What is that word? It means the willful disregard of the rules, or the court, or the Legislature. Judges use it when people don?t respect the court. BContempt!C Yep, that?s it.

When the will of the ruling body is clearly known and someone completely ignores that will, they are showing contempt for the will of the authority. If the ruling body indeed has authority, then it can take action against the persons showing contempt. A judge can decide that someone has shown contempt for the court and direct the marshal to detain that person in the local hoosegow.

If the ruling authority does not have its own law enforcement agency, then the ruling authority can be ignored, as Andrew Jackson did when the Supreme Court ruled against him the 1832 in Worcester v. Georgia. Justice John Marshall ruled that the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation was illegal, in violation of existing treaties and also unconstitutional. Jackson?s reply showed his own contempt for the court when he said, BJohn Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can.C Since the president controls the military and the Supreme Court relies on the president to enforce the law, it can do little when the president chooses to break the rules.

Similarly, the California Legislature can ignore the state constitution with impunity. We, the people of the great State of California, are supposed to be the ultimate ruling authority, but we don?t have the power to do anything when the Legislature acts in a contemptuous way. The way democracy is supposed to work is the way Lincoln paraphrased it; BGovernment of the people, by the people, and for the people. …C We, the people, are the government. But, increasingly, we feel like we are the subjects and the government is those who have the power to abuse us.

The California Constitution is perfectly clear. Article 4, Section 12, (c)(3) BThe Legislature shall pass the budget bill by midnight on June 15 of each year.C

Now, that?s pretty exact, isn?t it? Kind of like bringing your car to a complete stop behind the limit line? Can you imagine explaining to the police officer pulling you over for running the stop sign that you don?t have to obey the limits if the state doesn?t obey the limits. BJust sign here. Please.C

Now, stay with me just a bit longer. Imagine that you are a legislator in a state with severe financial troubles: People are losing their jobs, losing their homes, companies are going bankrupt, poor people are going hungry, wealth is disappearing like a snow cone in Needles, and all of that is affecting your ability to raise income.

What do you do? If you are in California, you ignore your constitutional mandate, and you hold the whole state ransom to your political agenda; people with state contracts go without payment for 30, 60, now 90-plus days, more companies file for bankruptcy, more people lose their jobs, more homes are lost to foreclosure, your actions actually accelerate the decline in home values by strangling the state economy, which will result in millions of dollars of lost tax revenue to the counties and the state.

Then when you finally do propose a budget, you illegally borrow against funds you do not control, stealing money from next year?s budget, and insuring that the budget impasse the next year will be much worse.

Our legislators do this, with the mistaken understanding that the people of the state who are registered Republican and Democrat are in lock step with their political ideology. They think that people sit home at night cheering for the Braise no new taxesC Republicans or for the Btax the rich and care for the less fortunateC Democrats instead of watching reruns of Gilligan?s Island. Such is life on planet Sacramento.

But I don?t believe that most Republican and Democratic voters are sitting at home every night cheering for their sides of the aisle in Sacramento. Perhaps I am in my own little world here, but I think most Californians understand that the word BbalanceC in balanced budget means that things are added and subtracted from both sides of the scale until the whole thing balances.

Politics is the art of compromise. We elect legislators to legislate, pass laws, care for the state and all the people of the state. But our legislators care more about their partisan politics, to the destruction of the whole state economy.

We need another word; BcontemptC is not strong enough.

Next week: What to do?

The Rev. Steve Petty is pastor of First United Methodist Church and was elected unopposed to the Spencer Valley School Board in 1979. E-mail him at spetty.record@verizon.net.

September 19, 2008