The $3 Million Dollar-A-Day Delay

Despite the assumed end to the prison crisis, there's still no bill to clarify the $1.2 billion dollars in savings assumed from cuts in the July budget. The Assembly passed a bill that fell $200 million dollars short and had almost no prison reform in it (some parole reform, but no prison reform), and the Senate has yet to take that bill up. After word yesterday that the Senate would do so, Darrell Steinberg backed away from it, seeking to give more time to the Assembly to add more reform and more cuts into the bill. Because the bill only requires a majority vote, it takes effect 90 days after passage. Which means that every day with no bill costs the state $3.3 million dollars. This is the consequence of so-called fiscal conservatives in the Yacht Party, as well as their higher-office-seeking bretheren in the Assembly Democratic caucus, wanting to look tough on crime. As the State Worker notes, this delay is taking a daily hit on the savings gained from furloughs:

Here's one way that furloughed state workers could look at this: The CDCR budget impasse is whittling away at savings from furloughs. If you take that $3.3 million and multiply it by the 70 days from July 1 through today, you realize the state has burned through $231 million.

A single furlough day cuts about $61 million from the state's payroll, although not all of that savings is in the general fund. (The rounded math: $2.2 billion divided by 36 furlough days in the fiscal year.) If you narrow it down to just salaries that the administration defines as being in the general fund, one furlough day equals about $35 million. (Double check our rounded numbers: $1.3 billion divided by the 36 furlough days.)

In other words, this budget-stalemate-in-miniature has squandered the equivalent of about four furlough days for everyone or nearly seven furlough days if you look only at general fund employees.

Other states have used smart on crime policies to reduce spending without any loss in public safety. They are taking new looks at non-violent offenders, relaxing draconian sentencing policies, targeting parole resources to those who need supervision and concurrently lowering recidivism rates through rehabilitation. Right now, California has the exact wrong set of policies on prisons.

In fact, California is nationally known "for having the most dysfunctional sentencing and parole system" in the country, according to Stanford University professor Joan Petersilia, a criminologist who has spent years working with state officials trying to implement reforms.

"We're too harsh and too lenient. Simultaneously," Petersilia said.

Our mix of tough laws and fixed terms doesn't give prison officials the flexibility to push low-risk offenders toward rehabilitation and keep dangerous criminals behind bars.

But reform efforts haven't gained public traction because we're too busy trying to keep people behind bars -- with Jessica's Law, Megan's Law, the three-strikes law -- to take a hard look at whether locking up more people actually makes us safer.

"The public doesn't understand how illogical the whole system has become," Petersilia said. "We think that somehow we've created something that is able to call out the most dangerous people, send them to prison and keep them in for a very long time.

"And the public is willing to pay whatever it takes to get that type of crime policy."

I disagree with the last sentence. The public is willing to be frightened into initiatives that do nothing for public safety and just spend money needlessly, because they've seen no leadership on the other side for an alternative conception of how to protect the public sensibly and best manage our cirminal justice system. Nobody has argued in public for a more intelligent system for so long, that the public willingness to believe in its possibility has atrophied. We can keep the lock-em-up policies or we can look to a better future. Either way, we're blowing $3 million a day while some Assembly Democrats go on a desperate search for their spines.

Steinberg: Assembly's Prison Effort "Not A Complete Bill"

The Assembly's passage of a prison "reform" bill is not the end of the line for the legislation, as the Senate simply won't accept it in this form.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the reaction in the Senate to the Assembly's low calorie prison bill was muted. Senate Democrats certainly wouldn't have come out and said the plan stinks. But there's no official timetable on a reconciliation vote in the upper house, either.

The official response from Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg came in a written statement: "The Assembly took a good first step today but it’s not a complete package. In the coming weeks, I look forward to working with (Assembly) Speaker Karen Bass and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on further reforms that will strengthen our criminal justice system."

The key phrase in that statement: "In the coming weeks." This one's not going to go away anytime soon.

The main reason is that the Assembly bill costs $233 million more to the overall budget than the Senate's, and that money simply does not exist. It'll eventually come out of the hides of other programs if allowed to let stand. And the Assembly Republicans and Democrats who help up the bill can then explain why it was necessary to keep terminally ill blind people in jail at the expense of children's health care or some other social program.

Steinberg expanded on his dissent from the Assembly bill today, calling the legislature's inability to pass the reforms based on cuts they already passed in July an example of the legislature's "culture of failure". I've been saying that for weeks.

Meanwhile, I'm hearing a lot of reactionaries taking the example of Phillip Garrido, the kidnapper of Jaycee Lee Dugard, and the fact that he only served 10 1/2 years of a 50-year kidnapping sentence in the 1970s, to argue for more stringent parole and prison laws in California. This is the typical Willie Horton-ing of any sane discourse on prison policy. Garrido was convicted of a FEDERAL crime, not a state crime. And that federal parole policy was abolished by 1987. It bears no application to this debate whatsoever, particularly since, under this policy, violent criminals would not be subject to release and would face more stringent parole supervision, as resources would be allocated to those who require it. The failure of parole officers to discover Garrido's deviance demands EXACTLY the kind of parole reform in both the Assembly and Senate bill, so officers have smaller caseloads and can focus on the most dangerous cases instead of returning nonviolent offenders to prison for technical violations.

Meanwhile, the Governor, even while promoting a real reform plan, wants to get a stay from federal judges on implementing the required reduction of 44,000 to the prison population, which even the Senate bill doesn't do. He plans to file an appeal with the US Supreme Court as well, and if the three-judge panel doesn't grant the stay, he'll ask the Supremes to do so.

Sacramento politicians are still in between the "denial" and "bargaining" stage in reacting to their immoral and unconstitutional handling of the prison crisis.

Steinberg, Democrats Say They Have The Votes For Modest Prison Reform

The short-term fights are starting to be VERY short-term. Following up on an earlier item, Democrats in the legislature plan to hold a vote on prison reform as early as Thursday, that would clarify $1.2 billion dollars in cuts. And they don't need any Republican votes to do it.

Over objections from Republican lawmakers, the Legislature plans to take up a majority-vote prison package Thursday that is designed to reduce the state's inmate population by 27,300 and is backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The overall package would save $1.2 billion in part by reducing certain property crimes to misdemeanors, placing low-level parolees on global positioning system monitoring and sending older, infirm prisoners to house arrest or medical facilities to serve the final 12 months of their sentences.

The initial plan included an independent sentencing commission that could report back on changes to the runaway sentencing laws at the heart of the prison crisis. I don't see that mentioned in this article, or anywhere else. Hopefully that remains part of the solution. And like the rest, lawmakers can enact it on a majority-vote basis (which means that the solutions wouldn't take effect for 90 days). Darrell Steinberg reiterated his support today.

"I'm confident we'll have the votes," said Steinberg, who will caucus with Democrats tomorrow

Steinberg said the Senate would vote on the governor's plan, but with slight modifications to clarify which elderly and infirm inmates could be eligible for alternative custody and release.

"The intent has never been to carte blanche release any inmates, elderly, infirm inmates," he said. "It never has been, but there has been some concern expressed, so we want to make sure that there are very tight criteria that would even allow for the possibility of allowing elderly and infirm inmates to be released."

I prefer the People's Budget Fix, which would stop putting nonviolent drug offenders in overcrowded prisons, focus on reducing recidivism through rehabilitation and treatment, institute risk-based parole supervision rather than blanket supervision that inevitably raises the rates of recidivism (often on technical violations of parole), and address the most ineffective areas of the criminal justice system - the burdensome, brutal three strikes law, and the death penalty. The People's Budget Fix coalition held a rally today. You can hear Leland Yee speaking about it here and here.

And I hope they keep fighting. I hope we have a sane criminal justice policy caucus in the legislature as a counterweight to the tough on crime troglodytes. But while the Democratic/Schwarzenegger package isn't perfect, but it's the first step in the right direction in 30 years. Particularly if the sentencing commission is included in the package, it will be historic and very important. We will finally end the long march of building more prisons and warehousing inmates without giving them the tools to actually rehabilitate themselves and become productive members of society, and toward a future where we spend less, create more productive citizens and actually make our state safer.

Breaking The Law To Balance The Budget - Again?

There's been quite a bit of confusion about whether or not the Governor was able to make line-item cuts in this budget. After all, it was a revision, not a budget agreement where spending appropriations are made. In those cases the Governor can make cuts, but this was a revision consisting of a series of cuts and fund shifts, and it's unclear whether the Governor can make additional cuts on top of cuts in a budget revision.

Craig Cornett, the Budget Director in the office of Darrell Steinberg, has sent out a letter to interested parties, which I've reproduced below. Cornett reiterates the argument that the revision do not constitute appropriations, and should not be subject to the line-item veto. This is particularly true with any appropriation reductions that passed with a simply majority vote, since a budget vote must have a 2/3 majority. Cornett offers the remedy here, but he confines it to the courts.

Should the Controller implement these vetoes, we suspect that some party that will be injured by the vetoes will file a lawsuit. Given the sweep of the reductions, this could come from any of a number of potential plaintiffs, such as children who will no longer have health insurance because of the reductions to Healthy Families Programs, battered women’s shelters that will be threatened with closure because of elimination of funding for the Domestic Violence Program, AIDS prevention and treatment programs that will no longer receive state support because of the elimination of Office of AIDS funding, or counties that will see cuts to their Child Welfare Services or Medi-Cal administration funding.

What Cornett leaves out of this analysis is the ability for the Legislature to override the Governor's blue pencil edits. Obviously that is off the menu, as far as we know.

I don't think it would surprise anyone to see Schwarzenegger break the law to balance the budget - so many provisions in this budget violate the law that it can be seen as a stimulus package for the legal system.

When the Governor signed ABx4 1—the bill that revised the 2009-10 Budget Act—and accompanying trailer bills this morning, he line-item vetoed about $500 million in General Fund expenditures in order to ensure that the state has a reserve for 2009-10.

Budget staff from both the Senate and Assembly worked closely with Legislative Counsel in construction of ABx4 1 and, based on that work, and follow-up conversations, we think that these vetoes—especially those of health and human services programs—are outside the Governor's Constitutional authority, for a couple of reasons.

First, reductions to amounts in the various budget schedules do not actually constitute appropriations and, thus, are not subject to line item veto. This argument is bolstered by Counsel’s long-held view that, unlike new or increased items of appropriation, the Legislature may reduce General Fund items of appropriation with a simple majority vote, and any General Fund action that takes place with a simple majority vote is not, by definition, an appropriation, and therefore not subject to line-item veto.

Second, most of the budget revisions for the health and human services departments were not even included in the scheduled items, but instead were placed in Sections of 568 to 575 of ABx4 1. These sections of the bill added new Control Sections 17.50 to 18.50 to the 2009-10 Budget Act that reduced the various appropriations for HHS departments in a descriptive manner, thus making it even clearer that they do not constitute appropriations. These control sections include departments that were specifically included in the Governor’s line-item vetoes—Aging, Health Care Services, Public Health, MRMIB, Mental Health, Developmental Services, and Social Services.

Should the Controller implement these vetoes, we suspect that some party that will be injured by the vetoes will file a lawsuit. Given the sweep of the reductions, this could come from any of a number of potential plaintiffs, such as children who will no longer have health insurance because of the reductions to Healthy Families Programs, battered women’s shelters that will be threatened with closure because of elimination of funding for the Domestic Violence Program, AIDS prevention and treatment programs that will no longer receive state support because of the elimination of Office of AIDS funding, or counties that will see cuts to their Child Welfare Services or Medi-Cal administration funding.

...Dan Aiello has a bit more about this.

Governor Veto Pen

Brian and Robert have the rundown of what line-item veto cuts the Governor made today when signing the budget. The budget solution presented to him was about $1 billion short of the goal, so the Governor used his blue pencil to make unilateral cuts. I think I've said before that the good rule of thumb for these cuts, from the Governor's perspective, is to ask "Who doesn't vote?" and cut there. And for the most part, he did that. I guess he hopes that the AIDS patients who will no longer receive treatment due to cuts in the Office of AIDS Prevention and Treatment will succumb to the disease and therefore not vote. Cuts to child welfare and health care services fall on children who cannot vote. But since Schwarzenegger will never face voters again, he decided to even wield the blue pencil on actual voters. $6 million more got slashed from state parks, used by virtually everyone, and this could see as many as 100 state parks forced to close. All community health clinics get cut of their state funding, which may disproportionately affect rural areas, as will the elimination of funding for the Williamson Act, which gives farmers a subsidy to keep their parcels from falling into the hands of developers. In this budget, Schwarzenegger has assembled something for everyone to hate.

As Robert says, there's a way around this that the legislature probably won't take:

The state legislature could try and override these vetoes. But as we've seen time and again, this legislature appears to have forgotten that the override power actually exists. It would be a very good chance for Democrats to force Republicans to take a stand on these programs. Either they vote to restore the funding, or they vote to kick kids off of health care and close beaches and parks, giving Dems a set of issues to run on in 2010.

It seems doubtful that such an override will even be attempted. And so California slides deeper into ruin.

I'd have to look at the rules, and see if they've closed the extraordinary session and thus cannot override the blue-pencil vetoes. But basically this is correct. And some of those line-items, like the Williamson Act funding, would get a good deal of Republican support.

Needless to say, I agree that the line item veto, and the aggrandizement of executive power generally, should get ditched in a Constitutional convention. At the least, we could set up a mechanism where line items must be upheld by the Legislature.

...AP has a story up. Darrell Steinberg comes out with fighting words:

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat who negotiated the original budget compromise with Schwarzenegger, immediately questioned the legality of many of the governor's line-item vetoes.

"We will fight to restore every dollar of additional cuts to health and human services," Steinberg said in a statement. "This is not the last word."

The last word, Senator, is override.

...also, fun fact: the budget is already around $8 billion short for 2010-2011. Surprise!

Deal Talks Break Down Over Prop. 98 Suspension

Hopes for a deal on the California budget faded last night as the Big Five could not agree over the big issue of whether and how to suspend Prop. 98, the mandate for education funding.

The education money discussion is not new; much of it dates back to the February budget negotiations, which resulted in a ballot measure asking voters to offer blessings upon a supplemental payment. Voters rejected that measure, Proposition 1B.

And as with most education financing debates, this one lands squarely back at the maze of formulas and calculations that embody the 21-year old funding guarantee enshrined into the state constitution by voters, Proposition 98.

In a nutshell, the current debate focuses on whether schools are owed money in the future to make up for some of the recent spending reductions, and whether that obligation (the so-called "maintenance factor") should be codified in law as part of the current $26.3 billion deficit deal.

"The Prop 98 law is so confusing," said Senate President pro Tem Darrell Streinberg to a throng of reporters outside the governor's office, "that we want to make sure that there is clarity."

My belief is that education leaders will win this money in the courts, no matter how long Arnold and the gang put it off. The lawsuit has already been filed. The Democratic leadership want to just deal with the $11 billion dollars in essentially stolen money from schools inside the budget agreement by promising the money in the out years, while the Republicans and Arnold don't.

So if you wanted a 2010 campaign slogan, you have the source material.

It looks to me like Arnold is holding out simply so he can prove a point. His effort to insert privatizing social services eligibility at the last minute is flawed enough that even the Yacht Party might have trouble stomaching it. The proposed cuts in the deal are really intolerable but not what the Governor promised at the outset. It's unclear whether the Governor will get his anti-fraud provisions, also inserted late into the process. And it's completely unclear, given the deal likely to come out, why we had to wait two weeks for virtually the same deal.

Whatever budget deal ultimately is passed -- and in this economy it'll only be a temporary fix, at best -- virtually the same agreement could have been reached weeks ago [...]

Democrats produced a stop-gap plan supported by Assembly Republicans that would have staved off IOUs. They proposed $3.3 billion in cuts to education and other programs that would have kept the cash flowing, at least for a few weeks. It would give them time to negotiate more cuts. Schwarzenegger rejected the idea and persuaded Senate Republicans to follow.

That's where the governor began bobbling the ball, although his coaches figured he was playing to his fan base, what's left of it.

Issuing IOUs will cost the state roughly $26 million in interest for July, the state controller's office estimates. The IOUs also prompted Wall Street bond rating agencies to lower California's credit to near junk status. That potentially could cost the state $7.5 billion over 30 years, according to the treasurer's office.

Schwarzenegger, aides say, calculated that Democrats wouldn't negotiate seriously without facing a deadline, such as the latest: most banks refusing to accept IOUs. Negotiating piecemeal would get nowhere, the governor believed.

But he might have dodged IOUs completely. Guess it doesn't rankle much that the state he has governed for nearly six years must now pay bills with scrip.

Schwarzenegger's clumsy attempt at the Shock Doctrine, when the deal Democrats were willing to agree to was painful enough, was about as irresponsible as a chief executive could be.

The Inevitable Tax Drop

You can almost set your watch by it. The state budget picture is a mess, Democrats ask for a balanced solution, Republicans hold their ground and say no, Democrats don't have the vote so they let it go. It happens practically every single year, and it's happening again, according to CapAlert:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said separately Thursday that they are optimistic a budget deal can be struck within several days.

The tone of their comments marked a stark contrast to Capitol fighting over the last few weeks between Democrats and Republicans over bridging the state's $26.3 billion budget gap.

Steinberg also said Democrats had given up any attempt to increase taxes on tobacco or establish an oil severance tax [...]

The Senate president said that Democrats no longer are pushing for a 9.9 percent tax on oil extraction or for hiking the state's tobacco tax by $1.50 per pack.

"We would like to see an increase in the tobacco tax and the oil severance tax as a solution, but in this chapter that's not realistic and it's not what we're holding out for," Steinberg said.

It's never going to be realistic in ANY CHAPTER. Republicans know exactly how to play this game. Their votes are needed for tax increases, so if they hang together they cannot lose. The Democrats haven't figured out how to shame the Yacht Party or make them pay for their votes, giving them no reason to do anything but hijack the process. You'll notice that as a result of this horrific experiment in governance, California is operating worse than practically every other state in the union.

We've seen this kind of "it's almost over" trial balloon on many occasions, so I wouldn't put on the party hats just yet. But somehow at the end of this process, somebody will step up to a microphone and claim how reaching agreement is a sign of success. No. It's a sign of failure. A failure to responsibly manage the state's finances, reflected by the worst economy in 70 years. The only lesson that can be learned from this process is that it's fundamentally broken.

P.S. You'll be thrilled to know that Schwarzenegger still sleeps well at night.

Schwarzenegger and I then repaired to a tent that he had put up in a courtyard next to his office, which allows him to smoke cigars legally at work (no smoking is allowed inside the Capitol). The tent is about 15 square feet, carpeted with artificial turf and outfitted with stylish furniture, an iPod, a video-conferencing terminal, trays of almonds, a chess table, a refrigerator and a large photo of the governor. Schwarzenegger reclined deeply in his chair, lighted an eight-inch cigar and declared himself “perfectly fine,” despite the fiscal debacle and personal heartsickness all around him. “Someone else might walk out of here every day depressed, but I don’t walk out of here depressed,” Schwarzenegger said. Whatever happens, “I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight,” he said. “I’m going to lay back with a stogie.”

This is the guy who dares to chide others for not doing their job.

Late Night With The Legislature, End Of The World As We Know It Edition

It has been truly depressing to watch the Twitter feeds of John Myers and Scott Lay tonight, as the mood shifted from guardedly hopeful to despairing. The Senate keeps voting on things and not coming up with any solutions. They tried to pass the stop-gap solution again, and came up short of the votes needed. They passed the majority-vote budget with some fee increases, and the Governor vetoed them. Let's all please remember that. With a stroke of the pen, the Governor could have ended this.

If SB 64 and SB 80 (the stop-gap) don't pass by midnight (and actually, in an hour or so, because it takes a couple hours to prepare the necessary paperwork), the state will forfeit $3 billion in cuts to the 2008-09 budget year, which they will have to find in the following year, and a total of around $7 billion in total costs, when you add in the costs of additional borrowing, etc.

At some point, a large majority-vote budget (which wouldn't take effect for 90 days), absent the tax increases, passed the Senate and moved on to the Assembly, where it will be voted on tonight. According to Scott Lay, it covers all but $1 billion of the target, which is probably enough for the Governor to veto it. Why, it's almost as if he doesn't want a solution but instead an opportunity to push through a bunch of long-sought goals shock-doctrine style!

The Senate just tried again to get the necessary votes for the stop-gap, and fell short by the exact same amount. They're in recess until 9:30 and will probably get only one more shot.

Decision Time On The CA Budget

The Senate followed the Assembly today by passing a majority-vote budget, mostly along party lines, that solves the entire current deficit and includes a large reserve. The Governor has vowed to veto the package. CDP Chair John Burton is asking for grassroots action to force the Governor into compliance, which I consider unlikely, but it's worth reposting some of the letter for the perspective of Burton:

Late last night, Assembly Democrats passed a spending plan that minimizes the cruel cuts advocated by the governor by raising $2 billion in new revenue. Just a few minutes ago, Senate Democrats followed suit, passing a plan that requires Big Tobacco and Big Oil to share in the state budget sacrifice.

Speaker Karen Bass, President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and their caucuses should be commended for standing firm against the governor’s Draconian cuts.

In order to pass the plan, legislative leaders structured it to require a majority vote. That’s because Republicans have repeatedly refused to provide the handful of votes necessary to pass the plan with two-thirds support.

Disappointingly, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vowed to veto the Democrats’ budget plan, preferring to play a game of chicken with the budget. He and Legislative Republicans would rather strip health care from nearly one million children and close 220 state parks than ask corporate special interests to pay their fair share.

Now, the onus is on the governor and Republican lawmakers to explain to Californians why they would rather drive the state over a cliff than agree to a budget with a mix of cuts and new revenue.

Please, call Governor Schwarzenegger’s office today at (916) 445-2841 or (213) 897-0322. Ask the governor to sign this budget plan, which minimizes the cuts by sharing the sacrifice.

Echoing the theme, Sen. Steinberg said today, "Shutting down the govt is not the answer to solving CA's problems." He also called on the Governor to "release the Senate GOP" and allow for a bipartisan vote on stop-gap measures, the same that passed the Assembly, to allow for continued negotiations after the June 30 deadline.

What is now at risk, in addition to the distribution of IOUs, are $3 billion in savings from the current fiscal year, savings that will essentially be lost with no deal by midnight tomorrow.

In a nutshell: the deficit solutions pitched by both Governor Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislators rely on a spending reduction of about $3.3 billion in the 2008-2009 fiscal year that ends on June 30.

That's tomorrow at midnight. Once the new fiscal year begins, those savings are effectively gone.

$3 billion of those savings would come from K-12 and higher education. They are not popular spending cutbacks in education circles, but reflect the larger 'all options are bad' narrative that you've heard in all circles for the past several weeks. The final $300 million or so of current year savings come from a plan to transfer money away from local redevlopment agencies.

Budget staffers say it matters which budget year to which these spending reductions are attributed (2008-09 vs. 2009-10) -- in large part because additional cutbacks in 2009-10 could complicate the already delicate issue of eligibility for federal stimulus dollars.

Immediate savings are important for another reason: they provide some breathing room for the cash-depleted state coffers and might lower or eliminate the need for Controller John Chiang to issue IOUs by week's end.

With no stopgap, essentially lawmakers will have to find an additional $3.3 billion in the 2009-10 FY budget, on top of everything they're already doing. So the Governor not only threatens a government shutdown with his intransigence, he wastes the state an additional $3 billion dollars, in effect.

Republicans Refusing To... Cut?

In the upside-down world of the California budget mess, the Senate President Pro Tem is now criticizing Republicans for their refusal to vote for cuts.

Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg wants to put Republicans on record today on two political questions: whether they can accept $11.4 billion in cuts that Democrats are proposing, and whether they will vote on $2 billion in new taxes.

On taxes, Steinberg conceded he is unlikely to win a single Republican vote when the Senate takes up the Democrats' $23.3 billion deficit reduction plan. But that, he said, shouldn't stop them from supporting his package of cuts, which will be voted on separately.

"If they're going to stand on the argument that cuts are not deep enough and thereby not vote for $11 billion in cuts, then we have some issues," Steinberg said at a news briefing next to his Capitol office. "It's interesting. I'm getting a sense that Republicans are getting shy about voting for cuts. That would be an odd headline: Democrats urging Republicans to vote for cuts."

Actually, it's not an odd headline. It's the inevitable consequence of a broken political system where you need a simple majority to make cuts and a 2/3 majority to raise taxes. Period.

In this case, Steinberg can pass the whole budget, save $2 billion in oil and cigarette taxes, by majority vote, because this is not a budget enactment, but a revision. If he doesn't muster 2/3 for the cuts, however, the revision will be delayed 90 days, reducing the effectiveness of the cuts by roughly 1/4, and forcing additional solutions to fill the deficit later. Even when mostly cuts are on the table, Republicans are using the leverage of undemocratic supermajorities to force more cuts.

Here's Zed Hollingsworth playing dumb that all he wants is a comprehensive solution.

"We're willing to vote for the cuts that provide for a complete solution," said Republican leader Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Temecula. "We're not willing to vote for a partial solution that has us coming back in the spring having to find more revenues when another calamity hits. We're not interested in political gamesmanship."

No, the Yacht Party would NEVER be interested in political gamesmanship, perish the thought. They'd never want to try to send the state into bankruptcy to make a political point or anything. By the way, Zed, news flash: you'll be back in the spring. The projections from the Legislative Analyst have consistently fallen short of reality, and no matter how big a budget reserve gets baked into this new budget, you can bet dollars to donuts it won't be enough, especially considering the potentially accelerated Depression that additional cuts to the social services net will force. The Anderson Forecast estimates 64,000 government jobs lost from this round of budget cuts. Even in Dan Walters' world, that's a significant chunk.

My problem with the Democrats on this is mainly their insistence on working within a broken system. They miss every opportunity to put the failed governmental structure on trial. Something as absurd as Republicans voting against program cuts - to ensure MORE program cuts - defies belief without an explanation of how it's a symbol for a bad process that must be fixed. The goal of this budget, which was never going to be pretty regardless of the May 19 election, should have been to heighten that reality.

Arnold Plays The Gingrich Role, Threatens Government Shutdown

(UPDATE: I got a copy of the Budget Conference Committee report, will give more info later)

The plot thickens. The Governor today threatened to veto the work of the bipartisan Budget Conference Committee and reject any bill that, essentially, doesn't hew to his desire to destroy the social safety net of the state. The Democratic leadership countered that they'll pass the bill anyway.

Democratic legislative leaders vowed today that the Legislature will pass a "share the pain" budget-balancing plan early next week - with or without tax increases -- that will close the state's spending deficit without completely shredding California's social services safety net.

The vows by Senate President Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, came about an hour after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he wouldn't sign a plan that was balanced with tax increases.

The rhetorical staking out of ground by the key figures in the current version of the state's ongoing fiscal melodrama came a day after the Legislature's joint budget conference committee, on a party-line vote, adopted a plan that included about $2 billion in new oil production and cigarette taxes to help bridge a $24 billion budget gap.

Let's take a brief look at what else the conference committee has done. They resisted some of the worst health care cuts, including the total elimination of Healthy Families (the SCHIP program). They reduced education spending significantly in both K-12 and higher ed. They reduced corrections spending by a fairly large amount. Despite the fact that state parks pay for themselves, Democrats agreed to cut state participation in park funding, replacing it with additional fees on park admissions. They agreed to increasing withholding by 10%, which amounts to an interest-free loans from citizens to the state. According to Karen Bass, they agreed to 45% of the Governor's proposals in full, and 93% in part.

So the idea that Democrats are not cutting spending is simply unreasonable and wrong. At the same time, they rejected additional cuts to state worker salaries. They rejected the end of Cal Works or Cal Grants or In-Home Support Services. And some of the Governor's proposals, like borrowing from local governments, were rejected unanimously.

I don't even much like what the Democrats came up with. But they did not agree to completely wipe out the social safety net, calling for moderate increases in revenue on constituencies who have been getting away with murder, pretty much literally, for decades, to pay for the externalities in health care costs that they impose on the public. As Noreen Evans explains:

Californians expect their schools to be good, a safety net to be available to the needy, a college education to be affordable for working families, their air and water to be clean, and their parks to be open and kept up. In order to meet their expectations, we must to pursue new revenues. Today, for the greater good, we approved two new tax proposals that won’t impact most Californians.

Establishing a 9.9 percent tax on oil extracted from California would generate $830 million in FY 2009-2010 and $1.1 billion in future years. This precise proposal was part of the governor’s budget proposals last year. Increasing the excise tax on cigarettes by $1.50 per pack generates $1 billion in FY 2009-2010.

Tax increases require a 2/3 vote. Absent the pursuit of new revenues, wider and deeper cuts will be required. Getting new revenues requires a mere 6 Republican votes: 2 in the Senate and 4 in the Assembly. It is undemocratic that the votes of 6 Republicans can veto the votes of 75 Democrats.

But Arnold wants to destroy the state of California like a good little neo-Hooverist, so he said no.

The Dem leadership appears to want to have this fight for the moment, so they ought to realize one thing: Arnold will ultimately be responsible - and reviled - in a government shutdown situation. No question about it. Not 1 in 10 Californians can even NAME a Democrat in the legislature. If the ship sinks, Arnold will be perceived as the skipper. And so, if and when Arnold vetoes the bill, the Democrats should send it back - with MORE tax fairness solutions, daring Arnold to prolong the agony. That resets the battle and draws clear lines between those who want the richest companies in America to sacrifice along with ordinary Californians, and those who want to protect the rich completely. Unfortunately, the Dems are tipping their hand that this will not be the case.

But Bass and Steinberg seemed to be reconciled to the likelihood that the tax hike proposals would fail next week. Steinberg said that if they did, the package they sent the governor would have a reserve $2 billion smaller than he had sought.

We have a couple days to change this dynamic. The progressive movement around the budget has stiffened spines a bit so far. Time to make the calls and emails.

This is funny:

Schwarzenegger added that he wants a budget plan that will bridge the entire projected deficit of $24 billion, not a stopgap measure to "kick the can down the alley."

The plan must consist of permanent solutions to the state's fiscal problems, not one-time revenue that sparks ongoing spending commitments, Schwarzenegger said.

When Schwarzenegger was reminded that his own budget plan contains some one-time revenue proposals, such as acceleration of income tax payments, he smiled.

"Very good point," he said. "We don't want to add to the problem."

The cyborg is not running on all cylinders. He has a single-minded purpose to kill the California dream and even these extremely moderate revenue enhancements.

...Document here:


June 16 2009 Conference Report -

Steinberg Looks To The 2010 Ballot To Restore Children's Health Care?

Looks like Darrell Steinberg is hedging his bets on fixing the broken political structure in Sacramento by going to the ballot to protect children's health coverage:

Days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed to abolish the Healthy Families Program (which would entail booting more than 900,000 California kids out of health insurance), Steinberg’s Committee for a New Economy on Monday made a $75,000 contribution to Californians for Children’s Health — a sizable cash infusion for a committee that previously had only about $20,000 in its coffers.

The statement of organization for Californians for Children’s Health says the group – for which a Web site is under construction – exists to support “expansion of children’s health coverage,” and its sponsoring organizations include the Children’s Defense Fund Action Council; the Children’s Partnership, a project of the Tides Center; Children Now; and PICO California. Its CFO is PICO California director Jim Keddy; its secretary is Kelly Hardy, Children Now’s associate director for health.

Hardy earlier today told me Californians for Children’s Health aims to develop a ballot measure for November 2010, and although today’s rapidly changing budget environment makes it hard to say exactly what that measure’s specifics will be, “we’re contemplating new revenue sources that would come in, not General Fund sources, that would support children’s coverage programs.”

Steinberg has a history of going outside General Fund revenues to pay for social services projects - see the millionaire's tax in Prop. 63, which funds mental health programs.

You need to play within the hand dealt, and voters have shown a willingness to use tax increases to fund specific programs. Losing the Healthy Families Program would mean 900,000 kids without health care in California, and we would be the only state in the country not accessing federal SCHIP funds. So obviously, you try to get that revenue absolutely any way you can.

At the same time, is this any way to run a government? Create a system where no revenues can be raised inside the legislature, forcing stakeholders and politicians to go to voters to look for a dedicated stream here and another dedicated stream there? This is unsustainable to the nth degree. We will not transform California one dedicated funding stream at a time. It just won't work, and we'll spend hundreds of millions of dollars on consultants in the process. Steinberg shouldn't foreclose the option, of course, but his money would be better spent on reform efforts so that he no longer needs to go to the voters for everything, and we can have a representative democracy such that has worked in America for over 220 years.

Moreover, I fear that Steinberg is setting this fallback plan up assuming that Healthy Families will be either eliminated or gutted in the next couple weeks. Perhaps the donation to a potential ballot committee is a threat to the Governor; but perhaps it's a signal that the cuts can come down. Let's be clear - in the meantime, while we wait for the results of that election, children will die from a lack of health care coverage. We have other options - Jean Ross describes some of them beautifully here - and the Democratic legislature should be drawing lines in the sand, not giving up on drastic cuts and making contingencies.

Bass And Steinberg Statement Considered Harmful

George Lakoff writes today that this could be a moment of freedom for California Democrats. Their compromised ballot measured having gone down in flames, they can now focus on the only solution to what ails the state: democracy. They can include in every public utterance until the moment the 2/3 rule is repealed the theme that California's democracy is broken, and that we must restore it with a majority vote for budget and revenue matters. The time for half-steps and non-fixes must be over.

Up to now, Democrats have been acting like sheep being herded by the Republican minority. They need to show courage and stand up for what they believe. That’s what the voters are waiting for [...]

Get rid of the 55% proposals. People understand that majority rule means democracy. 55% means nothing.

Even if you don’t address taxes and just address the budget process, the Republicans will still say you’re going to raise taxes. You may as well go for real democracy.

And finally, get a unified message that can be supported by the grassroots. Do grassroots organizing for 2010, starting now. Organize spokespeople to get that message out. Organize bookers to book your spokespeople in the media. You Democrats are a majority. Act like it. The public will respect you for it.

Unfortunately, Darrell Steinberg and Karen Bass failed the first test, stuck in a mindset that will bring the state to ruin. First, Steinberg.

"The voters have spoken and they are telling us that government should do the best it can with the money it has. We will immediately and responsibly get to work to balance the budget and head off a cash crisis in July. Delay is not an option. The necessary decisions we must make will only get harder with time."

That is not what voters are telling you. As I said yesterday, you cannot reconcile the supposed anti-tax fervor with the passage of a transient occupancy tax in conservative Palmdale with 64% of the vote. California is a big state and no one message from a statewide election can predominate, but the mass boycott of the polls certainly suggests that we don't want to do your job anymore. I know it's been so long since Democrats exercised their Democratic muscles and principles in Sacramento, but this election called out the political leadership for failed governance. And everyone who has studied this for half a second understands that the failure will continue until the structural barriers are removed. And so making this absurd and vindictive statement about voter intentions both misses an opportunity to refocus the discussion and angers the grassroots further.

Here's Bass:

"There are many difficult choices and a lot of hard work ahead of us. We now have to responsibly fill the budget hole that has been caused by the national recession and deepened by the failure of today's ballot propositions. I hope the bipartisan cooperation between the Legislature and the Governor that went into this effort will continue as we move forward - the people of California clearly expect us to work together to get the job done. And we will.

The people of California could give a rat's ass who works together with who. They don't want to see this level of dysfunction anymore. Bipartisan cooperation was clearly rejected last night, because inevitably that gives leverage to the minority and provides unworkable non-solutions.

Where is the argument for DEMOCRACY in these statements? Since 1978 that democracy has crumbled and needs to be completely rebuilt. Everyone knows this but refuses to say it out loud. This is why the legislature and the Governor have historically low approval ratings. People are starved for actual leadership and see none. Only democracy will save us. This failed experiment with conservative Two Santa Claus Theories has now become deeply destructive. Because the democrats have provided no leadership and ceded the rhetorical ground, California public opinion holds the contradictory beliefs that the state should not raise taxes and also not cut spending. And if it persists without leadership and advocacy to the contrary, nothing will change.

Majority-Vote Budget Solutions Creep Back Onto The Table

I think the sand has come out of the eyes of most everyone in Sacramento, and seeing their May 19 solutions sinking, the legislative leadership has returned to the drawing board, where a deficit somewhere between $14-$16 billion dollars for FY 2010 must be wrestled with. Unsurprisingly, conservative lawmakers and the media have foregrounded cuts as the first among all other options.

So where might they look?

For starters, the state would spend down its $2 billion reserve, Steinberg said.

State leaders are eyeing a possible $5 billion reduction in school spending allowable under the state's constitutional education guarantee when revenue drops. Education groups say that could threaten valuable programs and prevent schools from rescinding layoff notices they issued this spring.

"Schools would have to look at extracurricular programs, library hours, transportation," said Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Association. "An awful lot of things not required by the law that are desirable are going to start falling by the wayside." [...]

Schwarzenegger aides have warned public safety groups he may propose an early release of up to 38,000 prisoners, split between 19,000 undocumented immigrants and 19,000 low-level offenders. The governor may also seek to house those who commit "wobbler" crimes in county jails rather than in state prisons.

The plan would save an estimated $335 million in 2009-10 and $849 million in 2010-11.

It proposes to hand over undocumented immigrant prisoners to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, though public safety officials questioned whether the federal government would agree to such a plan. The plan also would release 19,000 "nonserious, nonviolent, non-sex offense" inmates in the final six months of their sentences.

I don't see ICE terribly happy with the state plopping 19,000 undocumented immigrants in their laps.

On the flip side of this, I think it's important to recognize the solutions out there that involve no cuts, ones that must become part of the conversation immediately. For example, federal guarantees for municipal bonds would save the state billions of dollars that could be diverted to closing the budget gap. While it appeared that Congress was unmoved by this proposal, the Treasury Department could step in.

The Treasury, for instance, is working on a plan to help cities, school systems, hospitals and other agencies borrow money at cheaper rates. The credit crisis made it more expensive to get money for buildings, ballparks and other projects. The problem has been particularly acute for those with lower credit ratings, which require them to pay more for their bonds.

Officials are considering options including the creation of a federal agency that could back the bonds, aiding bond insurers that backstop municipal bonds or simply providing subsidies that could lower the rate for municipalities.

This is not a direct pass-through to the budget, but the savings would be felt in future scorings of overall revenue and spending.

More important, the Senate leader has started to talk about the majority vote fee increase once again.

But making deeper cuts into social services begins to run against logic, Steinberg said. With CalWorks, for instance, the federal match is "so significant," that to cut $1 is to turn away $4 or $5 in federal dollars.

"At some point, it makes little sense to cut even deeper," he said. "But, let's assume we make significant and broader cuts. Then, you're looking at corrections and public safety. ... I wouldn't take it as a complete given that the other side is really willing to vote for a cuts-only strategy."

If Republicans don't go along with new revenues, Steinberg said Democrats may have to resort to a simple majority vote on fees, the same tack he took last winter before Schwarzenegger vetoed the effort to force negotiations. "But we're not going to lead with that," Steinberg said.

They ought to go ahead and lead with it. The problems we face in Sacramento are governance problems, which favor solutions that kick the can down the road instead of facing up to current challenges. In such an environment, bold solutions that finally remove the structural revenue gap and end budget dysfunction are really the only step forward. The majority-vote fee increase is a bold, albeit short-term, step, certainly preferable to counter-cyclical and counter-productive spending cuts, and the pressure on the Governor to accept it will increase as the summer marches on. The long-term solution, of course, comes in building the rationale for restoring democracy to the legislature by ending the conservative veto over the process and returning to a simple majority to run government.

Did You Know?

In this edition of "Did you know?" we take a look at Prop. 1C. Sure, the ballot statement, the legislative analyst's report, and every public utterance about Prop. 1C to date asserts that it would allow the state to borrow $5 billion dollars against future lottery revenues. But did you know that, according to Darrell Steinberg, it would actually allow the state to borrow twice that?

Trailing badly in the polls, Proposition 1C would infuse the state budget with cash by borrowing against future California Lottery revenues. The February budget assumed that it would provide $5 billion for the 2009-10 budget. But Steinberg said he now believes the state could borrow $10 billion from the Lottery and use it all in 2009-10.

Consider it something of a "Hail Mary" argument for Proposition 1C.

"In my view we can triage our way through an $8 billion problem," Steinberg said. "That doesn't mean that there won't be some difficult choices. But, you know, we have a $2 billion reserve. There may be other opportunities with federal economic stimulus ... If 1C passes, you know, it's actually a $10 billion one-time securitization. It was just contemplated as being spread across two fiscal years. You could bring the second $5 billion into the budget year."

What fun things you learn when your proposition trails in the polls!

Let's go to the summary of Prop. 1C, shall we?

Impact on 2009–10 State Budget: Allows $5 billion of borrowing from future lottery profits to help balance the 2009–10 state budget.

Hm, no mention of future state budgets there. But yes, the Senate President Pro Tem is correct. In the analysis by the Legislative Analyst, he mentions that "the state also could borrow more from lottery profits in future years." In fact, the $5 billion dollar figure appears nowhere in the text of Prop. 1C. Here's the relevant portion of the text:

(2) Notwithstanding any other provision of law or this Constitution to the contrary, the Legislature is hereby authorized to obtain moneys for the purposes of the California State Lottery through the sale of future revenues of the California State Lottery and rights to receive those revenues to an entity authorized by the Legislature to issue debt obligations for the purpose of funding that purchase.

Well, that would be interesting to know before voting, wouldn't it? That this proposition basically opens up a new state credit card for the potential purpose of endless borrowing? Borrowing that would have to be paid back, with interest, for the next several decades?

California's reliance on borrowing to cover the budget deficit has been part of the landscape for 30 years. Debt service currently costs the state $5 billion a year. If you think this is a good idea, I invite you to enable it by voting to allow basically limitless borrowing against the lottery. Surely that won't be abused.

...by the way, the depiction by Steinberg of $8 billion dollars as a niggling problem not to be trifled with, but $14 billion as simply insurmountable, is another new one. Considering that Steinberg and the Senate passed a majority-vote fee increase of around $9 billion last year, more than the $6 billion allegedly at stake in the special election, and his description of how to fill the budget gap did not include this, forgive me for saying that his beliefs don't hold up to scrutiny.

Shorter Bass And Steinberg: Booga Booga!

I've obtained a copy of the email sent to every California Democratic Party member from the Assembly Speaker and the Senate President Pro Tem, trying to scare the membership into supporting the special election ballot measures. It's really unconscionable for them to stretch the truth this much. They conflate apples and oranges to make it seem like an immediate $31 billion dollar deficit is forthcoming if the measures fail, which is simply untrue. They mostly discuss what failure would mean rather than what success would mean. And they neglect the permanent damage that would be caused by the ballot measures in favor of the temporary tax increases. I'll put the whole thing on the flip, but here is the excerpt that kills me.

There seems to be a great deal of misinformation about Proposition 1A, the spending reform measure. This is NOT a spending cap, but rather a mechanism to force savings in good years to protect funding for services when our economy sours. If California had a rainy-day fund like most other states, $9 billion in cuts could have been avoided this year. In the long-run, Proposition 1A will stabilize state spending for critical services.

Um, actually, folks, that's what a spending cap IS. It caps spending and puts money into a rainy day fund. Of course, the way this cap is structured, the rainy day fund would have to take money even in DOWN budget years, due to its stringent, restrictive nature. The line about how $9 billion in cuts could have been avoided this year with rainy day fund money is offered without the knowledge that the money would have had to come FROM somewhere, and would have meant $9 billion in cuts in years prior. Not to mention the fact that it would have had to be replenished almost immediately. With this spending cap - yes, Madame Speaker and Mr. President pro Tem, sorry to burst your bubble but that's what it is - spending will be forced $16 billion dollars below the Governor's baseline budget next years. That's the ENTIRE gain of the $16 billion in temporary tax increases in just one year. And the cap goes on and on and on.

Pathetic. About the only good thing here is the shout-out to eliminating 2/3 for budgets and taxes. I appreciate that, but would appreciate some honesty about the spending cap even more.

Dear Fellow California Democratic Party Member:

At this month’s California Democratic Party Convention in Sacramento, you will be asked to take a position on Propositions 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E and 1F that will appear on a special statewide election May 19. We strongly urge you to support this package to provide California the short-term revenues to get through these difficult economic times, as well as the long-term reforms to stabilize our budget process and protect funding for vital services. After months of difficult negotiations, we made some of the toughest decisions elected officials could ever make. We closed a $42 billion budget shortfall that threatened to send California into fiscal collapse — halting thousands of jobs, devastating critical education, health, children’s and senior services, and plunging our economy into deeper meltdown.

The tough choices we made will begin the long process of getting California back on track and providing long-term stability to the programs and services we all value.

Make no mistake: the final budget agreement contains important victories that hold true to our shared Democratic principles. In particular, we negotiated four years of desperately needed revenue increases, worth $12.5 billion this year alone. We cannot overstate the significance of this achievement. By doing so, we were able to protect education, health care and safety net services from even deeper cuts.

We were also able to stave off Republican demands to roll back hard-fought environmental and worker protections. And, through Proposition 1B, we will ensure that schools are repaid over time for the painful cuts they have endured because of this budget crisis.

But the package and revenues we negotiated will all be for naught if we don’t pass Propositions 1A-1F in May. Unless Prop. 1A is approved, California will lose $16 billion in revenues from the sales, vehicle license and income taxes beginning in Fiscal Years 2011-2013. Prop. 1A also provides the mechanism to restore $9.3 billion in funds to schools. And without Propositions 1C, 1D, and 1E, we will lose another $7 billion in funding.

Losing $23 billion in revenues, on top of the $8 billion deficit projected by the Legislative Analyst, will result in renewed demands for catastrophically deep cuts to schools, hospitals, essential children’s services and senior programs for the foreseeable future.

There seems to be a great deal of misinformation about Proposition 1A, the spending reform measure. This is NOT a spending cap, but rather a mechanism to force savings in good years to protect funding for services when our economy sours. If California had a rainy-day fund like most other states, $9 billion in cuts could have been avoided this year. In the long-run, Proposition 1A will stabilize state spending for critical services.

Passing Propositions 1A-1F is the first step in restoring our state’s fiscal health and voter confidence in state government. This is essential for us to move forward with our shared priorities such as expanding healthcare to all Californians, further reforming the budget process to eliminate the destructive 2/3 requirement for budgets and taxes, protecting against climate change, and ensuring necessary education, health and social services for the people of California.

We hope you will join us in supporting Propositions 1A-1F.

Campaign Update: CA-Sen, CA-Gov, CA-10

A few campaign items that will hopefully tickle your fancy this morning.

• CA-Sen: According to the San Jose Mercury News, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina is "seriously considering challenging" Barbara Boxer for the US Senate. Yeah, that would be challenging, wouldn't it? What a fearsome figure she casts, as a failed corporate CEO who got a $25 million dollar golden parachute while laying off half her company! Who was 20 points down to Boxer in the last poll! "Corporate CEO who got giant bonus for bad work" doesn't seem to me to be the profile of a political challenger anytime soon.

I'm still holding out the possibility that this is an April Fool's Day joke.

• CA-Gov: When you are having major staff problems 14 months before the primary, I'd say your gubernatorial campaign is in trouble.

Lt. Gov. John Garamendi is saying goodbye to his senior adviser today. And whether he likes it or not, he is saying hello to speculation his upstart gubernatorial bid is struggling.

Senior campaign adviser Jude Barry, who formerly managed the 2006 gubernatorial campaign of then-state controller Steve Westly, let his new boss know that he would resign to pursue other opportunities on March 31.

On his Facebook page, Barry thanked Garamendi but didn't exactly offer an upbeat assessment of the campaign.

"I like John Garamendi and appreciate the opportunity to have worked with him and many other good people on his team, both on the campaign and in the lieutenant governor's office," he wrote. "But at this point, I've done all I can to help him. It doesn't feel right to just hang around the campaign. I wish John and the campaign good luck."

According to CalBuzz, Garamendi has yet to find campaign co-chairs or finance co-chairs, and we all know that winning statewide costs a ridiculous amount of money and essentially a two-year campaign, if not longer. I'm toying with the idea that California ought to have a slate of regional gubernatorial primaries, to encourage retail campaigning and keep costs down in the near term, to allow a greater multiplicity of views. Otherwise we will keep getting the same old hacks and rich people running for these seats. The state is big enough so that it makes a decent amount of sense.

• CA-10: Mark DeSaulnier continues to marshal institutional support for his presumed run for Congress replacing Ellen Tauscher, earning the endorsement of Senate leader Darrell Steinberg. Though he hasn't formally announced, DeSaulnier announced plans to walk districts as early as this week. That's probably a good idea, because a new poll shows that nobody has a decent name ID in the district.

A poll commissioned by potential Democratic congressional candidate and former BART Director Dan Richard shows state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier in statistical dead heat with Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (15 and 13 percent respectively) and Richard trailing at 7 percent.

The poll showed DeSaulnier with a 19 percent favorable approval rating compared with a 9 percent unfavorable while 23 percent did not know. The remaining 49 percent said they had never heard of him. Ouch.

Buchanan received similar numbers: 16 percent favorable approval, 8 percent unfavorable, 29 percent didn’t know and 47 percent had never heard of her.

We just saw a special election in upstate New York where over 150,000 people voted. This special election, like most in California, will be lucky to get half that many.

State Senate Passes Tougher Renewable Energy Standard

SB14, which would require utilities to receive 33% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, passed the state Senate today. This would be a more stringent standard than the federal bill introduced today by Henry Waxman, which called for 25% from renewables by 2025. So this is a very aggressive standard that was championed by Darrell Steinberg.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said the bill, which now goes to the Assembly, would help pave the way to a more environmental friendly future.

"The green economy is the economy of the future," Steinberg said. "The environment and the economy go together."

Mod Squadder and corporate-friendly Sen. Rod Wright, along with Lou Correa, voted no. For Wright, who said he is "concerned that this bill is moving too fast," the vote is particularly inexcusable, as his district is witness to the ravages of greenhouse gas-emitted pollution. The final vote was 21 aye, 16 no. Tony Strickland, who pretended to be an environmentalist during his campaign, predictably took a walk on the vote. What a coward.

Capitol Weekly has more. This is a big win for Sen. Steinberg, and while the bill is certain to be amended (the "cap and trade" style appearance of "renewable energy credits" that utilities can pass to one another to get inside the 33% standard seems ripe for gaming the system), a strong claim on a very progressive priority gives us hope that progressives won't be stiffed for this entire session.

In a related development, Rep. Jerry McNerney introduced three very good energy bills at the federal level, including the Smart Grid Advancement Act, which would develop a smart electrical grid that could help reduce energy use during peak times, the Vehicles for the Future Act, which would build out the electrical infrastructure for plug-in hybrids and EVs, and the GREEN Act, which would provide $100 million in grants for developing career and technical training in green jobs. The three bills are explained here.

Deeply Unpopular Legislature Stumps For Their Unpopular Budget

The latest poll numbers for the Governor and the legislature are pitiful, although clearly the electorate has hit Schwarzenegger more over the recent budget crisis.

Overall, just 33% of California adults give Schwarzenegger a positive job rating, barely above the record low of 32% that he hit in 2005 after pushing a package of failed ballot measures in a special election. As recently as January, Schwarzenegger's favorable job rating was at 40%.

Faring worse is the state Legislature: Its 21% approval rating matches the record low it set in several previous polls.

There are a number of other questions in the poll regarding the right to choose and birth control, which you can see here (Short version: Californians still support the right to choose, though parental notification gets narrow support. I would imagine that how the question is asked accounts for that, although this will probably give hope to the forces that have lost parental notification on the ballot three times in a row to try yet again).

What I want to focus on for the moment is those appalling numbers for our political leaders. Given that, as well as the public tendency to vote down ballot initiatives, you'd think the last thing they'd want to do is put the public faces of lawmakers on the budget items in the May 19 special election. You'd be wrong.

Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and ex-Senate leader Dave Cogdill will join hands today for the first campaign event before the upcoming budget special election.

The trio -- alongside other advocates for the package -- will host a press conference this afternoon at a Sacramento-area child development center.

Now, maybe Darrell Steinberg has some grand design where the limits in the spending cap part of the package can be overcome. Or maybe he's perfectly content with ratcheting down spending and making it impossible to revive it no matter what the economic situation. Whatever the reason, it seems like terrible strategy as well as bad policy.

On the flip side, SEIU editorializes against the spending cap in Capitol Weekly:

One of the most troubling aspects of the budget deal to us is the budget cap, which promises to make the cuts permanent by making it virtually impossible to restore them in better times. For SEIU members that translates into year after year of higher caseloads for social workers who help children endangered by neglect or abuse; ongoing cuts to healthcare for families struggling with unemployment or low-wage work; a future of shrinking support for families who have children with autism or cerebral palsy; ongoing cuts to hundreds of state services from parks to oversight of hospitals and nursing homes, and ongoing cuts to home care, higher education, K-12 schools, and other vital public services.

We know that we are not alone in our concerns. In fact, Californians do not support the inevitable result of a budget cap - each of these cuts is deeply unpopular; yet legislators have already voted for the cap without a single hearing on the cap’s effects, without explaining its effects to their constituents, and without asking for detailed analysis from the Controller, the Treasurer, or independent outside experts.

This is not the way such a serious measure should have been considered or passed. It reflects poorly on the Legislature as a deliberative and transparent body.

With the Governor trying to get in on the Constitutional convention, and offering a vision of reform that trades majority vote for the spending cap, essentially one horrible outcome for another, it's beyond clear that, if the spending cap passes, it will be locked in for a very long time no matter what other reforms are undertaken, and with a baseline spending level "established during one of the, if not the, worst budget crisis in the state’s history," as the author writes. This would cripple the state in a fundamental way.

Critical Mass On Budget Reform

The weekly Democratic radio address (which ought to be a YouTube address, come on guys) called for an end to the 2/3 requirement for budget and tax increases. This is the first time in my memory that so many lawmakers are openly talking about revising 2/3. It's not a new problem - 28 of the last 32 budgets have been late due to legislative squabbling, with the fights becoming more protracted than ever over the past decade. And every economic downturn, no matter how slight, sets off a crisis. Assemblyman John Perez made it clear:

The budget would not have taken so long and would have not included non-budget related issues like an open primary if California did not have the unusual requirement of a two thirds vote for budget approval.

Reforming this two-thirds requirement should be a priority for all Californians.

Perez did not reference whether the new requirement should be the arbitrary 55% number, which is what the current initiative being circulated states, or a simple democratic majority. We've learned where a number of Democrats stand this weekend:

• Darrell Steinberg decided not to mention 2/3 hardly at all in his op-ed in the Sacramento Bee. That's a lack of leadership. No elected official should be speaking in public and pass up the opportunity to advocate for majority vote. He instead opted for a Broderist call for working together and the awkward tag line "Smarter going forward."

In comments to David Greenwald, Steinberg did call for repeal, but failed to pick a side.

“The answer in my view is to take this two-thirds supermajority requirement. We are one of three states in the country that allows a small minority of members to hold up the progress.... It doesn't really work for California; it worked this time barely because of the magnitude of the crisis... We need to take the question this two-thirds supermajority to the ballot. I feel even stronger now than I did when I started on December 1.”

• Karen Bass is also talking about 2/3, but she is looking at the arbirtrary standard:

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, has proposed one that would allow lawmakers to approve budgets with 55 percent majorities if they do it by June 15. After that, it would take two-thirds votes.

It's not necessarily that this kind of measure would definitely not pass because all the thrust of majority democratic rule is lost, but that's certainly a factor.

• In that same article, Loni Hancock calls for a simple majority:

Hancock has introduced a constitutional amendment that would require only simple majorities to approve budgets.

"California needs to have a normal democracy like every other state in the nation except Rhode Island and Arkansas," she said.

That's a talking point. 55% is mush.

The point is that we have the Democratic leadership finally talking about the main impediment to the perpetual budget crisis. Without two-thirds, you can fix a tax system that is too closely tied to boom-and-bust economic cycles. Without two-thirds, you can end the virtual bribery of Yacht Party and moderate lawmakers. Without two-thirds, you can end the Big Five process that facilitates official secrecy and backroom deals and use a deliberative process involving the committee structure and relying on the input of the entire caucus. And without 2/3, you won't have to hear from high Broderist windbags tinkering on the margins with proposals that make them feel good but will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem. It's kind of hilarious that the LAST proposal in George "Can't We All Get Along" Skelton's long list in today's column is this:

* A simple majority vote for budget passage; 55% at most. Scrap the two-thirds vote requirement.