Democrats don't do pension reform. Why not? Gov. Jerry Brown made it all but official Tuesday: Democrats have blown their chance to put a pension reform measure on the ballot in November. That may somehow rank as a victory for public employee unions, but it could spell trouble for the proposed tax increase the state is counting on to avoid more layoffs and cuts in service. Brown's spokesman, Gil Duran, told reporters that the governor couldn't accept the counteroffer that legislative negotiators made Sunday, and that he didn't want to try to rush to a deal in the few days remaining before lawmakers went on recess. That's a valid concern; mistakes made in the pension arena are difficult to undo, as state and local governments have learned the hard way. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said lawmakers and Brown have many areas of agreement, and they plan to continue negotiations during the recess. "The Legislature has worked exceptionally hard to agree to a common direction that addresses all 12 points in the governor's plan," Steinberg said in a statement. In fact, our proposal went even further with over a dozen additional reforms to public pensions. We also took a different approach in a few areas. We understand why the governor needs more time to analyze our full proposal. Nevertheless, it's worth asking why Democrats missed what should have been an obvious deadline for coming to terms on a proposal. Republicans served notice early last year that they planned to use pension costs as a counter-argument to any proposal by Democrats to raise taxes. Their pitch goes something like this: "Sacramento has a multibillion-dollar budget gap, but rather than rein in the pensions paid to their union buddies, the Democrats want to raise your taxes." Never mind that pension reform won't save much in the short term; this sort of argument strikes me as pretty effective. It didn't take Brown long to respond. After Republicans demanded pension reform as a condition for voting to put a tax increase on the ballot, Brown laid out a seven-point pension reform plan in March 2011. He fleshed out his proposal in October, calling for significantly higher contributions from employees, hybrid plans for new workers that combined a smaller pension with a 401 (k) plan and Social Security benefits, and increasing to 67 the age that non-public-safety state workers could retire with full benefits. Republicans embraced the package; Democrats did not. Instead, the latter held a long series of public hearings on pension reform, then moved talks behind closed doors (with no GOP participation, Republicans complain). Several of Brown's proposals could be construed as reducing the value of current employees' pension benefits, and as such may run afoul of the state Constitution. So lawmakers may have perfectly legitimate reasons for resisting the governor on this issue. The complexity of pension law also makes it a challenge for lawmakers to change the rules without inviting lawsuits or yielding unintended consequences. All the same, pension reform should have been a top priority for Democrats -- not just to shore up troubled local and state pension funds and avoid the piecemeal (and questionably legal) reforms advanced through local ballot measures, but also to help sell the public on a tax increase to close the state's budget gap. The party's leaders have tried to convince voters that they've done everything they can to avoid asking for a tax increase, repeatedly cutting the benefits for low-income and disabled Californians, the budget for the state's criminal justice system and aid to schools, community colleges and the public university system. Unless they have a credible pension reform proposal, however, voters may be receptive to the argument that the Democrats have shielded their allies from needed cuts. At stake is more than $8 billion worth of proposed tax increases that the state is counting on to avoid yet more cuts, including big public school reductions that could shorten the academic year by three weeks. And now, the tax measure is virtually certain to be on the ballot with no pension reform proposal to sweeten the deal for skeptical voters. Photo gallery: Ted Rall cartoons Has China lost its taste for shark fin? Goldberg: Live free -- and uninsured