I’ve dedicated the last 20 years to California state policy and politics, the first seven years as a special advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger and the balance as president of political action group Govern For California and lecturer in public policy at Stanford. As part of my work for GFC, lately I’ve been immersed in reviewing 2,733 bills introduced so far this year by legislators. Over the next seven months until the legislature adjourns, I will spend countless additional hours on strategies associated with those bills and others, and over the entire year I will spend countless more hours on management, policy and fundraising. I do that work without compensation and my wife and I provided the lion’s share of GFC’s start-up funding. I enjoy it — politics and policy has long been my principal hobby — but often can’t help but wonder if I’m on a fool’s errand. While I see friends enjoying interesting businesses (as I did until I left for Sacramento in 2003) and hobbies that produce results in short order, change in the state’s governance moves at a snail’s pace, if at all.
As one example, public schools in California continue to provide terrible service to students despite a massive increase in spending and every politician claiming to support students. It’s not only that test scores haven’t improved. Neither has student life. Many of my students attended California K-12 public schools. When recently I asked them how class size had improved over the last decade when spending per pupil more than doubled, not a single hand shot up. (I knew why: spending on retired employees rose even faster.) When I asked if their lives were favorably affected by a great teacher, every hand shot up, but so did every hand when I asked if they were unfavorably affected by teachers who shouldn’t be teaching. (I knew why: California’s Education Code provides permanent employment to teachers after just two school years.) And more than one told of sad consequences for friends living in bad public school districts when there were better ones nearby. (I knew why: unlike my Medicare dollars, California public school dollars don’t follow the beneficiary, which leaves students with no choice.) In short, a decade ago California lifted the top state income tax rate 30 percent in order to improve public education after which spending per pupil more than doubled, but there has been no improvement. That’s because the Education Code — which can be amended by a simple majority of legislators plus the governor — continues to favor employees and retirees over students. That’s all about political power. If you had asked me in 2011 when I launched GFC if I thought California’s K-12 system would be student-friendly by 2023, I would’ve naively answered “yes.” I was wrong. We still don’t have enough political power to obtain changes of great value to students.
Our job is made more difficult by political leaders who demagogue issues of paramount importance. Eg, both of our two most recent presidents attacked any Member of Congress who expressed interest in reforming unfunded Medicare and Social Security entitlements even though both surely know that the cost of unfunded entitlements is consuming an ever-greater share of the federal budget to the detriment of young people. But that didn’t stop them from employing harsh rhetoric to score political points that destroyed any chance of reforming that spending. (As we celebrate President’s Day today, I can’t help but think that Abraham Lincoln would have behaved differently.) I experienced similar demagoguery first hand in 2006 when the California State Senate removed me from the board of the State Teachers’ Retirement System simply because I called for slightly larger pension contributions at that time in order to prevent huge unfunded pension liabilities down the road. Had the policy I proposed then been adopted, school pension spending today would be a fraction of the amounts gobbling up school budgets. But government employee unions and their acolytes in the legislature attacked me with untruthful harsh rhetoric and got their way. Young people are paying the price.
Those outcomes won’t change until and unless lawmakers become firmly convinced that supporters of the public interest will always have their backs when they take on the toughest problems. That’s because lawmakers — rightly — fear the consequences of crossing special interests. That’s why I launched GFC to support lawmakers who serve the public interest. I knew the road would be tough, especially since we take on the toughest issues, but it’s been even tougher than I expected. As GFC’s influence has grown, so has the mud thrown at me and my colleagues simply for supporting legislators who would rather see school spending benefit students, health spending improve health, and funds not be diverted from universities, social services, parks and courts to special interests. While we’ve been able to stop a number of bad bills and ballot measures and to effect some reforms, lawmakers in California still will not take the big risks required to provide big benefits to students, residents and taxpayers.
For that to happen, more people will have to persistently support lawmakers who serve the public interest. I’ve been pleased to see two other organizations formed to support lawmakers who serve the public interest, and three dozen people of varying political stripes united by the notion that Californians deserve high quality public services at reasonable cost to taxpayers have formed independent GFC chapters that persistently donate to candidates of their choice. But still, too few Californians are persistently involved in their state’s governance — and legislators know that. The same is true at the federal level. That’s a serious problem because California and the federal government have become suppliers of huge amounts of taxpayer funds to special interests who in turn deploy some of that money to support lawmakers who keep that money coming even if taxpayers are not getting value for money, residents are not getting services, and young people are being robbed of their futures. It’s a cynical cycle that can be broken only if more of us persistently support lawmakers who serve the public interest. Highly functioning democracies require persistent citizen involvement.
Hurrah, David! It's a noble cause you've taken up. I was in CA politics until 2011, when I was hired by the State of Idaho. At the time, lawmakers who served the public's interest (instead if the Party's) were rare (Dave Cogdill was one) and now they're rarer still. Oh, California. My heart hurts for you. But I appreciate what you are doing.