Lawmakers need to turn to spending cuts after voters reject budget measures

With voters thrashing five of six special ballot measures Tuesday night, local state lawmakers girded themselves for another turn at the budget.

Assemblymen Van Tran and Chuck DeVore and Sen. Tom Harman agreed that voters sent a powerful message to Sacramento to start cutting the budget, something the trio of Republicans have championed throughout the state’s financial crisis. Efforts to reach Assemblyman Jim Silva were unsuccessful Tuesday night.

DeVore and Harman said they were willing to consider Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed sale of the Orange County fairgrounds if it made sense and could preserve the fair, while Tran tilted strongly against it.

“The people tonight have spoken clearly, and we affirm the need for California to make structural, fundamental reforms on how the state runs its own government,” Tran said.

Tran’s not sure what those reforms might be.

“A lot of dynamics will come into play. One thing is for sure, it won’t be business as usual,” he said.

He brushed off the notion that Democrats in Sacramento will move to cut Republicans out of the budget process by making it possible to approve a budget with a simple majority.

Republicans, although in the minority, have clout because the budget can’t be approved without a two-thirds majority voting yes.

DeVore, though, envisions that doomsday scenario for the GOP. DeVore, who is hoping to unseat U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, predicts Democratic state lawmakers will initially move to “punish” voters with draconian cuts in public service.

“You’ll see massive cuts in programs voters care about such as education, health care to the aged and indigent,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘Look, you had this temper tantrum and voted against all these extra billions to play with so we’ll punish you and the Republicans rather than reform government and live within our means.’”

But union leaders “will pull them from the brink” and nudge the Democrats to require just a simple majority for budget approval. This will have a 50-50 chance of surviving a legal challenge, DeVore said.

Harman thinks lawmakers will go back to work considering where they can cut government. He’s not sure what will get trimmed and felt it was too premature to speculate.

“We’re simply going to have to go back to and take a look at what the state’s income is, where the expenses are coming from and balance them. It’s as simple as that,” Harman said. “You can’t spend more than what you have. That’s what Mom and Dad do. They sit down around the kitchen table during a recession and say, ‘We’ll just have to live within our means.’ We haven’t been doing that.”