California Controller Cuts Off Pay for State Lawmakers

The CA budget that was submitted to Gov. Moonbeam last week was nothing but a ploy to meet a new law's requirement that a budget be submitted on time lest the legislators lose their pay.  The budget was full of gimmicks and was clearly illegal in that it raised taxes with the required 2/3rd majority.  The State Controller, a Democrat just like the leadership of both houses and the governor, didn't buy it:

Controller John Chiang announced today he has blocked pay for lawmakers, rejecting his own party's spending plan as insufficient to satisfy a voter-approved law on timely budgets.

In doing so, the Democratic controller is exercising unprecedented authority Tuesday, establishing a new role for his office under Propositions 25 and 58 to determine whether a legislative budget is "balanced."

"My office's careful review of the recently-passed budget found components that were miscalculated, miscounted or unfinished," Chiang said in a statement. "The numbers simply did not add up, and the Legislature will forfeit their pay until a balanced budget is sent to the Governor."

The controller said he determined that the Democratic budget spent $89.75 million but only provided $87.9 billion revenues, leaving a $1.85 billion imbalance.

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez said in a statement that he believes the controller "was wrong."

"The Controller is, in effect, allowing Legislative Republicans to control the budget process and I believe that's a very unfortunate outcome that is inconsistent with the intent of Proposition 25," said Pérez, D-Los Angeles. "In the coming days, we will be taking additional budget action informed by the Controller's analysis, and consistent with the values of the budget we passed last week."

Good for Chiang! Maybe now the people in Sacramento will begin to get serious.