Frustration mounts over the crucial overhaul of California’s water system as the legislature worked for weeks behind closed doors to develop a plan that will be put up for vote before the public has time to examine and discuss it. -DB
October 24, 2009
By Wyatt Buchanan
SACRAMENTO – Leaders at the Capitol say they are on the verge of a historic vote on a multibillion-dollar plan to overhaul California’s water system, but for weeks negotiations on the package have been conducted entirely behind closed doors by a handful of lawmakers.
The public, the full Legislature and the various groups with a stake in the deal probably will have just a few days to see the final plan before it is put up for a vote, which could happen in the next several days. State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, introduced a copy of the 150-page bill late Friday. But many people say they are frustrated by the lack of an open discussion on one of the biggest issues facing the state.
Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, called the water negotiations a “terrible process” that could ultimately jeopardize the plan.
“My concern is that no matter what comes out of this it won’t be a solution to the problem because of the way it is being put together,” said Wolk, who represents counties surrounding the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta at the heart of the state’s water system. She has essentially been cut out of the negotiations by Senate leadership.
Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, echoed Wolk’s concern about the private process hurting the package’s prospects. He said the attitude among legislative leaders is, “If we’ve done the work, you should be OK with it because we’ve done the thinking for you.”
Early versions of the package of bills included proposed laws that would create an oversight body for the delta, boost statewide conservation, improve monitoring of who uses what water and how much, and establish a commission to oversee delta water issues.
The last public discussion of the water package came on the final day of the regular legislative session in September, when some of the bills were rushed through an Assembly committee. They were never voted upon by the full Assembly, however. Since then, water has dominated work in Sacramento. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger even threatened to veto most of the Legislature’s bills if lawmakers did not resolve their differences on the plan.
Democratic and Republican legislative leaders have held lengthy meetings with farming and environmental interests, plus water districts and others to resolve outstanding issues over things like conservation, groundwater monitoring, water rights and construction of dams – and the talks have been done entirely outside of public view. Other lawmakers and interest groups are eagerly awaiting actual bill language to know if and how differences on those issues are proposed to be resolved.
Leaders in the state Senate said finding a solution to the decades-old water debate requires the process be done in private and that the issues have been discussed in public for years.
“It’s very nitty-gritty details, most of which was discussed in a public forum when groups came and discussed what they supported or opposed about the proposed language, and we are hammering out the details,” said Alicia Trost, spokeswoman Steinberg.
The Legislature had held a series of meetings and hearings on the water package throughout the year, but not since the real heavy lifting began on the most controversial elements of the package.
Trost and others said the closed-door meetings on controversial issues are partly a result of politics at the Capitol and fears of publicly expressing unpopular ideas due to a “term-limited Legislature where a member is always concerned about what office they are running for next.”
Barbara O’Connor, political science professor at Sacramento State University, said she does not like the closed-door dealing but called it a “necessary evil” due in part to extreme distrust among lawmakers at the Capitol. She said it does not violate the letter of the Brown Act, the state’s open meetings law, but does run counter to the act’s spirit.
“The Brown Act really requires and intends that anything done needs to be done in open and in sunshine, but, candidly, nothing would get done if they didn’t” meet privately, she said.
Closed-door governing is becoming more common, said O’Connor and other political observers, and it dominates much of the work done on the state’s budget. At a hearing on government reform this week, Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), said the Legislature was becoming a “dog and pony show” on important issues like the budget because of the private meetings.
“If we want to see more faith in state government … I think we need to go back to the way it used to be,” Strickland said, adding that the work should be done in legislative committees that are open to the public.
With the water package, even groups that have been central in the private talks would prefer a more open process.
Cynthia Koehler, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, called Sacramento a “mysterious place” in terms of proposals becoming law.
“At the end of the day I would rather see a process with more hearings, more opportunities to educate people and bring people on,” she said.
Copyright 2009 Hearst Communications Inc.