Citizen Soldiers Flock to Site of Budget Battle

SACRAMENTO — SACRAMENTO -- Manuel Romero has neither pricey suits nor personal relationships with the Capitol’s in crowd, but in his own way he is trying his best these days to act like a lobbyist.

The Hollywood security guard and about 4,000 church counterparts showed up in Sacramento last week to protest Gov. Gray Davis’ plan to slash spending on health care and other services to balance the state’s next budget, saying the cuts would fall too heavily on the poor.

With Davis trying to close a projected $23.6-billion budget hole this summer, rallies are springing up around the Capitol as the elderly, firefighters, police officers and housing advocates seek to protect their piece of the pie.

In the process, Californians such as Romero, who belongs to a coalition of faith-based groups that have lobbied to expand health care for the uninsured, are putting a human face on what can be an arcane document: the state’s $100-billion budget.

By making the trip to Sacramento, the demonstrators are exceeding traditional displays of political participation, such as voting or making a campaign contribution. Their public pleas for funding also stand in contrast to traditional lobbying, much of which occurs behind closed doors or at private parties that feature food, booze and the occasional ice sculpture.

Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a group that lobbies on behalf of the poor during the budget process, said the number of ordinary Californians who showed up last week marked a substantial difference from the protests during California’s last budget crisis a decade ago.

“It’s important for people who don’t have a pool of lobbyists to come and weigh in on critical budget issues and provide a voice for people who don’t have one,” Ross said.

Rallies are helpful, according to Peter Szego, a volunteer lobbyist for the AARP who previously worked as a chief of staff to a state senator, but he said lobbying individual lawmakers is what really pays off. Many groups, in fact, hold a rally and then retreat inside the Capitol to meet with lawmakers.

“People who get elected to office automatically tend to react to what their constituents tell them,” Szego said. “Events are influenced by what we do.”

The American Assn. of Retired Persons was one of roughly a dozen groups that rallied this month to draw attention to seniors issues. The event drew more than 2,000 Californians to the Capitol.

Szego said his group, which boasts 3 million members in California, wants the governor and lawmakers to restore federal and state cost-of-living increases for certain disabled Californians.

Other issues that have prompted Capitol rallies this spring include preserving a program to hire new police officers and expanding a health insurance program so that it covers 300,000 parents of poor children, rather than only the children.

Romero, who is married with two children, said his family must wait in long lines at a hospital when ill because he can’t afford insurance. He wants state officials to expand health coverage to the working poor so that he and his family can get insurance. “I don’t feel comfortable,” he said of his maiden “lobbying” journey to Sacramento. “I feel angry. It’s more difficult for the uninsured.”

Romero belongs to the Pacific Institute for Community Organization, a coalition of faith-based groups that has lobbied to expand health care to the poor. An estimated 4,000 members showed up in Sacramento last week for a rally, which garnered an appearance by Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City), and to present state officials with copies of their “Fair Share Budget Plan.”

Under the plan, members would agree to pay higher vehicle license fees, but also want corporations and wealthy Californians to pay higher taxes to help avoid deep cuts to health care and social services.

Davis proposed the cuts in the revised budget he released earlier this month. Lawmakers will incorporate the governor’s proposals into a compromise plan that requires a two-thirds approval of the Legislature. Until the budget is approved, individuals with a stake will continue trying to sway Davis and lawmakers.

“We receive all forms of communication,” said Matt Back, chief of staff for Assemblyman John Campbell, the Irvine Republican who handles budget matters for his caucus. Back estimated that over a two-day period his office received more than 100 faxes from groups hoping to restore proposed budget cuts.

They include one from the executive director of the Pasadena Conservatory of Music about a “devastating and crippling 57% cut” in funding for the California Arts Council. Another comes from a Long Beach doctor who asked Campbell to reject attempts to cut reimbursements paid to physicians who participate in the Medi-Cal program.

“The more contact we get from groups the more influence they have, but there is certainly no guarantees,” Back said.

Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza, the Long Beach Democrat who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee, described the rallies and office visits by constituents as “very, very valuable.”

“It’s easy to look at all of these recommendations on a piece of paper and lose touch that we’re talking about real human beings,” Oropeza said. That fact was not lost on the several hundred police officers, firefighters, sheriff’s deputies and officials from city and county governments from around the state who converged on the Capitol recently to ask state officials to balance the state’s budget without cutting money to local governments.

Davis’ revised budget would cut or delay funding that aids libraries, buys high-technology equipment for peace officers and helps cities pay counties for booking people into county jails.

Advocates for women, meanwhile, held a news conference at the Capitol last week to release a report on the number of California women--more than one in three single women and their dependent children--living in poverty. Patti Chang, president of the Women’s Foundation, warned that officials would be balancing the budget at women’s expense by cutting programs to help women become financially secure.

The abundance of news conferences and rallies raises the question of whether any are reaching policymakers. Shane Goldsmith, an organizer for the National Campaign for Jobs & Income Support, said many groups support one another’s efforts.

“We’re just here to echo that message one more time,” Goldsmith said last week as she stood in a downpour waiting for her group’s “Save the Safety Net for Children and Families” rally to begin outside the Capitol.

Alas for Goldsmith, the event was canceled after word spread of a tornado warning.