Ever since Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor, this early advocate of sunshine has relied on darkness to close a budget deal.
The governor has routinely orchestrated "Big Five" meetings that include the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate and Assembly. All five promise to keep the horse-trading secret, ostensibly to prevent outside interests from seizing on a single item and torpedoing the larger budget deal.
Such closed-door sessions might be tolerable if they came at the end of public process, and were used only to sew up loose threads. They'd be easier to accept if they regularly produced fiscally sound deals that were free of gimmicks and special-interest favors.
But that's not what happens. Last year's Big Five sessions produced a budget that was months late and out of balance before the ink dried. It was slammed through the Legislature in less than 24 hours. Like automatons, legislators voted for bills and budget provisions they hadn't read, unwilling to buck their caucus leaders.
The same pattern is happening again.
The Big Five has been meeting, on and off, for more than a month. Some items have leaked out, but the specific deal points have largely been kept hidden from the public and individual legislators.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg says a vote could come early next week. Undoubtedly, legislators once again will be hastily voting on a budget package they have barely scrutinized or haven't read.
Although some lawmakers decry this secrecy, some are happy to be left out of the loop.
The Big Five process shields them from accountability. If constituents raise hell about a pension perk or an environmental rollback that was added at the last minute, legislators can look them in the eye and say, "I didn't have a hand in that."
Voters, however, shouldn't fall for this pablum.
By voting for these budget packages and allowing their leaders to negotiate them in the dark, lawmakers of both parties are ensuring an odious outcome. In essence, they are abdicating their responsibility to legislate and govern, further diminishing their standing in the public eye.
Defenders of the Big Five say it's the only way to overcome California's two-thirds vote requirement, which gives outside groups enhanced power to kill any budget that hurts their interests.
There's some truth to this claim. By negotiating deals in secret, legislative leaders prevent industry groups, labor organizations and other interests from rallying their troops and exerting pressure on individual lawmakers.
Yet the fallacy of this argument is the special interests are completely frozen out of the Big Five negotiations and the final budget package. The reality is that the biggest and most favored interests are often consulted and briefed as the talks progress.
It's the little guys – groups that don't have high-paid lobbyists or connections to the governor's office or individual caucuses – that get frozen out. They become victims of the Big Five secrecy.
Legislators know this. The governor knows this. Yet this mockery of democracy continues, year after year, session after session, because all of them allow it to happen.
Remember that the next time you go to the polls.
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