More End-Of-Session Notes

A few end-of-the-session tidbits for you:

• CapAlert reports that Karen Bass will try again to get some of the more spineless members of her caucus to support a prison reform bill better than the scaled-back effort it already passed. Bass talked about adding the "alternative custody" provisions into the bill, which would get it to the proper level of cuts, but not the sentencing commission, which still looks dead, sadly.

• One bill we know to be dead is SB88, which would have forced localities to get permission from the state before going into bankruptcy. This was a union-backed bill to protect their local contracts, but city governments balked. Sen. Mark DeSaulnier says he'll try to broker a compromise for next year. Those bankruptcies are probably right down the pike, so he'd better hurry.

• The bill that the Governor arrogantly vetoed earlier in the week, in a hissy fit because he wasn't getting his way on water or prisons, was a bill to initiate a Vietnam Veteran's memorial day. It was authored by Republican Assemblyman Paul Cook, and he's whipping support to undergo the first legislative veto override in Sacramento in about 30 years, which is truly a sad legacy. Only in California could securing an override on an uncontroversial bill be something that could end a political career, as Cook acknowledged today. An override would be at least a sign of life in the Legislature.

• A lot of rumbling about the water bill, which is being written completely in secrecy, and without the input of politicians who represent the Sacramento Delta. Bass hinted at a bond issue to finance whatever comes out of conference, which would cost $600 million $800 million in debt service annually without any consequent gains in revenue to pay for it.

Could be another long night...

Legislature Home Stretch Update

There's lots of significant news in the Legislature's last week regarding various bills, and it's extremely difficult to keep up with it all, probably by design. I should point out that, while the legislative calendar has an end date, there's no actual reason for some of the forced bottlenecks that result in hundreds of bills being passed at the last minute. It creates a shroud of secrecy in which special interests rule, and saps the public trust. A Democratic leadership actually interested in positioning government as somewhat decent would remove these forced bottlenecks from the internal legislative rules and allow bills to be approved on a rolling basis. That said, this is the system we have now, and here's a bunch of news about various bills:

• A new bill would exempt non-General Fund workers from furloughs. This would reverse one of the dumbest provisions in the budget bill, the practice of forcing furloughs on workers not paid by state government, saving almost no money and depriving people of needed services. Of course, the Governor will probably veto this one, because he hates admitting how wrong he is.

• Democrats on that vaunted water committee have decided against floating a bond to pay for any restoration or overhaul of the Delta. This means Republicans won't vote for it, and very little will come of this very important committee thrown together at the last minute. Some conference committee reports are here, but a deal looks remote, as it would need votes from some of the empty chairs in the Yacht Party.

• One bill that has cleared both chambers would set up "Education Finance Districts", "in which three or more contiguous school districts can band together to try to increase local taxes." This is a small step to make it easier for districts to pass parcel taxes to fund schools, but at this point every little bit helps. The 2/3 rule for approving such taxes would remain.

• With all the talk of health care reform, it's notable that an anti-rescission bill has once again passed the legislature. The bill would also simplify insurance forms. Last session, Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it. There's something you don't hear much about from the Democratic leadership - Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have banned insurance companies from dropping patients after they get sick. He sided with the forces of insurer-assisted suicide. This is your modern Yacht Party on this issue:

"Any of those who have read the various exposés in the Los Angeles Times and others . . . is aware that health insurers have admitted and acknowledged they engaged in a form of post-claims underwriting," said Sen. Mark Wyland (R-Escondido). "It is unethical and, considering what some of these people have endured, it really borders on the immoral."

However, Wyland said he would not vote for the bill because the Department of Insurance has proposed new rules to solve the problem, and he wants to see how they work.

Hey, give 'em a chance to see if the immorality stops! If not, we can think it over.

• The Legislature may extend a homebuyer's tax credit passed in a previous budget agreement that was nothing but a bailout for developers. It only credited new construction, and was structured only to benefit high-income households who could afford new construction. By the way, sales of new units have fell since this was enacted, so it's not even meeting its intended purpose. But it's a giveaway to a special interest, so off the money may go, even though we cannot afford it at this time.

• A bill to ban bisphenol A (BPA) from children's products was delayed after the Assembly couldn't muster 41 votes. The debate in the Assembly last night was pretty fierce.

• Cities and counties reacted angrily to a proposed bill to slow local government bankruptcies until vetted by the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission. On the merits this looks to be a bill that would install more control on locals from Sacramento, although there are arguments on both sides. But mainly it's about the fate of union contracts in local bankruptcies, I don't think either side would deny that.

• A roundup of other bills passed yesterday can be found here.

Go Into Debt And Spend Conservatives

Before you sign on to the theory that California just spends too much and cannot afford the generous services it used to provide, take a look at this excellent work from OC Progressive. These kinds of fiscally maddening deals are a dime a dozen in the failed Schwarzenegger era, because he refused to talk straight with Californians and make them understand that ponying up at the beginning would save tens of billions in the long run.

When the state decided to borrow 1.935 billion from local governments, the local governments were pretty damn skeptical that the state would have the money to pay them back in four years. So the legislature passed a bill, ABX4 15, that authorized bonds with the state's highest rating, and agreed to pay the fees and interest to issue the bonds so the cities and counties wouldn't have to try to borrow the money individually.

I was sure I misheard the terms when Noreen Evans was introducing the bill to securitize the borrowing from local government. It just couldn't be possible that the state was authorizing 340 million in issuance fees on 1.935 billion in four year bonds and authorizing up to 8% in interest.

That would be almost a billion dollars in interest to borrow 1.9 billion for four years. That's just batshit crazy.

Holy Shit. I heard right, and I calculated it right.

Those are rates that would make a loan shark blush. And it's not the first time. You can go back further, but reducing the vehicle license fee in 2003 (remember Arnold's campaign events where he would smash up a car) led to an orgy of borrowing, with interest payments piling up on the back end. Over time, as credit becomes harder and harder to access and people become less and less trusting of the state's fiscal structure, they have to design elaborate deals like this that just give away billions at a time for no reason. Servicing debt is the fastest-growing segment of the budget, along with prisons.

And these stupid schemes get forced on the public by a process where radical "go into debt and spend" conservatives hold a minority veto over sensible revenue solutions. They refuse to be honest with the public, and tell them "we're saving your money" while wasting a billion dollars in interest without blinking. This is why we desperately need reform and the restoration of representative democracy where the legislature can reflect the will of the people.

Budget Hell Pretty Much Over, Reality Hell Begins

So the Assembly is wrapping up their budget session, and it turns out that the Assembly came up $1.1 billion dollars short of the Senate's solutions. Oil drilling failed, and the local government raid on HUTA (gas taxes) failed as well.

So where does that leave us? These bills will go to the governor, and since there isn't concurrence, it will be roughly a $23 billion solution rather than $24 billion. But, the Governor has a line-item veto. He can make various cuts with his blue pencil. But $1.1 billion? Who knows. That seems like a tall order.

Considering what Schwarzenegger did the last time a partial solution was handed to him, I guess there's an outside shot that he'll just say no and open a new extraordinary session. But he'll probably just line-item some, and maybe make up the difference by eating into what is now a $900 million dollar budget reserve.

Is everybody ready to be back here in October?

...Let me clarify. The Governor can make line-item cuts but he doesn't necessarily have to, because this is a budget revision. He can also shift around the size of the reserve. In the end, he doesn't actually have to be in balance for a revision; that's a Constitutional need at the beginning of the process, as I understand it, not now. Clearly from the Governor's remarks, he's not going to veto the whole thing, so this is the "solution," for now. There also may be Constitutional problems with some of the stuff passed.

Still Not Over - Assembly Stalemated

The Assembly has gone into a deep cocoon, only occasionally popping up to finish a vote that has been placed on hold. The most recent one was SB12, which set cuts for general government. That's not necessarily in the land of controversial votes - the local government raids, the offshore drilling proposal and the return payment of Prop. 98 maintenance of effort funds in future years are the major stumbling blocks. But SB12 couldn't get the 54 votes needed for passage, stalling out at 51. Now, it's possible that this was just a delay tactic while negotiations and arm-twisting continue over the other issues. But the longer this plays out, the more opportunity for a collapse.

The Senate is in adjournment. They are gone until August. They jammed the Assembly and now the Assembly has to find a way out of the mess. If you've resigned yourself to the fact that this is over, well, I think we might have a long way to go. Remember that the Assembly has one less person in it now than it did in February - Curren Price moved up to the Senate. That means additional votes are needed, most likely from Republicans, for these measures.

I would be slightly surprised if these remaining measures didn't pass. But the going is very slow, and there's still time to weigh in and whip your Assemblymembers, particularly on the contentious issues.

Budget By Sunrise

Maybe you've been following along at Calitics, but if you haven't, the Senate essentially passed all of their budget bills, albeit with difficulty, and adjourned a session that started last night around 7:30pm at 6:16 this morning. The Assembly is still working through some of the final trailer bills, including the local government raids and the offshore drilling proposal at Tranquillon Ridge. Here's an incomplete roundup from the LA Times.

The worst elements of the bill were passed while everyone was asleep. They must be very proud of their work.

And of course, this is a rolling, perpetual crisis. Dan Walters is correct today when he says that the state now operates on 5-month budget cycles.

There have been some discussions about shifting to a two-year budget cycle to ease the one-year cycle's tight – and usually unmet – timetable. In reality, though, the state has shifted to a five-month cycle, with the latest version of the budget, which was undergoing the dreary drill of adoption Thursday night, being the latest example [...]

If the five-month cycle holds true, the deal's deficiencies will be acknowledged in October, when the state must redeem the IOUs it's sending to creditors. And then legislators will return to Sacramento to be entertained by lobbyists, plug the new holes and collect about $1,200 a week in tax-free per diem checks.

In January, the governor will propose a 2010-11 budget and the game will begin again.

It's as much that they cannot fathom the extremity of the real budget problems as that the cumulative effect of kicking the can becomes greater with every kick. Of course, there's a way out - you could reduce useless tax breaks to corporations and increase revenue. But that's deeply unserious and verboten.

If ever the need for a Constitutional convention to fix the broken system in Sacramento has become clear, it's now, when 40 years of progress has been reversed in the dead of night.

Exclusive: Mark DeSaulnier Voting No on "Most" Of The Budget

I interviewed Sen. Mark DeSaulnier just a few minutes ago for a series on CA-10 candidates. But I took the opportunity to ask him about the budget deal. Un unusually blunt and what I would characterize as irate language, DeSaulnier blasted the budget and the process that created it. "It's all awful," he said. "On a majority-vote level, with votes that require a majority vote, California still leads the nation. But on a fiscal level, we're living in the Dark Ages. The system is completely dysfunctional and maybe the only good thing is that people will finally see the kind of change we need. Sadly, too many people are still in denial about that change. But we can't go on like this. It's just a mess."

DeSaulnier thinks that the economy is unlikely to change dramatically to bail out this budget, and it will take a long time for General Fund revenues to get to a point to pay off the money borrowed from education. And so we'll remain in this dark place for some time.

The Senator is carrying a bill in the legislature to put together a Constitutional convention, and he is "more convinced than ever" about the need for it. He believes that, after the budget is put the bed, there is an urgent need, recognized by the leadership, to turn completely to reform. Sen. Steinberg has said to him that the message will be nothing but change, change, change. And the caucus wants to work, whether through a revision commission or reforms that could be put together with majority support, to do a "Constitutional convention in the building." Unfortunately, DeSaulnier said, everyone on both sides of the aisle immediately goes to the worst-case scenario of a convention, thinking that their gains and protections will be lost. But that's no excuse. DeSaulnier hoped he could get with Republican leaders like Sam Blakeslee to find common ground on a few reform issues, but he's not sanguine about those choices. "They're individually good people, but put them together and they're a cult, not a party. Milton Friedman's dead, move on."

When I asked what he would vote for on Thursday, he said "I will probably vote against most of it." DeSaulnier singled out two pieces that could not get his support: the offshore drilling in Tranquillon Ridge, and the raid on local governments. On the drilling, he doesn't understand why Democrats would approve such a proposal for a paltry $100 million dollars in this budget year. "I don't know why the Governor would do that. Whatever environmental record he claims to have will go down the tubes. I never thought he was particularly green to begin with, he tried to slow-walk AB32 and all sorts of environmental initiatives. He's the worst Governor in state history, just like George W. Bush was the worst President in history.

On the local government raid, DeSaulnier said that as someone who came from local government, he could not see clear to essentially bankrupt them. Those takings don't take place until December, according to him, so he would rather get the LAO involved, score the kinds of tax credits at the local level, things like enterprise zones that don't work and other giveaways to corporate interests, and suspend them to make local government whole. I think it's an interesting strategy, though I don't know if it could succeed. Tying it to local government needs is smart.

And by the way, the crazy redevelopment money scheme, to borrow against those future funds and securitize 10% of property taxes for 10-20 years? DeSaulnier called that "insane" and "illegal," and just a shadow play by Republicans "so they can go back to San Diego and Riverside and say they tried to save their local money and failed."

DeSaulnier has an election coming up, and thus an incentive to take a bold stand. But this is pretty darn bold. And if there are enough Democrats to go along with him, Republicans may indeed be forced to own this budget.

Into The Ocean

Among other places, I write at Calitics, the progressive site covering California politics. This is often a punishing experience. Since 1978, Proposition 13 has tilted the very structure of government in an unassailably conservative direction - 2/3 votes are needed to raise taxes, but only a simple majority to cut. As a result, politicians invariably take the path of least resistance, and as the Norquistian right rose to prominence in the state GOP, they learned that they could simply hijack the budget process for their own ends. State leaders compensated with borrowing and various gimmicks to put off the costs until after they left office. Servicing the debt became a bigger and bigger slice of the budget pie. Stakeholders who couldn't rely on the state used the ridiculously easy initiative process to pass unfunded spending mandates for themselves and all sorts of ballot-box budgeting. In good times, this uneasy balance worked... sort of. In even the most mild recessions, it would collapse.

That sets the stage for yesterday's horrendous budget deal, which closes a $26 billion dollar deficit with almost no new revenue, making steep cuts that amount to a reinvention of government's promises to its people, along with the usual gimmickry and a harsh, counter-productive set of raids on local government resources.

A local government official made a comment Monday afternoon, a few hours before the $25 billion deficit deal was reached, that seems to encapsulate everyone's feelings.

"As this budget hits the street today and people look at it," said San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, "I think Californians are going to say, 'How did we get in this mess?'"

It relies on about $15.5 billion in cuts and $11 billion in, well, other stuff (more on that in a moment).

Almost two-thirds of the cuts are in K-12 education, colleges, and universities (though it also includes a one-time supplemental payment to K-12 and community colleges of $11.2 billion). Other sizeable cuts are in corrections ($1.2 billion), state worker salaries ($1.3 billion in the current furloughs) and Medi-Cal services ($1.3 billion). Welfare assistance, health care for low-income kids, and in-home support services (IHSS) would also see cuts.

Also cut: funding for state parks, though nowhere near the level Governor Schwarzenegger proposed in May. Legislative staffers say a few parks would close, and the ones in question will be picked by the
administration.

In addition, the state will steal borrow $4.3 billion from already strapped local governments, leading to probable bankruptcies and in all likelihood more expenses for the state to pick up. California workers will see an extra 10% of their state withholding taxes taken as an interest-free loan. The state will delay paychecks to state workers by one day, from June 30 to July 1, to push $1.3 billion into the next fiscal year. Governor Robot added non-budget related items like anti-fraud prevention measures to IHSS, so that when you try to access social services, you get fingerprinted like a common criminal. And one of the only revenue producers? A $100 million annual lease for offshore drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara, the first new drilling on the California coast since a massive oil spill in that area 40 years ago.

A lot of this stuff is illegal; almost all of it is immoral. And yet the system is designed to produce bad outcomes. The 2/3 requirement enforces the structural revenue gap, led by the comically low property taxes, in particular for commercial properties (many paying the same rate since 1978). State Democrats have shown no leadership to change the system for 31 years, leading to policies that kick the can down the road, at a higher eventual cost. And Republicans get their wish of drowning government in the bathtub. California is dead last in state spending in almost every meaningful category, and this profoundly damages the state's future.

I have become convinced that the only way out of this is through a Constitutional convention, the enactment of which has been suggested by some who are trying to build a movement for it. This is not a problem of personality but process. We could elect Gavin Newsom, Meg Whitman, Noam Chomsky or John Birch governor, and the structural problems will still be with us. The structural problems are so vast, so widespread, that only dealing with them completely, and returning the state to responsible governance, has any hope of succeeding. It's going to take a long slog, but ultimately, we have to Repair California or else we will continue this long march to nowhere.

California's problem, by the way, is by no means unique. In the US Senate we have a smaller undemocratic threshold, but only slightly so. The minority Republicans are fanatical here, but not so much more than the rump conservatives in Congress. We have almost no state political media, what does exist pushes meaningless bipartisanship masquerading as a solution, and the electorate pays little attention to politics anyway, unless a sideshow like the recall election takes place; not all that different at the national level. California has throughout its history been seen as a bellweather for national economic and social change. As Paul Krugman said in a column several months ago, "This could be America next."

Blind To The Long Term

Robert Cruickshank pretty well covers the disaster that will be the upcoming budget "deal" between legislative Democrats and Arnold Schwarzenegger. By the way, this is BEFORE the Yacht Party tries to enact a few more goodies for the privilege of letting Democrats vote for $26 billion in cuts, gimmicks and raids on local government. We'll see a big sigh of relief from lawmakers over the next few days that will be wholly unwarranted.

In the coming days we will hear Democratic legislators claiming this is some sort of victory - that Cal-WORKS wasn't eliminated, that California can again pay its bills. These are hollow, pyrrhic victories. The raid on local government funds will ensure dozens of cities go bankrupt and will lead to reckless public safety cuts, especially to firefighters. Schools are going to get another hit without any firm guarantee that they will be repaid - we haven't seen details of the "agreement" to repay the $9.5 billion schools are owed, but Arnold seems to have won the battle to prevent repayment from becoming a constitutional mandate, meaning that repayment shouldn't be counted on until the checks are actually cut.

Still unclear is the fate of health care, IHSS, state parks, and other proposed cuts. But at this point it's not clear that their exact fate matters much. Democrats have signaled that they will abandon their half-hearted efforts to demand new revenues, to close corporate tax loopholes, and to have a more fairly balanced budget. When the next mid-year budget adjustment has to be done in 6 to 9 months from now, or in the battle over the 2010-11 budget a year from now, Arnold will have little incentive to listen to Democratic proposals, since he has proved once and for all that he can get Democrats to do his bidding by holding firm and demanding massive cuts.

Particularly galling is the targeting of city and county budgets to cover the state gap. By siphoning off almost $1 billion in gas tax funds slated for cities and counties, not one pothole in California will get filled this year. With the loss of $1.7 billion in redevlopment funds, not one project like affordable housing will get initiated. And by taking $1.3 billion in local property taxes, lots of city and county employees, particularly in public safety, will end up out of work. It's really robbery on a pretty grand scale, and it will offset any economic recovery through stimulus funding throughout the state.

One of the major consequences of this cuts-only budget will be, paradoxically, higher costs for individuals and the state. When you eliminate or severely restrict social services programs, those individuals who rely on them will have to go elsewhere for those services. The alternatives are more expensive for everyone.

Irene Steinlage has trouble walking, getting dressed, making her bed, taking a bath. She has stayed in her Folsom home with the help of a health aide, one that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says the state can no longer afford.

The governor's plan to take away such care is meant to save money. But it could end up costing California more by forcing the 85-year-old, who has Parkinson's, osteoporosis and other ailments -- and thousands like her -- into nursing homes.

"I couldn't possibly afford a nursing home," Steinlage said. So the state could be saddled with a Medi-Cal tab that is triple the cost of her home care worker, who receives $10.40 an hour five days a week [...]

Others say the experience of governments that have closed gaping deficits with deep program cuts suggests that the price of doing so is hefty.

"It's pay now or pay later," said Nicholas Freudenberg, who co-wrote a study of the long-term effects of service reductions made in the aftermath of New York City's fiscal crisis of 1975.

His 2006 study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that less than $10 billion in cuts to healthcare, education and law enforcement in New York City over four years led to at least $54 billion in additional costs over a 20-year period, using 2004 dollars and adjusted for inflation. Consequences included higher rates of HIV, a worsened tuberculosis epidemic and a spike in homicides.

"Those potential epidemics that are being seeded by Gov. Schwarzenegger's cuts will not come in his term or the terms of people who are making these decisions," Freudenberg said. "It will be several years down the line."

The sick thing is that the Governor, and maybe even some in the Yacht Party, know this. The consequences of program cuts are easily seen. Eliminating the Poison Control System, for example, means that people calling the emergency number (many of whom don't need to see a doctor based on poison accidentally swallowed) will instead go to the ER, and many of those visits will be from people on Medi-Cal, leading to higher costs. Cutting adult day care will send many into nursing homes, at a higher cost to the state. Losing Cal Works welfare funding will send children into foster care, at a higher cost. Cutting the meager drug treatment and vocational training in prisons almost assures an even higher recidivism rate, at a higher cost.

This is not a difficult calculation to make. We fund social services programs not only because we have an obligation in a developed society not to see people dying on the street, but because we can create programs that get people back to self-sufficiency at a lower overall cost. There is only one reason not to fund such programs - because an arrogant and entitled right wing refuses to fund these government obligations in the short term, preferring apparently to pay more in the long term. There has been enough money in the last few budgets to produce massive corporate tax cuts, but not enough to get someone with a chemical dependency the treatment he or she needs. There's been enough money to protect California's unique status as the only oil-producing state not to charge corporations for taking our natural resources out of the ground, but not enough to provide long-term care services that relieve the burden of nursing home funding over the long term. There's enough money to keep in place useless enterprise zones that create nothing but tax giveaways, but not enough to keep the state from becoming the first in the nation to put poor kids on a waiting list for affordable health insurance.

We hear about the "generous social services programs" in California that simply had to be cut, but they've been reduced to the point where they are almost unanimously the worst in the nation. That depresses the business climate, that moves bodies out of the state, that alienates the public. And Arnold Schwarzenegger knows this, and he did it anyway, to keep a promise to what little of his base he has left.

Ultimately, this system isn't designed to produce good budgets. Without a media that cares, no amount of activism or public pressure can be brought to bear on a shameless and unaccountable minority. If you need proof of the need for a complete rethinking of how to structure government in California in the 21st century, look at the last seven months.

CA-46: Debbie Cook: "Stimulate What? Buying More Crap From China?"

There was a lot of excitement in the IAM (Int'l Assoc. of Machinists) union hall this morning in Huntington Beach, where DFA's Jim Dean and a host of local officials testified to the worthiness and strength of Debbie Cook, the Democratic candidate in CA-46, seeking to retire certified nutjob Dana Rohrabacher in Congress. But the best reaction was for the candidate herself, who gave a straight-shooting, no B.S. speech that made clear the stakes in this election.

"Do-Nothing Dana has been in Congress for 20 years and hasn't done a thing," Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, said to a pancake breakfast of around 120 volunteers who were ready to precinct walk for her. Referring to a claim from the campaign's latest ad, that Rohrabacher has sponsored a bill to protect the country from an asteroid, she said, "he needs to worry less about asteroids and more about planet Earth."

Cook has really matured as a speaker. She is great on her core issues - energy, the environment, and health care reform - but she's also endorsed the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, and really foregrounds smart growth and development issues. State and local governments are so stressed by this financial crisis that it's incumbent upon us to send lawmakers to Washington who understand local concerns. I've heard again and again from local lawmakers in that district - and again today from Katrina Foley, running for re-election to City Council in Costa Mesa - that Rohrabacher is openly dismissive of any federal help for local governments, and refuses to work with his counterparts. At this point that's downright dangerous, creating choke points that will gut basic services and the smart policies we need - in mass transit, for example - to weather this economic downturn and create a 21st-century infrastructure.

You'll notice that Foley, the Costa Mesa city councilwoman, is a Democrat. Gus Ayer, the mayor of Fountain Valley, a Democrat. Debbie Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, Democrat. Orange County is changing, and those who ignore this reality and rest on their laurels, like Dana Rohrabacher, will live to regret it. "This is the first time he's had to get off his lazy a$% and campaign," she said. And he was slow to do it. He only spent $38,000 in the third quarter, but once internal Republican polls have shown the race to be a dead heat, he has swamped the district with money. He's got 4 positive ads on the air and a bunch of negative mailers attacking Debbie as an "extreme liberal" on various issues. If it's liberal to advocate for quality and affordable health care for all, as she has done in earning the endorsement of the California Nurses Association, because to ignore the crisis welcomes a "fiscal nightmare" that risks blowing a hole in the federal budget for good, so be it. If it's liberal to recognize that our current carbon-based economy is unsustainable, and that we must encourage policies and practices that move us off fossil fuels, there you are. If it's liberal to understand that smart density with mass transit can improve quality of life, the environment and the economy, well OK then.

The best part of the speech was when Cook talked about all the support she was getting throughout the district, and she mentioned that some people gave her their economic stimulus checks from the government. "To stimulate what? Buying more crap from China?" While a new stimulus is needed, rather than handing out money as a band-aid we need to direct that spending into something useful, something that will create jobs and get the economy moving again. We need to make things again in America.

After the speeches, the volunteers were sent out to walk precincts. CA-46 is a very long and narrow district that hugs the coast from Long Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula in L.A. County down to Costa Mesa in Orange County. Putting those blue areas up north into the district to neutralize their power is a big mistake in this wave election. As the Cook campaign finds new voters everywhere, turning out folks in Long Beach is part of the strategy. So I walked part of a precinct in Long Beach and got a very good response. Rohrabacher simply does not have a good reputation among anyone but the wingnuts, and his record on Social Security (pro-privatization), the military (voted against improving veteran's health care) and the environment (he's a global warming denier) is quite extreme. (There's also the dressing up in drag to solve the RFK murder and about a thousand other lunatic stories) I talked to people today who said "We're Republicans, but we don't like Dana." Very few people turned me away.

Cook's volunteer base is the edge in this election. But she also needs some financial help. The campaign estimates that they need $75,000 to meet their budget and get the last few targeted mailers into the field. Debbie is a Blue America candidate. You can donate to her on ActBlue. Please do - we have a real chance here. I'm hoping to get Debbie on Calitics Radio next week.

And if you're in the district, consider volunteering by visiting their website.