California budget: Republicans release list of demands

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Late Friday, state Senate Republicans released a seven-page document detailing the list of policy changes they say that they need to be implemented before they are willing to vote for Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget.

DOCUMENT: Read the complete list

The list includes much-discussed efforts to scale back public pensions, impose stricter limits on state spending and ease regulatory rules.

But other wide-ranging proposals were added, such as ending the seniority system for teachers facing layoffs, moving next year’s presidential primary to March and restoring funding to protect rural lands from development. The document also asks Brown to abandon his push to eliminate redevelopment agencies, rewrite a tax formula favorable to corporations and ax a corporate tax break for businesses hiring workers in blighted areas.

Brown spokesman Gil Duran called the list ‘a hodgepodge.’

In a statement, Senate minority leader Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga) and Sen. Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) said the demands were to make “critical adjustments to the governor’s flawed budget.”

‘Republicans were accused of being the party of ‘no’ and now Republicans are accused of being the party of ‘too much yes,’ ‘ they said.

It is unusual for such a negotiating document to be made public in the midst of talks and could be a sign negotiations are collapsing.

‘Serious negotiations cannot be carried out through the press,’ Duran said.

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento