Governor Brown released the state’s $164 billion budget on Friday – a document that includes elements that will vex both conservatives and liberals. The press offered plenty of interesting takes. George Skelton calls it “smart” in the Los Angeles Times, John Myers at KQED looks at the inconsistencies
Dan Morain puts it in historical perspective, And both Dan Walters and Anthony York look at what Brown has in store for the 25% of Californians who live in poverty.
From Capitol Weekly: “What was clear to anyone listening to the governor respond to reporters’ questions on the issue on Friday is that Brown has thought deeply about the issue. He had cultural references and statistics at his fingertips when he got questions on the issue, and gave long, thoughtful responses to the queries.
“The answers were illuminating of Brown’s philosophy on politics and poverty, and hinted at Brown’s personal beliefs that suggest there are limits to what government can do. Brown also made clear that he sees education as a path out of poverty, and believes that his plan to send more money to poor students and English learners in pubic schools might help mitigate some of the effects of economic hardship.
“But to Brown, government has its limits. Brown bristled at a question that suggested welfare was intended to lift people out of poverty. To Brown, it seems government can offer some assistance and open a path out of poverty, but it is ultimately up to the individual to persevere and steer him or herself down that road.
Chris Nichols at the San Diego Union Tribune notes that the guv promised infrastructure improvements in last week’s State of the State, but left funding out of the budget.
“’I’m pleased to see it’s on [Brown’s] radar. … The big question always is: “How do you pay for all this stuff?”’ said Gary Gallegos, head of SANDAG, San Diego region’s transportation planning agency…”
While Brown’s budget proposes a government of limits (and no new taxes), one liberal lawmaker is looking to revamp the state’s tax structure and bring in an extra $10 billion in revenue. From Marc Lifsher at the Los Angeles Times:
“State Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) has introduced a bill he hopes to use as a vehicle for a sweeping overhaul of California's state and local tax structure.
“The idea, he said, is to broaden the sales tax to possibly include legal work, advertising, Internet usage, dry cleaning and other services. At the same time, he would lower the personal and corporate income tax and even boost the minimum wage.
“The legislation, though sketchy, seeks to increase state government revenue $10 billion a year, he said.”
Mental health workers at Kaiser begin a seven-day strike today. The statewide action seeks to push the healthcare giant to hire more therapists and psychologists.
“From April Dembosky at KQED: “We’ve tried one and two day actions in the past. Kaiser is not paying attention to that,” says Clement Papazian, a social worker at Kaiser and a local union representative. “We feel like it’s the appropriate time to escalate these actions.”
Following a year that has seen national focus on police brutality and use of excessive force, California legislators are seeking to pass laws curbing police violence. Jeremy White has the story at the Sacramento Bee.
“’It will be probably the No. 1,’ public safety issue, said Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, who chairs the Legislative Black Caucus. ‘We addressed gun use last year, and we took it on aggressively, and I think this year the Legislature will take on police accountability, police violence and better ways of protecting the residents of California.’
“Bills already in the pipeline would equip more police officers with body cameras that record encounters, collect comprehensive data on how often officers wound or kill suspects, train officers to better deal with the mentally ill, and institute third-party reviews of police shootings. Members have discussed addressing grand jury proceedings, a legal tool that has drawn immense scrutiny after successive panels did not indict officers who killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner, respectively.”
Carla Marinucci has a profile of liberal activist Lenny Mendonca, who was recently nominated as the Chronicle and St. Mary’s College’s School of Economics and Business Administration’s first Visionary of the Year award.
From SFGate: “Even as a boy on his family dairy farm in rural Turlock, Lenny Mendonca — the grandson of Portuguese immigrants — managed to find a way to fuel his lifelong curiosity and passion for big-city politics and government issues.
“As he did chores and milked cows “just about every day” in the Central Valley, Mendonca recalls listening, religiously, to the regular radio broadcasts from the Commonwealth Club in far-away San Francisco, where he heard political leaders debating and discussing big issues and government.
“The broadcasts fueled a young boy’s belief that ‘it was how you changed the world ... that if you were trying to make a big difference, you had to be involved in government somehow,’’ he says today.
The weekend saw updates on speculation regarding candidates for retiring Senator Barbara Boxer’s seat: Matier and Ross look at the field for SFGate, Seema Mehta and Kim Christensen tease the tea leaves at the Los Angeles Times regarding Attorney General Kamala Harris’ silence on the subject, while Mehta reports that Antonio Villaraigosa is weighing his options.
And, we hadn’t realized that last Monday was a special day, with a tradition that goes back centuries: Divorce Monday.
From Frederick Pedersen at Science20.com: “So many couples seek the help of professionals to have their marriage dissolved after the strains of the Christmas season that the first Monday of the first working week of the year is known among lawyers as Divorce Monday.”
“…This may appear to be a relatively new development (the earliest statistics online date from 2008), but my recent research into litigation records surviving from the medieval church courts in York shows that the same pattern prevailed as far back as the 14th century.
A third of the litigation heard by the church court in York (which had the power to enforce and dissolve marriage) was initiated in the month of January. So medieval lawyers would have been as familiar with the January rush to the courts as their modern colleagues…”