While California Dreams: August 2007 Archives

A weekly update on the goings-on in Sacramento
For the week ending August 25, 2007

Key bills and issues we've been following during
the past week and beyond:

On Friday the Governor signed the budget and used his "blue pencil" to cut important social programs for the neediest Californians, while protecting yacht, airplane and recreational vehicle owners from having to step forward and contribute to the common good.

With the budget now over, the legislature and Governor get to push for their pet projects during the last three weeks of the legislative session, including the important but going-south debate on health care reform.

And it seems the ostensible winner from the budget mess may just be Attorney General Jerry Brown who is making substantial noises again about running for Governor of the State when Schwarzenegger is termed out in 2010.

Lots more to mention, so here's the scoop on this past week:

After an incomprehensible 52 day holdout, the Republicans let their leader cast the deciding, and only 2nd Senate Republican vote on the budget. Obtaining very few concessions of any kind, the budget battle is now at rest until next year's budget battle begins.

The Budget-- On the 52nd day, the legislature rested and the impasse that no one could quite explain ended with the Senate passing the 2007/08 budget. Alas, two days after ending their month-long recess, the Reps. finally let their ostensible "leader" Dick Ackerman, cast the final vote necessary to break the logjam that seems inevitable with the state's requirement of a 2/3 vote of each house to get a budget.

It's pretty much the same budget that conjured a bipartisan vote in the Assembly, but the one glaring concession that should offend just about everyone who isn't rich enough to own a yacht is the one Ackerman himself was able to achieve for yacht owners like himself.

Remembering that the budget is the state's moral document and is supposed to reflect the moral values of its people, this budget provides for a $45 million tax break for yacht owners who now can buy a yacht in California, take it out of state for 90 days, bring it back and NOT have to pay sales tax on the purchase. If that alone is not offensive enough, the trade off was made yesterday when the Governor blue-penciled, and thus completely eliminated, an extremely important and successful program to house the mentally ill.

This program had been lauded by mental health experts as helping break the cycle of homelessness that included hospitalization, jails and life on the streets. Among the many ironies in abolishing a program that actually saves the state millions of dollars beyond its cost, this was the same measure the Gov. went out of his way to praise only three years ago.

Clearly, the ultra-conservatives who dominate the Republican Party today think it's great to serve their wealthy masters at our expense, so let's put a face on who will now suffer. One Paul Culp, the LA Times reports, is a college graduate who suffers from untreated bipolar disorder and was living on the streets. Two years into this program, he was reunited with his children and is now supporting himself. Now the program is gone. Where will Paul Culp end up? And does anybody care---after all we've saved more than enough to allow yacht owners to buy their million dollar toys without having to pay the sales tax that you and I must on our less indulgent purchases. Moral document indeed.

Check out this excellent LA Times piece on this shameful Schwarzenegger veto, and this

Mercury News article.

The holdout Reps were complaining that Jerry Brown was causing problems for developers by wanting protections against growth that didn't take into account the mandate of AB 32, the Global Warming measure. At the end of the day, the Reps got just about nothing for their whining but certainly enhanced the image and reputation of Attorney General Brown. If there was a winner in all this, the SacBee reports, it may very well be the AG himself. Ever the wily politician, Brown positioned himself as the champion of the global warming issue by forcing the County of San Bernardino to consider the mandates of AB 32 in its revised General Plan. Although Brown has not been a champion of the environment for years, he has raised his environmental credentials geometrically with this aggressive interpretation, one of the most popular and highly visible environmental legislation to come out of California in many years. Watch for another Jerry Brown gubernatorial candidacy in 2010 when Schwarzenegger is termed-out. For more, check out this SacBee story online.

As we've mentioned numerous times in our weekly updates and other blogs, it's time for the state to end this 2/3 vote requirement. The priorities of the majority of Californians aren't reflected in this budget. Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata clearly agrees. Fed up with the games and bad faith of the "gang of 14" Republican Senators who unnecessarily held up the budget, Perata this week called on the Governor to convene a summit to fix the system he referred to as "fatally broken." He wants a bipartisan panel to develop a plan that will ensure on-time budgets in the future and that rethinks how we collect our taxes, from where and how we spend them. See the SacBee story for more on this issue, as well as Frank Russo's California Progress Report article.

Others are calling for an initiative that will end the undemocratic 2/3 budget requirement, a proposal being advanced by state Senator Tom Torlekson and dicussed further in this Mercury News article.

With the Republicans holding the power position because of the super majority requirement, they're able to wreak havoc with the state's priorities. This latest budget is just such an example. It's time we ditch this undemocratic system and come back in step with all the states except for Rhode Island and Arkansas. It's time the majority party was accountable for the budget so that if the public is dissatisfied with the way they're running things, they can (and should) be voted out. That's the principle of democracy and that's what we need back in California.

SB840/Universal Health Care and AB8

Now that the budget is history, the Governor and legislative leadership is looking to address the health care mess that exists in California and nationwide. It doesn't take a rocket-scientist to know that the current system is broken, however it does take someone outside the health insurance business to know that we need to remove them from the debate. Although the Gov. continues to insist that we talk about insuring everyone, he is actually trying to protect his big contributors in the health insurance industry. He claims that everyone will get care, yet doesn't mention it will be provided by private companies whose only interest is making money. Ironically, they make money by denying care, not providing it.

The Gov.'s approach is to make everyone pay into the insurance companies---employers, hospitals, docs and employees. The Dems say, "no way". Senator Kuehl's universal plan, which is the only truly comprehensive health care reform on the table, says once we take the insurance companies out of the equation, we can provide health care for everyone, without having 35 cents of every dollar in premiums going to the health insurance gluttons. And we all get to choose our own doctors to boot!

AB 8 is sort of a half-way proposal. It includes a minimum employer contribution but expands public programs for children and their families, and tries to curb insurance company abuses and other tweaks around the outside of a cancerous middle called the for-profit health insurance business. Check out Julia Rosen's Working Californian's article for more information.

The debate has been heating up all week, with the Gov. saying he won't sign AB 8 or SB840 (which he vetoed last year as well). Following the SacBee's coverage, we see as the week ended, Speaker Nunez has called the Gov.'s bluff, saying he would put Schwarzenegger's proposal in a bill and have a vote on the floor. A 2/3 vote would be required because there is a tax increase included, and if the Reps stay true to their blind allegiance to their mantra, "no new taxes", the Gov.'s proposal will go down in flying defeat. Remember, too, that this Governor doesn't have many admirers on his own side of the aisle, so this could be an interesting, albeit dangerous, game of chicken Nunez may be setting up.

Latest report shows wage gap widening

Not surprisingly, if you checked your bank account balance recently, the wage gap is widening in California with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

The highly respected California Budget Project released a new report this week, "A Generation of Widening Inequality: The State of Working California, 1979 to 2006." Its findings are not surprising. The wealthiest continue to gain capital and the poorest continue to lose purchasing power with wages that barely keep pace with inflation. Interestingly, the gap between low-wage and high-wage workers has widened more in California than in the country as a whole. California's high wage workers are doing better than most, but our low-wage workers are doing worse than their US counterparts. And what is happening to the middle class? It's simply disappearing. Of course, now is the time to go out and buy that yacht and airplane, but then again, only the wealthy can afford them---and don't have to pay into the public treasury to boot! The good news for them is that they're getting rich enough to be able to afford one of each, while working Californians continue to struggle, with the bottom pay range having dropped 7.2% and 43% of new jobs paying less than $11 an hour.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, the economic recovery of the past decade has not provided the historic broad increase in the standard of living for workers but instead has created "skyrocketing corporate profits". So much for the right-wing's much ballyhooed "trickle down" economics.

The good news in this report, such as it is? The value of a college degree has gone up and the disparity between men and women has gone down. But Latinos have lost ground.

Initiatives and More Initiatives filling up the 2008 ballot

We've been following the trail of initiative announcements and the march from signature gathering to qualifying for the ballot. With virtually dozens of such measures in some stage of the process, we'll be looking carefully at them all as they qualify for the ballot in either February, June, or November 2008.

At this point in time, it seems that the topic which will be most closely followed revolves around the sneaky effort by the Republicans to rig our Presidential vote in a way that ensures their party's occupation of the White House in 2008. As we've reported previously on our website and on our blogpost, the Reps want to divvy-up the state's massive 55 votes by congressional district, thus insuring them of additional electoral votes similar in number to those within states the size of Ohio or Florida. No need for chads or hacking into insecure Diebold voting machines, as the thinking goes, all we have to do is split California's votes and regain the White House we've lost through our miserable, corrupt and incompetent stewardship over the past 6 ½ years.

The Dems are coming back swinging this time. This past week they introduced two proposed initiatives of their own that will reform the antiquated Electoral College system of electing a President. It calls for a national approach which will commit California to a plan that declares the winner of the national popular vote, President. Under the Democrats plan, this process would go into effect once the majority of states holding 270 cumulative electoral votes support such a measure.

Although a recent Field Poll released Tuesday, August 21, 2007 shows initial support for the Rep proposal (the Democratic response was not included in the poll because it had not yet been introduced), it did not have over 50 % support. Without a big lead to start, these kinds of initiatives rarely pass after a long and expensive battle which will undoubtedly ensue. You can be sure this measure will attract lots of national attention for its potential consequences for whoever takes the White House in November 2008. We'll be covering this one very closely.

The Rest of the Story

Our blogging offerings for the week

During the past week, we've featured Women's Equality Day, as we celebrate the 78th anniversary of women finally getting the vote:

Women's Equality- How far have we come?

Celebrating Women's Equality through Workforce Justice

What do working women and their families want?

To read and comment on these entries, just go to: www.speakoutca.org/weblog/
With only a few weeks left in the first year of this legislative session, there will be a flurry of activity and key bills we'll be watching over the next several editions of our weekly update. We welcome your comments and suggestions and hope you will send this newsletter to your friends and other like-minded progressives. Urge them to sign up to Speak Out California and keep the progressive voice alive!

Until next week,

Hannah-Beth Jackson and the Speak Out California Team

While California Dreams-Weekly Update Vol. 1 No. 11
A weekly update on the goings-on in Sacramento
For the week ending August 18, 2007

Key bills and issues we've been following during the past week and beyond:

The budget continues to be the key issue for the state, although it appears not too many Californians are paying close attention to the deadlock and the governor has been unable to move his team one bit in the process. Presidential politics are heating up in the Golden State with the latest polls showing significant movement for the Hillary Clinton campaign. More and more initiatives are heading toward the ballot, with the announcement of numerous measures being introduced or out for signature gathering. But with the promise that the Legislature will be coming back this week, talks and issues will begin again in earnest.....maybe. If the legislative process does begin, healthcare will likely move front-and -center with other hot-button issues not far behind.

Here's the scoop on this past week:

The Budget--Week Seven and Counting. Lots of pain, but no Gain:

Although the state's ability to function has been seriously compromised by the lack of a budget, there is little compromise left in the legislature at the moment. The budget impasse is sadly, drawing less than overwhelming public concern, except to those directly impacted by the state's inability to pay its bills for services and programs. Without the necessary outcry, there is little likelihood that we'll see enough pressure exerted by the public to get much movement on this crisis. Although the numbers are subject to interpretation, the outcry, such as it is, comes primarily from those who are not being paid for their services or those who are unable to access those state-funded programs. The majority of Californians haven't yet felt the impacts and aren't willing to raise the heat to a high enough temperature to get this budget resolved. As the delay creates greater hardship, more voices will be raised and hopefully more effective pressure will force one of the "gang of 14" holdout Republican senators to break ranks and get the state back on track.

The belief is Sacramento is that the Rep leader, Dick Ackerman, was supposed to have stepped forward earlier in the month with that vote Unfortunately, somewhere short of the Senate floor he chickened-out. Although the ostensible "leader" of his pack, Ackerman has a history of being weak-kneed at critical times and rather than lead has been intimidated by his own caucus. It's unfortunate because he's "termed out" and is teetering on top of the heap as it is. The conventional wisdom is that no matter what happens, his position as Minority Leader will be over in very short order.

This week, the Governor made a half-hearted and clearly ineffective try at reigning in his flock. He returned from vacation by blasting Senate Republicans for the impasse. When that didn't do anything other than harden their will, he decided to blame the Legislature as a whole. When that didn't work, he just stopped appearing at all, and has done little, if anything to try to jump-start the discussions over the past several days. Hey Gov, one of your Senators is all it will take. What happened to those cigar nights in your tent? You might want to open the flaps and let some of the boys enjoy a $50 smoke on your dime and see if you can't charm them with your Terminator tales. After all, it worked with the public.

One suggestion that just might work is removing the undemocratic 2/3rds requirement to get a budget. SInce the Reps abuse their once-a-year political power, maybe its time to cut them loose from the debate entirely. If they showed any sense of responsibility or good faith in negotiating, that would be one thing, However, this band of 14 right-wing neocons considers this budget debate just good sport. They are revelling in holding the state hostage.
It's time to put an end to their antics. Heavens, even right-wing extremist Tom McClintock agrees on that plan!

Although a Field poll conducted this week shows that just 12% of Californians are very concerned about the budget mess, thousands of unpaid bills are clogging the inboxes of the state. It is estimated that millions of dollars in late fees are already piling up and billions of dollars in unsold bonds are jeopardizing the state's plans to move forward with various programs. In addition to the $1 billion the state has now failed to make in Medi-cal payments to hospitals and other providers, Cal Trans estimates it has almost 35,000 invoices that are unpaid and more than $8 million owing to its vendors. For the California Highway Patrol, it's about $17 Million. It goes downhill from there to those seeking payment.

And for those needing services, ---the disabled, our kids and families who rely on state services, they're really starting tofeel the pinch. Unfortunately, the Reps who are holding out are being heralded as heroes by their right-wing constituents. Sadly too many of them care little that the state is unable to provide much needed services to the neediest among us. As more vendors are unpaid and more small businesses are threatened, the cries will grow, even in the reddest of areas.

Much is being written on the stalemate-who it helps, who it hurts, but the only real question is who's going to blink first? No one is quite sure, as the 14 hold-out Republicans want more cuts (they've already gotten the Governor's commitment to do that) and the Dems are threatening to put the whole deal back on the table. But with them coming back from summer recess this week, perhaps there will be something that causes the deadlock to break. What it will be, if anything, is anybody's guess.....

In the meantime, the Legislature is taking a big hit in its public support. While this should be of concern to the members who are hoping to extend their current terms with the so-called "Term Limits" initiative, the irony is that the more dissatisfaction with this group the greater the likelihood the term limits measure will pass, thus giving these same unpopular people more time to stay in office. In other words, the longer the budget delay, the greater the chances these legislators will have to extend the length of their terms, according to the latest polls. For more on this check out the Sac Bee.

Presidential Politics--Hillary breaking away from the pack:

With a new poll coming out this week, it looks like the Hillary machine has made significant progress in California, widening her lead to a 30 point advantage over her closest primary opponent, Barak Obama. Thanks to an effective early organization, led by California campaign manager, Ace Smith, the Hillary folks have put together an impressive early start. But don't expect the Obama campaign to let this lead continue. It has just announced the hiring of s new California campaign director, Mitchell Schwarz who is, himself, a seasoned strategist. His past credentials include campaigns for Bill Clinton, Barbara Boxer and Antonio Villaraigosa. Look for this race to heat up soon. With California's huge delegation at stake, all top-tier candidates will be fighting hard to win the February primary.

SB 840-Universal Health Care still in the news:

A very interesting development occurred this week that highlights the public support for Senator Sheila Kuehl's bill to bring universal health care to California. A group of "non-profit" healthcare foundations led by Blue Shield of California Foundation, organized a townhall type event in 8 locations around the state. Titled, "CaliforniaSpeaks", these groups spent about $4 million ostensibly to bring together randomly selected Californians to talk about healthcare reform. The event included Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders, among others and was designed to control the discussion by leaving out the single-payor option. But the public was not fooled and in fact INSISTED that SB 840 be discussed. Not only was it brought up as a viable option, when all was said and done, the majority of those in attendance supported SB 840 as the public's choice for healthcare. For a great article on this, check out Senator Kuehl's piece reprinted in the California Progress Report.

Other legislation to watch:

We've had several Speak Out California readers ask about gun-control legislation this year. If the legislative leaders withdraw their threats to hold up all legislation until a budget passes, we'll likely see movement on AB 1471, a bill authored by Assemblymember Mike Feuer. This bill received a boost this past week when LA Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa and law enforcement leaders held a news conference in support of this measure. The bill ould make California the first state in the nation to require gun manufacturers to install a mechanism in new firearms that would stamp information on each bullet casing. The belief is that this "microscopic identification tag" would reduce violence and destroy the illegal gun market. For more on the bill, check out the LA Times article.

The Rest of the Story

Our blogging offerings for the week

During the past week, we've posted the following stories:

Winning one for Consumers:
Victory over Alcopops

Civil Rights and Civil Unions:
It's Time for Civil Unions- By Jackie Goldberg

Cleaning out the White House
Bye-Bye Rovie

We've fixed our spam problem, so we hope you'll join in the discussion by feeling free to read and comment on these entries by going to: www.speakoutca.org/weblog/

We'll continue looking at these and other issues as the legislative year winds down, with more on the flurry of initiatives cropping up. Many of them are quite dangerous, including one of the latest additions designed to hand the Presidential election to the Republicans in 2008. We'll be doing alot more on them and other important political discussion to come. It is our goal to keep you on top of the key issues facing the state. We welcome your comments and suggestions and hope you will send this newsletter to your friends and other like-minded progressives. Urge them to sign up to Speak Out California and keep the progressive voice alive!

Until next week,

Hannah-Beth Jackson and the Speak Out California Team

A weekly update on the goings-on in Sacramento
For the week ending August 11, 2007.
Key bills and issues we've been following during the past week and beyond:

The budget continues along as the key issue for the state, with the Reps. continually moving the goalposts in their unsupportable effort to tie the state in knots to appease their egos and political bosses. The electronic voting machine situation has also heated up after Secretary of State Debra Bowen courageously pulled the plug on Diebold and Sequoia by announcing none of their machines will be permitted to count votes in the California elections next year. Other than that, the Legislature and Governor are just getting back from vacations so there is nothing to report on the legislative side. But who needs legislation when you have no budget with which to operate the 7th largest economy in the world? Anyway,

Here's the scoop on this past week:

The Budget -- Week Six and counting. The impasse seems to be headed in the wrong direction.

The obstinate privileged Republican white men of the Senate continue to posture and puff as they are experiencing essentially their first and only wiff of power. They continue to thwart their titular leader, the Gov, who is trying, however ineffectively, to end the holdout and get his budget passed. Of course, it might be more effective if Governor Schwarzenegger were in town, but he's on vacation so he's got his underlings working overtime in his absence. He's scheduled to return this week and start public appearances to try to put pressure on his teammates to get this budget passed.

There are many who say the Governor has been marginalized as he can't pull his team together and they don't want to listen to him anyway. They're bitter, emboldened and out-of-touch with the people. A nasty combination for so-called leaders, but with the ridiculously gerrymandered seats they got in the last redistricting, they're pretty immune from caring about the public anyway. So, the impasse continues to devolve into personal name-calling and threats that no other business will be conducted in the legislature once the recess ends (August 20th ) if the stalemate continues.

Unfortunately, such a threat just plays into the Reps hands as the only really significant legislation on the table belongs to the Dems--- things like healthcare, environmental protections for air quality in our ports, protection of worker's rights...to name a very few of the things that are important to the Dems but the enemy of the Big Business bosses controlling the right-wing agenda. So this is a threat that needs to be revisited and likely revised. As it stands, it's like saying to your children (and the Senate Reps are certainly behaving like children), that you're going to punish them if they don't clean up their rooms by not letting them do their homework. Wrong incentive.

Meanwhile, two long-term care facilities and the California Association of Health Facilities have filed suit against the state for failure to pay required medical reimbursements due for services rendered. So far, it is estimated that the state has missed $750 million in Medi-Cal payments to the state's health care providers.

For an excellent summary of the status of this mess, check out Julia Rosen's piece Working Californians.

One of the positive outcomes of this logjam should be the call for a reassessment of the 2/3rd vote requirement to pass a budget. As we've been saying all along at Speak Out California, this anti-democracy requirement puts us in the same status of just two other states---Arkansas and Rhode Islands. Although this ridiculous requirement has always been archaic, it's even worse now with a bunch of ultra-conservatives finding a way to exercise power and ignore the will of the overwhelming majority of Californians and their representatives and governor. Simply put, the right-wing extremists are committed to bringing down government and the state. We cannot let them get away with that. For more on this, check out the posting "Obstinance or Principle" on our blog.

To try to kick-start the negotiations, Speaker Fabian Nunez has made it clear that should they have to go back to the drawing board, the Dems are putting their major concessions back on the table. Issues like the $1.3 billion cut from transportation; the delay in providing a cost of living adjustment for the elderly, disabled and poor in our state and other cuts in social services to our neediest people.

We've been talking about the fact that the Reps are trying to undermine CEQA - and get rid of one of the most important environmental laws in California all for the benefit of the BIA---The Building Industry of America, which funds virtually every one of the neo-con holdouts. After all is said and done, this turns out to be the sticking point (at least du jour).But modifying CEQA is a non-starter for both the Dems and the Gov. so we're at a serious impasse that doesn't look like it's got an obvious resolution. Whatever that resolution is, though, it will have to include something to let the "gang of 14" save face. Not that they should be able to, given the world of hurt so many are now in because of them, but that's the way the game is played.

So the question now is, what happens if the budget hasn't been passed by the time the legislative year ends in mid-September? If that happens, it's likely the Governor will call a special session to bring the Legislature back to get the budget passed. With the way things look at the moment, it's either that or a quick recall election against that one hold-out keeping the state from getting back on track. Our current system is certainly no way to run a railroad!

California Secretary of State taking lots of flack for decertifying Diebold and Sequoia Voting Machines.

As we were putting out our weekly update last week, Secretary of State Deb Bowen had just announced her decision to de-certify the majority of the touch screen voting machines being purchased by the various County Registrars for use in next year's three elections. We predicted that the state's 58 independent County Clerk Registrars who don't like the idea of anyone treading on their territory. would be ready for a major push-back against such edicts from higher-ups. But after receiving the results from credible UC experts, it was clear that the voting machines made by Diebold, Sequoia and Hart InterCivic are just not reliable. The findings were clear, although the naysayers insist they were unfair. But the integrity of our vote is the most important guarantee we have in a democracy. Voters are cynical enough about the process; for them to believe their votes don't even get counted as they are cast, brings democracy to its knees. Secretary Bowen found accordingly.

Much of the problem lies squarely at the feet of these companies. They have consistently refused to provide access to their software, hiding behind the claims of trade secrets and proprietary interest. They have fought every effort to require open access and transparency necessary to assure the public that the equipment is not just hanging chads in a box-or worse (as we have seen over-and-over again).

The media has been mixed on this issue and on Secretary Bowen's decision. Predictably, she's been getting a lot of heat from the big cities, where the impact will be the greatest. For example, one out of every four votes statewide will be cast out of LA County in the 2008 election cycles where theyve purchased millions of dollars of these now decertified machines. But the grassroots is applauding her for holding tough. Interestingly, she's also getting support and accolades from some of the inland communities where the issue of voting system integrity is apparently trumping financial concerns.

Initiatives and More Initiatives filling up the 2008 ballot.

We've got to hand it to the special interests in this state (often funded by outside interests that don't give a rip about California). We're now about to see additional ballot measures seeking to overturn the Indian Compacts supported by the Governor as millions start pouring in from race tracks, organized labor (unhappy with the provisions that make it very difficult for casino workers to organize) and now other rival tribes.

This week, rival tribes have committed to $1 million each to overturn the four compacts that will enable Southern California's richest tribes to double (or more) the number of slot machines. It's estimated that the battling sides will end up spending $20million on each of the four measures, for a cool $80 million.

A second ballot measure is now out for signature gathering addressing the eminent domain issue. This one is being sponsored by the League of California Cities, and the California League of Conservation Voters as a defensive measure to the more extreme pro-property rights measure that has apparently now qualified for the ballot. For more on this story, check out the Capitol weekly.

Of course, one of the most insidious is the measure now out for signatures for the June ballot intended to hand the presidency to the Republicans (if November, 2008 turns out to be a close election). The Reps are trying to break up California's election from the traditional winner-takes-all that exists in almost all states, to one that gives each candidate a pro-rata portion. This would add a bunch of votes onto the Republican side that they wouldn't otherwise get and possibly hand them enough electoral votes to win the Presidency in '08. This one is nasty and the sign of desperate people who can't stand the notion of democracy actually working as promised. Check out Speak Out California's blog entries on this stealth attack on democracy. (See below).

The Rest of the Story

Our blogging offerings for the week
During the past week, we've posted the following stories:

On the budget:

Obstinance or Principle?
On trying to divide up California's all-important 55 electoral votes

Trying to Steal the Presidency again!

To read and comment on these entries, just go to: www.speakoutca.org/weblog/

We'll continue looking at these and other issues as the summer pushes on. Although the Assembly is in recess for one more week, there is still lots going on in our great state and we'll make sure you stay on top of those key issues. We welcome your comments and suggestions and hope you will send this newsletter to your friends and other like-minded progressives. Urge them to sign up to Speak Out California and keep the progressive voice alive!

Until next week,

Hannah-Beth Jackson and the Speak Out California Team

A weekly update on the goings-on in Sacramento

For the week ending August 4, 2007

Key bills and issues we've been following during the past week and beyond

The budget has clearly taken over as the top issue for the state, now that it's well over a month late and a lot of key organizations and service providers are starting to experience a world of hurt. Hurting, too, are the voting machine companies that have taken their secrecy and deception to the end of the line with our Secretary of State courageously pulling the plug on these systems, to the consternation and cries of many (although not all) of the county clerks in the state.

Here's the scoop on this past week:

The Budget -- Week Five and counting. The impasse continues

Last week, I predicted the stalemate on the budget would end and that we'd finally see a budget enacted. I posited that the Gov would agree to meet his party's absurd insistence that we cut even further into the budget to "balance" it, although it really contains a large surplus, plus prepayment of not-yet-due loans. Nevermind that balancing the budget wasn't really what the Reps wanted. The Gov finally got his team into the "horseshoe" and promised he would use his powers to use his "line-item veto" power to cut most if not all of the "shortfall" as they demanded. But it turns out that isn't what they really want after all. As the Gov put it, in a moment of pique and candor, "I don't know what they want, I hope they know what they want."

The long and short of it is that whatever they're wanting now was not part of the deal they demanded (and got) and the Dems refused to have any part of it. Negotiating 101 says you after someone says yes to everything you ask for, you can't then demand more --and expect to get that, too. So the Senate Dems have folded up their tent in total frustration,and gone home.

Although no one (including the Reps) really knows the answer to what they really want, there are certainly a number of solid theories none of which, sadly, has anything to do with the people of this state.

As we mentioned last week, there really isn't a shortfall at all, but the Reps want to debilitate government and frankly, privatize the whole thing. Such a philosophy is great for their corporate sponsors, because it takes away the ability of government to watch over the mischief these big corporations are making, and hands important functions and services to the private sector where there is no public accountability or interest in the public good. The only concern for the corps and their CEO's is more and more profit. So, if the Dems have capitulated (sadly) to the cuts that start hitting on bone and without any appreciable fat or even skin, what is the problem??

We mentioned last week that the Reps are trying to inject public policy into the budget by trying to shake down CEQA -and get rid of one of the most important environmental laws in California. This all for the benefit of the BIA---The Building Industry of America, that wants to build and build without regard for any environmental or quality-of-life consequences. Timm Herdt at the Ventura County Star has a good summary avalible here.

On this one, both the Gov and the Dems have said that they aren't going there. It was not part of the budget discussion and was only brought up at the 11th hour, which is no way to negotiate a budget. It sets an unacceptable precedent and besides, the Dems believe they've already given too much as it is.

But as we've said, the Rep hold-out has little to do with the people of California and lots to do with egos and payback and watching your back. It's payback for Arnold because the Reps think they've been disrespected by the Gov. See the article in the San Francisco Chronicle detailing this here. It's testosterone running wild with the white, male Rep senators holding hands and pledging a blood oath not to give in...under fear of serious reprisal (read that as having a neo-con as a primary opponent in their next election). They've been nicknamed the Gang of 14 by the media. It's also about the Rep leader, Dick Ackerman, deciding he likes having a big office and being called, "Mr. Leader" so he's demonstrating he's tough by refusing to consider the need for someone to act like a grownup on his side of the aisle and give the last vote necessary to get THEIR budget passed.

The Bottom Line: There's no rational or logical reason this budget is being held up, but there is little doubt that the responsibility for it rests solely with the Gov and the Senate Reps. The Assembly Reps supported it; it's the budget the Republican Governor called for and the Senate Dems are willing to suck it up and pass it to get the state moving again. There's just no excuse.

It's also about flame-thrower Tom McClintock finally finding a constituency with his incendiary rhetoric and blogging prowess and agitating the extremists of the state---and of his party, into a frenzy. Sadly, only one of the Reps has any modicum of sense or courage to buck the fanaticism of the anti-government groupies who are now barraging the Senate with threats and intimidation to hold-out...even if no one is quite sure what they're wanting the weak-kneed Gang of 14 to hold out for?.
Doesn't matter, though, because it is giving McClintock the chance to beat his chest and have someone pay attention to his destructive diatribes.

One lonely Republican, Abel Maldonado, got up on the floor of the Senate this week and said, Yes, I'm voting for OUR budget; it's the budget we negotiated for, it's what we wanted and I'm not going to continue beating my chest. It's time to get this process over and done with for another year. The Rep response?
Well, we're going to run someone even more conservative than you in your primary and beat you! Of course, in the District, this makes Senator Maldonado a hero, so I don't think he's particularly worried. What it does show, though, is how OUT OF TOUCH this band of conservatives is. They don't hear the people, don?t care about the people, and just live in their little fantasy world of ultra-conservative districts so badly drawn by both the Reps and Dems back in 2002. The Sac Bee has a good article on this at.

California Secretary of State holds firm on Voting Machine Integrity

When Debra Bowen ran for Secretary of State, she ran on a platform of restoring integrity and confidence in the voting process. Although this may sound like an easy task, supported by one and all, it has been anything but. The county clerks and registrars of voters in many of the state's 58 counties don't want her treading on their sacred ground. Historically, the voting process has been under the singular domain of each county registrar. As an example of their commitment to maintaining their autonomy, they went after Kevin Shelley on 2005, after he made it clear he wanted to assure credibility and accuracy of these alleged (and now proven) unreliable vote counting machines. Of course, Shelley had other significant issues, but his insistence that the county folks play ball with him didn't help him, either.

Secretary Bowen, on the other hand, has no such baggage. She does have, however, a strong independent streak of her own which, when coupled with her strong commitment to this issue and protecting against the hacking of voting equipment that many of us believe influenced the Presidential race in 2004 (think Ohio, in particular), makes her pretty formidable.

After commissioning a study to see whether the voting machine makers could provide a secure and accurate system, she is following the findings of University of California computer experts hired to see if they could hack into these systems. They could, and did, quite easily. They were able to change vote totals and manipulate the "security" in these machines. After a day of hearings this past week, where all this came out, she announced that she has decertified both the Diebold and Sequoia systems. Lots of fallout yet to come on this one, but for a preview check out this article at the Sac Bee, or for national implications check out this NY Times piece.

London Bridge Is Falling Down:

Most of us remember singing this song when we were children.
Little did any of us think that this might actually happen -at least not in the United States of America! But thanks to policies that reject investing in our infra-structure, or realizing that it takes money to maintain our roads, bridges, utilities, sewers, levees, buildings and other key systems and talk about taxes as though we were promoting the plague, we're seeing in America deterioration of our infra-structure that we only believed could happen in third-world nations.

So here we are, somewhat stunned but sobered by the sights in Minneapolis of a bridge that fell down for no apparent reason-- no earthquake, no explosion, no fire, no terrorists. It fell down through neglect and political negligence. Of course, the Bushies want us to believe it wasn't on their watch, but in fact, it was. On Bush the First and then again in 2004 when Bush, Jr. threatened a veto of a measure that would ensure public money to invest in shoring up our aging infra-structure.

In California, we are reducing funds for transportation to appease the Reps, while learning that there are almost 3,000 bridges in the state that the federal government has identified as "structurally deficient." Caltrans is now conducting emergency structural inspections of bridges in California that are built with steel trusses similar to those that failed in Minnesota this week. Click here for the story at the Sac Bee

While we certainly hope that similar events do not happen here---or anywhere else, this should be time to start an honest and intense discussion on just what our government can and should be doing to protect us from these kinds of avoidable tragedies---and the fact that we just might need to PAY for the kinds of services and construction that it takes to do so.

The Rest of the Story

Our blogging offerings for the week

During the past week, we've posted the following stories:

On the budget:

The Governor's Birthday Present-with love from his party

On global warming:

California Voters needed to help raise fuel efficiency and curb global warming

On voting machine manipulations:

Can We Count on Voting Machines to Count the Votes?

On our infra-structure concerns:

America is Crumbling

To read and comment on these entries, just go to:
www.speakoutca.org/weblog/

We'll continue looking at these and other issues as the summer pushes on. Although the Assembly is in recess, there is still lots going on in our great state and we'll make sure you stay on top of those key issues. We welcome your comments and suggestions and hope you will send this newsletter to your friends and other like-minded progressives. Urge them to sign up to Speak Out California and keep the progressive voice alive!