Voice for Valley

Plans ride on budget, 'Big Five' cooperation

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The Northern San Joaquin Valley has a bigger presence at the top levels of Sacramento with state Sen. Dave Cogdill's selection as minority leader.

But before you think that will mean wholesale improvements on local issues such as water and air quality, take a breather.

A whole host of factors limit the ability of Cogdill, R-Modesto, or any other legislator, from driving huge changes in the charged atmosphere of capital politics.

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One even Cogdill concedes: He represents not just a district, but, to an extent, a party.

As leader of the Senate Republican Caucus, Cogdill said, he's taking into consideration the wishes of GOP representatives statewide. Some of them care a lot about issues in the valley. Some don't.

"We have to beg, borrow and steal to get anything," said Cogdill, who added that, too often, the valley is a "redheaded stepchild" in currying the state's favor.

But on air quality and transportation, Cogdill believes, he can make the case that the valley's problems are the state's problems.

Bad air in the valley is partially a function of pollution that drifts from the Bay Area, Cogdill said. And Highway 99 is an important freeway not only for locals, but also for companies sending goods up and down the state, he said.

The valley can benefit if Cogdill can work with two of his colleagues in the so-called "Big Five" of legislative leaders and the governor.

Those two colleagues -- Republican Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines of Clovis and new Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento -- also hail from the valley and know its issues, Cogdill said.

But before any of them can get to pet issues, the daunting task of crafting a state budget during a time of huge deficits has to be done.

Cogdill, like his fellow Republicans and Gov. Schwarzenegger, has drawn a line in the sand over increasing taxes and wants to cut spending.

"We have to find a way to get beyond our spending addiction," Cogdill said. "Tax increases just aren't viable, and I think they hurt the economy in the long run."

A new budget will require a two-thirds majority vote, so Cogdill has a lever against any Democratic plan his caucus doesn't like. (Democrats have that kind of majority in the Assembly but not in the Senate.)

Larry Giventer, a political science professor at California State University, Stanislaus, said in an e-mail that that gives Republicans a kind of veto power.

Giventer wrote that because the Democrats don't have a two-thirds majority, the Republicans "can (and do) effectively thwart" the Democrats' policies, programs and spending or can even withhold approval until the plans are changed to the GOP's liking.

Yet that, too, is subject to considerations beyond the surface.

Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, represents a district neighboring Cogdill's. Largely because Denham wouldn't support a Democratic budget proposal last summer, he's now under a recall threat. And Democratic Party leaders believe they can capture two other Republican seats in the election this fall.

If Democrats take two of those three seats, they would have a two-thirds majority in the 40-member Senate and the ability to pass whatever legislation they wanted. Senate Republicans would cease to have influence.

Cogdill called a potential Denham recall the wrong way to punish a good legislator and expressed confidence in his party's ability to keep a more than one-third minority in the Senate.

If there's one change that could make his job easier, Cogdill said, it would be redistricting reform, and he'll push for it until 2014, when he will be termed out.

"You have to have hope in this business," Cogdill said of the chances of redistricting happening before 2011. That's when new census data mandate new political district maps.

"The Democrats realize they have a monopoly right now, and there's no reason for them to give that up," he said.

In the meantime, Cogdill said, he can portray the valley, increasingly a Republican stronghold, as a sensible region compared with left-wing legislators from coastal California.

If he's able to do so, he'll bring clout to the valley that hasn't been seen for decades in Sacramento, said one observer.

Randy Siefkin, a former GOP chairman in Stanislaus County and a retired Modesto Junior College political science professor, said term limits in the 1990s sapped the valley of the strong voice it had with legislators such as Ralph Brown and Clare Berryhill in the '50s and '60s.

The Democratic majority will frustrate Cogdill, Siefkin predicted.

But having scouted out the minority leader spot even during his days in the state Assembly, Cogdill said he's confident he can make a strong stand for what he supports.

"I'm not comfortable being a backbencher," Cogdill said. "It's just about continuing forward with sound public policy."

Bee staff writer Ben van der Meer can be reached at bvandermeer@modbee.com or 578-2331.