I received an email message today from California Republican Party (CRP) Chairman Ron Nehring, who ought to have been fired by now, regarding the “Divided Democrats.” He was of course referring to the snit between Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and and his counterpart in the State Senate, Don Perata.
Nehring went on to say that, “Republicans in Sacramento continue to work hard for a balanced and fiscally responsible state budget.”
But the truth is very far from that. According to the L.A. Times:
“The 15 Senate Republicans who are leading the Capitol to the fiscal year’s fifth week without a budget argue that their intransigence is all about fiscal responsibility. But the details of their proposed cuts speak more about ideology. For example, they insist on cutting family planning, birth control and abortion from Medi-Cal services for girls who don’t have parental consent, effectively imposing on a portion of the population an abortion consent requirement that Californians have rejected at the ballot box twice in the last five years.”
Busted! Looks like the Reeps in the State Senate are wasting everyone’s time with their typical outmoded social agenda.
But wait, there’s more, “Senate Republicans would eliminate CalWORKS payments for more than 150,000 children whose parents aren’t meeting their work requirements. It’s the kids’ own fault, perhaps. They should have picked better parents. Other cuts appear in line with a belief that government should be shrunk at any cost.”
The Times sums up the whole mess this way, “The state’s method of drawing district lines exacerbates the problem. In order to guarantee themselves safe seats, Republicans agree to districts that increasingly segregate them from California’s mainstream. While their successful candidates become fewer in number, they move further to the right. That’s bad news not just for the GOP, but for a state that finds itself with only the Democrats setting the agenda — except at budget time, when everything falls apart.”
We are watching a political party in its death throes…the GOP may survive elsewhere but it appears doomed here in California.
“Outmoded”?
When did you come to believe providing those things was the proper role of government, Art?
I salute the state Senate GOP for standing firm for some semblance of fiscal sanity in Sacto. Lord knows the Demos and Arnold have none.
Matt,
I hate to break this to you and your buddies in the State Senate – but California is a pro-choice state. Acting otherwise is indeed outmoded.
I am all for being fiscally sane, but holding Californians hostage while holding up the state budget in order to placate nuts like Rosie Avila is just plain crazy.
I hate to break this to you and your buddies in the State Senate – but California is a pro-choice state. Acting otherwise is indeed outmoded.
Wow — you’ve really turned into a principles-be-damned, go-with-the-flow kind of guy, Art. I take it you’re no longer pro-life now.
The post-bellum South was pro-segregation and the antebellum South was pro-slavery. Indeed, most Americans didn’t favor outlawing slavery. By your logic, your retort to Abolitionist “obstructionists” in the 1850s would have been to label their stance “outmoded.”
Actually, outmoded means out of fashion or obsolete. I don’t think opposing taxing people to pay for teenage girls to kill their unborn babies without their parents knowledge is an “outmoded” principle. I’m proud to finally see a GOP Caucus acting like Republicans and taking a stand for returning government to some semblance of what it is.
We already have one tax-and-spend party in this state, Art. We don’t need another.
Matt,
I am still pro-life – I just don’t think this is an area where we can do much with regard to the law. Even if we did somehow ban abortions, do you think that would stop people from having them?
As for taxing and spending – isn’t that what the GOP Congress did until Pelosi and Reid kicked them to the curb?
It is ridiculous for the GOP in CA to delay the budget over an issue that has been voted on twice by CA voters – and rejected both times.
Jubal–
Rather then watching “300”, a more appropriate film for the Senate GOP Caucus viewing would have been “They Died With Their Boots On.”
Unlike some on the liberal blogs, I don’t blame the Gang of 15 for trying to cut some deals even under the fig leaf of calling for a balanced budget. And Walters is right, the Deuling Demos in the leadership should have brought the GOP in early in the process and given them something to write home to Flashreport about.
That being said, elections have consequences as the GOP said when complaining about the US Senate Dems holding up the Roberts & Alioto nominations . And after a point it is irresponsible to hold up a state budget that is needed and passage of which is part of the job description of the 120 folks that volunteer to spend their days in Sacramento to continue to try and broker a deal on a policy issue which they can’t get a majority to support.
Ron Nering should have resigned by now,but let’s face it who else would pay him? Nering and his baby teeth smile should be sent back to el cajon or whatever hole he crawled out of.
Even if we did somehow ban abortions, do you think that would stop people from having them?
That’s not even an argument. By that line of reasoning, Art, nothing would be illegal.
As for taxing and spending – isn’t that what the GOP Congress did until Pelosi and Reid kicked them to the curb?
Actually, it was spending and spending. But how does that make it OK for the Sacto Dems to tax and spend? And how doe sit make the Reps bad guys for adhering to principle.
You really seem to be in a sell-out-in-order-to-win mode lately.