Two things seem clear about the historic water measure that was jammed through the Legislature early Wednesday morning.
First, with no committee hearings on the final package, and with some lawmakers admitting they passed the bills without reading them, the Legislature has made a massive leap of faith.
Second, there remains a lot of uncertainty about exactly what legislators passed, especially in regards to earmarks for pet projects.
This page has said in the past that there are many positive elements in the massive package to restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and provide a more stable water supply to Southern California cities and Central Valley farmers. We'll comment in coming days on the substance of the five-bill package, when some of its still-murky elements become more explicit.
For now, let us consider the process. It was a mess. Multimillion-dollar deal-sweeteners were added at the last minute. Important policy measures that added balance to the package – ensuring that sacrifices were spread equally – were gutted with little or no debate.
Here's a prime example of pork. Assembly member Lori Saldana, D-San Diego, refused to vote for the water bond bill. So the bill was put on call. Some time later, the bill suddenly had $100 million for the San Vicente Reservoir in Saldana's district. She voted for the bill.
For his own part, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, attempted to include $10 million for a midtown tolerance center in Sacramento, a candidate for the legislative sausage-making hall of fame.
Then there are the substantive changes to language in the bills.
One example is a dispute between Steinberg and the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District over how the package's mandates could affect the agency's operations. Steinberg says the dispute about one word is a non-issue. The agency says that the one-word change could potentially double or triple customer fees, though a key pillar of the water bills was supposed to be that the people who benefited from the package – south state water users and farmers – would pay the tab.
And in another dead-of-night move, the Legislature scuttled a worthy crackdown on illegal Delta water diversions that had been in the package. The penalty had been set at the market value of the diversion and was later watered down to just $5,000.
In short, powerful agricultural interests were relieved of the sacrifices that cities, environmentalists and others earlier agreed to as part of this package.
These are the kinds of things that happen when legislation is approved at 6 a.m. by lawmakers who haven't come close to seriously debating it.
The bills' supporters say that this was the only way to get it to the desk of the governor, who is expected to sign it. But the few folks left in the Capitol with institutional memory might recall the last time the Legislature quickly and without reflection approved a massive restructuring of part of California's economy: It was the deregulation of the electricity market, and it led to disaster.
The process here also was offensive. We hope the results, as they become clearer in coming days, are not.
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