But Governor Schwarzenegger, bored with the traditional rancor between Democrats and Republicans, has decided to shake things up

According to a draft copy of an executive order leaked to the Sacramento Bee, the governor plans to temporarily reduce the pay of 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour if the Legislature fails to reach a budget agreement.

The governor’s office is framing this as a “loan” that will be paid back to state workers once a budget is in place.  Excluded from the governor’s plan are 2,849 state legislators, political appointees, and legislative staff, who have not been paid since July 1, but can receive no-interest banks loans until a budget is passed.

I sympathize and concur, as should most Californians, with the governor’s obvious frustration at not receiving a budget before the June 15 deadline.  But what the governor is proposing is political cowardliness masked in tough-guy bravado.

In what has become an annual event in Sacramento, on par with the State Fair, the Legislature, for myriad reasons, cannot produce a budget on time. It requires a 2/3 vote to pass the budget, which gives those in the minority tremendous leverage.

In addition, the number of “safe seats” within the Legislature makes the natural political process of compromise less appealing. Democrats and Republicans have no incentive to compromise because there is little price to pay at the ballot box for engaging in this annual stalemate.

But do the governor’s frustrations warrant the state’s 200,000 workers to become political pawns?  To even suggest the federal minimum wage, which is $1.45 lower that the state’s $8.00 per hour, is an act of blatant disrespect.

It is not as if the governor arrived at this draconian decision with clean hands. He too has offered a take-it-or-leave-it budget that was objectionable to the Democratic majority.

Has he rolled up his sleeves to reach a compromise with Democrats?  Has he exhausted all possibilities in moving the Republican minority closer to the middle?

Clearly, the failure to produce a budget on time has more to do with how the current system is structured than the state workers, who through no fault of their own will potentially face economic chaos if the governor goes ahead with his plan. How much thought, if any, was given to the pain state workers may incur because of elected official’s failure to agree on a budget?

Will lending institutions understand if a prolonged budget stalemate results in the inability of state workers to pay their mortgages?  How about utility companies and the local super market, will they understand?

I’m quite certain the governor factored rising gas and food prices, along with those employees who have long commutes before devising this plan.

To view this as the governor proposing to cut 200,000 state employees salaries back to the federal minimum wage until there is a budget oversimplifies the point.  What he really is offering is a political strong-arm tactic that could adversely impact the livelihood of a number of judges, teachers, correctional employees, administrative personnel, custodians, and others.

Twenty-two consecutive years of failing to meet the budget deadline is more than enough data to conclude California’s budget process is dysfunctional. Moreover, embedded into the current system are disincentives, achieved with voter approval, to make budget compromises.

Suppose momentarily the governor’s plan works and a budget is agreed upon in order avoid cutting state worker’s salaries, do we want to set this precedent as a manner for conducting the people’s business in the future?

One of Gandhi’s seven deadly sins is politics without principle. If the governor makes good on his threat to reduce the pay of state workers to the federal minimum wage until the Legislature passes a budget we will witness the Gandhian proverb played out in the most Machiavellian terms.