Gov. Brown Warns Of Political Crisis

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- California Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday said he is concerned the deep partisanship on display in the nation's capital during the debate over raising the federal debt limit reflects a larger political crisis for the nation.

The Democratic governor said in a telephone interview that his attempts to negotiate a bipartisan state budget deal earlier this year were characterized by the same level of intransigence in the Republican Party that he observed in Congress.

The governor signed a state spending plan last month based primarily on spending cuts after it was passed by majority Democrats without Republican support.

Brown was unable to get GOP support for what he had hoped would be a balanced approach that would have addressed what had been a $26.6 billion deficit through spending cuts and a renewal of expiring tax increases. The temporary hikes to the personal income, sales and vehicle taxes had been enacted under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.

"I found the same thing with California when I couldn't even get one Republican to vote to extend taxes that had been voted in by the previous governor and they just said, We'll be recalled. They basically said they're frozen in fear of Republican activists who they felt would recall them," Brown said.

He added, "That same fear is in Washington, so the country is facing a governability crisis."

Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway of Tulare said Brown hasn't stood up to union leaders whom she says dictate Brown's political agenda.

"That's an interesting perspective coming from the same man who refused to stand up to his union boss allies by putting pension reform and a spending cap on the ballot," Conway said.

GOP state lawmakers had wanted reforms to the public pension system, a state spending cap and an overhaul of state business regulations in exchange for authorizing a special election, but in the end could not close a deal with the governor.

Republicans criticized the Democratic budget plan for lack of long-term reforms, saying it does nothing to address California's chronic imbalance between the amount of tax money coming in and its annual spending obligations.

Brown says the Republican Party's stance on taxes and government spending has made it nearly impossible to forge compromises. Brown, who first served as California governor from 1975 to 1983, called the change ominous. He said even his plan to ease state prison overcrowding by having counties take responsibility for low-level offenders has become partisan when it shouldn't be viewed that way.

"This didn't exist when I was governor the last time," Brown said.

The governor said Democrats are not blameless. He said they increasingly vote together, which undermines "the independent, robust debate that democracy assumes."

In Washington, D.C., President Barack Obama signed legislation Tuesday to avoid an unprecedented national default that he said would have devastated the U.S. economy. GOP lawmakers held out on raising the federal debt limit unless they got federal spending cuts. The deal cuts federal spending by $2.1 trillion or more over the next decade.

Brown warned that federal spending cuts would hurt California's ability to invest in its education system and infrastructure. He said he's currently reviewing hundreds of bills before him and he's still planning to pursue an initiative for new revenues.

"The parties are fighting at the expense of the country and my goal will be to summon the political class to higher ground," he said. "That's the only way forward."

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)