commission

Gaines disagreed with Huber's proposal to alter the El Dorado County Transportation Commission makeup. "If El Dorado Hills becomes a city, they deserve a seat," he said. "But all the unincorporated communities can't be represented on the Transportation Commission, it's just not practical."

Huber deferred to the town hall meeting she's hosting on the topic at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the El Dorado Hills Library.


State fire sale

El Dorado Hills commercial Realtor Doug Hus, with tongue firmly in cheek, offered to assist the state in the sale of its undervalued assets, and even hinted that he might discount his commission. He then got serious and asked whether selling state assets like San Quentin, the L.A. Coliseum and the Cow Palace at fire sale prices wasn't shortsighted.

Huber defended her Republican governor, explaining that the Legislative Accounting Office has long advocated disposing of excess state property, and the budget compromise allowed Schwarzenegger to do so.

"If we were being prudent investors, it would make more sense to hold the property until the market recovers," she said. "But right now we're hemorrhaging, and I can't tell you we're making any decision that's really about investing in California."

"That's where our focus should be," said Gaines, "on investing in entrepreneurial ideas that encourage job creation."

But the current budgetary climate is all about cuts, said Huber. "We're looking for revenue wherever we can get it, so that we can keep schools open; so that we don't have to let out prisoners; so we don't have to stop transportation projects."

Afterward Hus said he was impressed by the unity in Huber and Gaines' messages. "It was great to hear how Alyson understands our issues and seems to be looking at the big picture in California," he said.