It’s All About Deliberation

Two forces collided in the Assembly this week: expediency and the ideals of representative government. This time, expediency won. That’s not necessarily bad, but lawmakers mustn’t forget that bills have to be given close scrutiny at some point before they become law.

The dilemma was that both houses of the Legislature had big backlogs of bills awaiting action before a deadline tonight. After midnight, any Assembly bill not yet passed by that chamber is dead for the year. Likewise for bills originating in the Senate. This is one of those deadlines set in recent years to keep the legislative train on track.

The backlog was worse in the Assembly, the result of massive inexperience among the membership and a total turnover in leadership.

On Wednesday, progress in the Assembly was glacial, with constant questions about bills and a variety of parliamentary tactics--many of them carried out just to cause political mischief.

One member demanded that debate be limited to a few minutes on each bill. That met with protest by Tom McClintock (R-Northridge), a self-appointed conscience of the Assembly on the traditions of unfettered debate. If the lawmakers were going to gloss over important issues, McClintock declared, they might as well stay home and vote by e-mail.

A parliamentary crisis was averted by an agreement to limit discussion of each bill to about 10 minutes. The pace picked up. But even so, it would have taken 40 hours to dispose of all the bills. On Thursday, the pace ground down again as action on bills was repeatedly interrupted by party caucuses to plot strategy.

McClintock does have a point about the tradition of unrestrained legislative debate, even though it rarely changes members’ votes. If practiced with discipline and reason, full debate in Sacramento can be illuminating and productive, as was the emotional 90-minute session on gay students’ rights the other evening.

A legislature by definition is a deliberative body. Whenever state lawmakers are tempted to distort the process for political tricks, or act in undue haste, they should ponder the clause that appears at the head of every bill: “The people of California do enact as follows. . . .”

The people. That should be a sobering reminder.