A Tradeoff For Tax Increase Vote?

Katy Grimes: With the budget conference committee’s passage of Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget plan yesterday, Assembly Speaker John Perez announced that he wants to bring the budget to the floor for a vote next week.

Will this be a drill, or the real deal? There is  mostly silence coming out of the halls of the Capitol today. Calls to several legislators’ offices were met with no information about what is coming up next for legislators.

But there are some quiet discussions taking place about exactly what it will take for Brown to get the four Republican votes he needs to get his tax extension measure on the June special election ballot – and it is green.

No, it’s not money — the “green” is greenhouse gas.  Apparently, if Gov. Brown and Democrats promise to back off the push to implement AB 32 until the economy in the state improves, it is said that he could receive Republican votes.

That sounds suspiciously like Proposition 23 – Republican Assemblyman Dan Logue’s ballot initiative from November to halt implementation of AB 32 (California’s global warming law) until the unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent.

But I haven’t heard the words “halt” or “stop AB 32” actually used. And, there are no details yet about what constitutes an “improved economy” for California.

Are the Republicans about to get chummed again?

Several Republicans already seem to be on different pages. Sen. Tony Strickland voted last week in support of increasing California’s renewable energy standard from 20 percent to 33 percent, right after the new “Taxpayer Caucus” was announced – and he was one of the lead organizers. Strickland apparently thought it was okay to vote for SBX1 2 (Simitian, Kehoe, Steinberg) which will likely drive up electricity prices in California during the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

If Republicans want to stay on message, Logue says it’s easy: “Pension reform, a spending cap and small business regulatory relief – it’s all about jobs.”

And, while negotiating for tax vote tradeoffs, let’s hope that if AB 32 is on the table, that someone thinks to get legal assurances that not only will the global warming law get halted until California unemployment drops, but SBX1 2 isn’t ramped up to really kill business and investor owned utilities in the state.

MAR. 4, 2011