It’s easy enough to be a success in Sacramento: Make an occasional stirring speech and then vote with the party on everything. You’ll generally be on the winning side if you’re a Democrat and the losing side if you’re a Republican, but so what?
In these days of gerrymandered districts, a record of party-line votes is a virtual guarantee of re-election and personal political success.
But politicians interested in actually accomplishing something for the state should remember the words of that esteemed philosopher, Jay Ward’s Super Chicken:
“You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”
Doing the right thing as a politician isn’t the same as doing the easy thing, especially in the increasingly partisan atmosphere of the Legislature.
It’s a rare politician who is willing to alienate long-time friends and supporters to do what he believes is needed for California. It’s an even rarer elected official who will surrender a hard-fought victory because it’s the right thing to do. That’s why Sacramento’s Darrell Steinberg, the Democratic leader in the state Senate, is my choice for Californian of the Year.
Early this year, in the middle of negotiations over ways to close the state’s $41 billion budget gap, Republican leaders demanded that money from Prop. 63 be tossed into the mix.
The 2004 initiative, which taxed the richest Californians to provide new community mental health services, was Steinberg’s brainchild and what he still calls “the greatest cause of my life.”
Yet Steinberg agreed to put Prop. 1E, which would have allowed the state to take $450 million from those funds, on last May’s special election ballot, despite howls from his long-time allies in the mental health community. He even signed the ballot argument for the measure.
“If I said ‘no,’ what kind of message would that have sent” about how desperate the budget situation was? he asked.
Throughout 2009, Steinberg took heat from progressives, labor and education groups for agreeing to deep cuts in social service programs he and other Democrats had championed for years in an effort to balance the budget.
But Steinberg worked to limit the damage as best he could and showed his political abilities by rounding up enough votes to pass the budget in a landmark overnight session.
He even managed to convince nervous Senate Democrats to go along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to cut $1.2 billion from the prison budget by taking some 27,000 inmates from the system to meet a federal court order.
In a piece last June on the progressive Calitics blog, Robert Cruickshank complained that by agreeing to slash social programs to balance the budget, Steinberg and other Democratic leaders were proving that “Democrats cannot be counted on to defend the people who voted for them.”
That misses an important point. An elected official’s duty isn’t to the people who voted for him or even to the people in his district. Instead, the job of every legislator should be to do what he or she believes is best for the state of California and damn the personal consequences.
No one has ever called Steinberg non-partisan. He’s been a strong advocate for the Democratic Party and has been more than willing to challenge Schwarzenegger and other Republicans in the press, in the courts or on the floor of the Legislature.
But Steinberg’s main concern, as he showed this year, is to do what’s needed for California, even at the cost of his own popularity. He’s shown he’s willing to make tough choices in tough times, and that’s something that’s desperately needed in the state today.
There were a number of other people who made their mark on California’s political consciousness this year.
State Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto and Assemblyman Anthony Adams of Hesperia, both voted their consciences and took their lumps when they bucked their GOP colleagues and backed the state budget, new taxes and all. Another Republican, state Sen. Abel Maldonado showed that old-school, “Let’s Make a Deal” politics still works.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco managed to put her imprint on the House during a historic period, but still keeps the federal largess flowing back to her home state. Superintendent Ramon Cortines is wresting with the ingrained culture and educational bureaucracy of the state’s largest school district in Los Angeles, while Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council and Bob Hertzberg of California Forward are both pushing for ways to reform the state’s political system.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.