Sacramento Musings

I spent today reading through a bill file that I ordered from the state archives. A number of interesting things emerged from this bill file. The first was that the process appears rigged. There were hundreds of letters from constituents begging that the bill be amended to reflect the needs of small business. (My favorite--Please don't drive a steak through the heart of my company)

The letters also asked for public hearings--there were none on the final version of the bill. The letters from the real players were far less pleading. "We note that you have amended the bill to do x, we think it would be better amended to do y."

I happen to have seen assembly member Peace (the bill's author) in action when I worked in Sacramento. He was a complete blowhard and responsible for energy deregulation and other assorted back room deals. I have no inside knowledge about that man. I don't want to slime him. I just think he's one of the creepiest human beings I've ever met and my gut instinct is that he's corrupt.

And I was thinking that the usual solution to having legislators like him would be voter education, cutting out special interests, electing Ralph Nadar. The other solution would be for the press to do what we pay them to do.

The file I'm reading is a public file available from the public archives. Another back room deal was just completed on this very subject with some of the same terrible ideas that were in the last bill.

I'll give my imaginary journalist readers another big hint from my time in Sacramento. If nobody knows the contents of a piece of legislation until the moment before the vote, something corrupt and fishy just happened. Those giant controversial bills that get passed at the end of session are the ones you need to dig around on. Usually there was a buy off and a compromise and sometimes there will be a quid pro quo for another bill. And yes, they don't generally let journalists into the smoke filled rooms. But with a little hard work, it just might be possible to connect the dots as to how it was done....