A session of special importance

By: North County Times Opinion staff | Saturday, September 15, 2007 7:43 PM PDT ∞

Our view: Governor gives Legislature detention to focus efforts on health care, water crises

Some wary and weary Californians may be breathing a sigh of relief now that the state's lawmakers have ended their regular yearly session. But any celebration would be premature. The special session Gov. Schwarzenegger called on Tuesday will extend the Legislature's ability to make matters worse, and their sights are set on topics of surpassing importance. What they do could determine where we get our health care and water for decades to come.

It's been a long legislative year. It began with talk from Schwarzenegger of a golden era of "post-partisanship" and a promise that the deficit for the next fiscal year would be eliminated. He also trotted out a comprehensive health care reform plan to cover the uninsured that he vowed to pass by the end of the session.

By May, state revenues had plummeted and the governor's revised budget featured a billion-dollar deficit. The summer's extended budget battle pitting Senate Republicans against both Democrats and the Republican governor put an end to any talk of post-partisan transcendence. Unable to win support for his health care bill, last week Schwarzenegger politely vetoed the Democratic Legislature's alternative.

Along the way there have been the usual flurry of bills, some more memorable than others. Lawmakers sponsored legislation to ban fluorescent light bulbs and spanking and to make dog spaying mandatory. Each attracted national attention and each met an early death.

Bills that actually made it to the governor's desk will, if signed, forbid smoking in cars when minors are passengers and require children under 9 to use car seats. A bill banning teens from using electronic gadgets while driving was signed, but, besides the budget, the only other major legislation that became law was a $7.7 billion reform plan passed to avert federal receivership of the state's prisons by creating 53,000 new beds.

But while the Legislature moved its mountain of relatively trivial bills, the snowballing crises in health care and water eluded the attention necessary for compromise.

The governor's health care plan was doomed from the start. Republicans argued that his proposal to impose a fee on the gross revenues of both hospitals and doctors to pay for it was actually a tax, and the Legislative Counsel agreed. According to California law, a tax increase would need the approval of two-thirds of the Legislature, virtually guaranteeing its defeat. Democrats also opposed a provision that would make health insurance compulsory.

Both the governor and Democrats would force most employers to spend a certain amount of their payroll on health care or pay that same percentage into a state fund. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office and many others have said these so-called "pay-or-play" provisions may run afoul of the federal law known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA. The act has typically been interpreted by the courts to prohibit the states from requiring employers to provide health insurance coverage to their employees.

Thus, whatever health care reform the solons of Sacramento settle upon could be stuck in court for many, many years.

But this hasn't slowed our would-be health reformers. Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders have struck upon a middle course that may have the Legislature pass a compromise bill but then ask voters to approve financing, which could include a fee on hospitals, an increase in the sales tax, or both.

Another of the governor's priorities has been the approval of a $6 billion bond to pay for water projects. That idea was going nowhere until a federal judge last month ruled that supplies from the Bay-Delta area to Southern California would have to be cut to protect the delta smelt. Unlike the health care conundrum, which may be better addressed at the federal level, our water woes are a true crisis California must solve on its own.

One of the projects that could be revived to protect water supplies is the controversial peripheral canal. The hope is that diverting water to avoid the delta would reduce environmental pressures on this sensitive area. It's among the most promising, though dauntingly expensive, long-term solutions for Southern California's water future.

It's easy to ridicule politicians, and our state legislators have held to form in spending most of their session mired in minuscule matters. But now our elected leaders are grappling with some particularly weighty issues that affect every Californian. If you haven't been following events in Sacramento, now may be a good time to start.