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Cavala: Republicans Kill Reform Bill That Hurts G.O.P. Chances While Democrats Support ‘Reform’ That Hurts Their Chances

towashington 089.gif By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

Legislative Republicans killed another effort to extend voting rights to young people yesterday. Legislation that would have allowed young people to “pre-register” in high school if they would hit 18 years of age by the following election received no Republican votes in the Assembly (again).

Republican opponents derided the measure as favoring Democrats because, “young people are liberal”, becoming conservative with time and experience.

Now whether that is true or not, one would have to give credit to the Republicans for defending the interests of their party in the face of MSM (Main Stream Media) coverage that is critical in nature. Republicans have never pulled punches about playing by Marquis of Queensberry rules in politics. Republican politicians believe in the ideology of their party, and have shown a willingness to bend rules and fight “bare knuckled” to further that ideology.

Progressive Democrats, however, seem overly affected by traces of Marxist historicism most of the time. The truth will out, justice will prevail, history is on our side. The sad truth is that none of that is true. Progressive victories will only occur by beating Republicans. In that context, we need not accept handicaps.

When Democrats win a majority of the votes in the Legislature, they win the right to deny Republicans a majority on all policy committees and to retain all chairmanships and most of the policy staff for themselves. Is that fair? Shouldn’t Democrats change the rules to give more power to the Republicans?

Republicans think so.

Republicans also favor “redistricting reform” – and for the same reason. Behind all of the rhetoric about fairness, legislative conflicts of interest, and a desire to make seats more competitive lies a single motive: Produce a configuration of seats that makes a Republican Speaker a possibility.

Shouldn’t Democrats change the rules to make this possible? Republicans think so. So do Common Cause and the League of Women Voters – two groups who don’t think it matters whether Democrats have a majority or not. They try to shame politically correct Democrats into suicide in the interest of fairness to Republicans.

What has Common Cause done to further the interests of the poor? To advance Civil Rights? To fight bigotry? Both these “good government” groups supported the effort to enfranchise young voters. But testimony at a committee hearing is quite a different thing than lending the prestige of your group with the media to a Republican-financed effort to change the rules of redistricting to hurt the Democratic Party.

Democrats who go along with this travesty should look up the word, quisling.

Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years.

He attended undergraduate and graduate school in the 1960’s and received a doctorate in political science at UC Berkeley. He taught political science at UC Berkeley during the 1970's while he worked part-time for the State Assembly.

Cavala left teaching at UC Berkeley and went to work for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1981 until his tenure as Speaker ended in 1995, and he has worked for his five successors as Speaker up to and including Speaker Fabian Nunez.

Mr. Cavala manages election campaigns for Democratic candidates.

Posted on June 09, 2008

Comments

If the only reason Democrats have a majority is because of gerrymandering, then something is seriously out of whack. The Democrats will continue to have a majority whether or not they are drawing the lines, the one difference with redistricting reform is that they will more justly have a majority

Posted by: Ben at June 9, 2008 04:25 PM

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