California's 2014-15 Budget: Political Corruption Distracts the State

Abstract

Governor Jerry Brown used the relatively easy budget negotiations during this budget cycle to set himself up to run as the elder statesman seeking reelection for an unprecedented fourth term as governor. But it was not budget politics or even elections that occupied Sacramento's attention this fiscal year, but rather a series of three separate political corruption investigations and convictions in the State Senate that tarnished the Golden State. These cases not only generated a great deal of negative media attention, but they cost the Democrats three seats, as the caucus was forced to suspend all three senators. This denied the Democrats their supermajority in the Senate, and therefore the legislature as a whole.