Perhaps no legislative proposal in recent memory has cut closer to the bone of California's state-local governance problems than AB 680, Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg's proposal to create a tax-sharing system for metropolitan Sacramento. And there's one simple reason for that: While tax-sharing has been discussed in legislative circles for close to 20 years, Steinberg's bill is the only one that has ever actually gotten very far. Despite intense opposition from most Sacramento suburbs and the League of California Cities, Steinberg's bill has passed the Assembly – a remarkable achievement apparently due in part to the assemblyman's rising stature in the Legislature. The bill proposes altering the sales-tax distribution formula for metro Sacramento in exactly the way that good-government reformers often call for. It would allow all jurisdictions in the region to hang on to their current sales-tax base, but it would distribute future growth in a different way. A third would go to the jurisdiction where the retail transaction takes place. But another third would be distributed based on population and the final third would be distributed to jurisdictions that meet certain housing and planning goals. It's hard to imagine that Steinberg's bill will survive the legislative session. Nevertheless, the mere fact that Steinberg's bill is still alive suggests that something is different in the Capitol these days. With more and more ex-local officials populating the Legislature, it may well be that the Capitol will begin to serve more frequently as a proxy for regional government, as it has in smaller states. Part of the reason why this happens is that it's really hard to broker a productive regional conversation at the regional level. Regionalism is tricky in any metropolitan area with a dominant central city and a series of smaller suburbs. It is virtually impossible for any central-city politician to promote regionalism without being accused of trying to cut a sweet deal for the central city. This is exactly what is happening to Steinberg, a former Sacramento city councilman. He's not the first one to suffer this fate. It's exactly the same thing that happened to William Johnson, the mayor of Rochester, N.Y. In national circles, Johnson is regarded as an enlightened paragon of regionalism and "smart growth." Back in metropolitan Rochester, however, he is often accused of appropriating these agendas to channel wealth from the ‘burbs back to the once-proud central city, whose population has dropped so much that Rochester is now about the same size as Fremont and Huntington Beach. Given that political reality, many central-city politicians will tell you that if they want to promote regionalism they have to do it sideways, by whispering in the ear of suburban mayors and asking them to carry the torch instead. But this brings its own risk with it. For a suburban politician, it's almost impossible to promote regionalism without being accused of seeking to dilute central city (often meaning minority) political power. That's why so few metropolitan areas in the United States have merged their central city and central county. Indianapolis has a city-county "Unigov," and Louisville, Kentucky, will merge with its surrounding county next year – but those are rarities. Sacramento city and county have never done so despite repeated discussions. The hue and cry from suburban Sacramento over the Steinberg bill sounds typical on the surface. Republican Assemblyman Dave Cox, who represents most of the eastern suburbs, complained that the bill allows the Legislature "to impose our will" and therefore "wipes out local control." William Kristoff, the mayor of West Sacramento, came out against the bill because, he said, "it creates winners and losers." These comments are probably good politics in the ‘burbs, where the appearance of local control is really important. But they conveniently ignore an undeniable reality: The Legislature has already imposed its will on local governments, and the system already creates winners and losers. The state's tax distribution system is not a level playing field. It rewards jurisdictions for luring retail transactions inside their boundaries and, combined with Proposition 13, penalizes them for approving most housing development. This is not a deliberate state policy, but it is the net effect of all the tax laws currently in place. Furthermore, the state has created a series of other "default" mechanisms that allow some cities to gain a financial advantage over others. For example, because there is no other method for adjacent jurisdictions to negotiate with each other over "impact mitigation" from development projects, the cities feeling "impacted" – especially by traffic – often sue under the California Environmental Quality Act. And they often settle out of court for road money. Thus, CEQA becomes a method of transferring funds from one jurisdiction to another – but, in most cases, only from jurisdictions accepting development to jurisdictions smart enough to hire good CEQA lawyers. A similar series of games can be played with redevelopment. At least Steinberg's bill forces many people to acknowledge the fact that the state's tax distribution system and other state processes create a de facto regional planning system that already circumscribes local control. And the Sacramento debate has raised another important – and increasingly relevant – point about regionalism: It is rarely a central-city-versus-suburb debate anymore because suburbs themselves are so different. Claiming that the Steinberg bill was, in fact, a central-city power grab, political columnist Dan Walters pointed out that the bill is unlikely to hurt the already-tax-rich suburb of Roseville, which would be held harmless – but it might hurt emerging close-in suburbs such as West Sacramento and Elk Grove, which hope to grow their sales tax base considerably in the future. Meanwhile, Mayor Kristoff of West Sacramento expressed support for a financial assessment on long commutes – a proposal that would probably help his city but harm a distant suburb, such as Rocklin. Steinberg's bill will have a tough time in the Senate, where the lobbying will be even more intense. The bill's chances were not helped when the Legislative Counsel issued an opinion in February that said the state constitution required the region's voters to approve the tax-sharing plan. Steinberg disagreed with the opinion, although he did not dismiss putting the issue on the ballot. The Legislature is not a perfect proxy for regionalism because Assembly districts in California run to 400,000 people, which makes them much larger than the typical city. (Sacramento, by coincidence, is about 400,000 people, meaning Steinberg really is the city's assemblyman.) But the Capitol's role in this debate might grow, for the simple reason that local interests in the regionalism debate are getting more diverse and regionalism really has no other political forum to gravitate toward. Of course, regionalism would get a big push if California's governor were truly interested in it. It's hard to imagine the ever-cautious Gray Davis taking real interest in this bill. The political equation could have been altered by a Gov. Richard Riordan. After all, he is simultaneously an elderly white Republican and the former mayor of a mostly minority central city – meaning he might have been inoculated enough (or conflicted enough) to take on the issue. However, the man who beat Riordan in the GOP primary earlier this month, Bill Simon, has shown even less interest in land use planning than Gov. Davis.