A day after
Don Perata threw up his hands and sent the upper chamber home until August 20, the prospect of a serious budget standoff affecting vendors set in.
"With no resolution in sight, the longest state budget standoff in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's tenure
is alarming hundreds of organizations that provide healthcare and other services throughout Southern California," writes Evan Halper in the Times.
"Child-care providers aren't getting paid. Directors at healthcare clinics, whose survival depends on state Medi-Cal payments, warn that bankruptcy is looming. Officials at facilities that care for the developmentally disabled worry that they will be unable to hang on more than a couple of weeks.
"The pain is not felt equally. Hospitals, community colleges and other big institutions may have reserves to fall back on or easy access to bridge loans. But for the hundreds of smaller, community-based providers throughout Southern California that often provide a lifeline for immigrant and low-income populations, the impasse is more than an inconvenience. It's a financial crisis."
In a legislative year that was supposed to be dedicated to health care, Halper reports that health clinics themselves are the hardest hit.
"'It's a disaster,' said
Elizabeth Benson Forer, chief executive officer of the Venice Family Clinic in Venice. '
Clinics can't afford for the legislative folks to be on break.'"
Clearly, they don't understand that family vacations to Europe are nonrefundable!
"Absent a state budget, the clinic will not receive about $260,000 in assistance this month.
"'We're all struggling to stay even this year, operating on a very tight margin,' Forer said. 'Anything upsetting really makes it difficult to provide care.'
"'I'm already living on borrowed time, as far as my bills, insurance and payroll,' said
Daniel Rojas, general manager of Midway Care Medical Transportation, an Artesia company that shuttles about 300 dialysis patients from their homes or nursing facilities to treatment centers.
Rojas, who employs 25 people, said 95% of his funding comes from the state. He is frantically trying to secure a bridge loan, but his prospects are uncertain."
If this doesn't get settled by the 10th, I would have to shut the doors down,' Rojas said. 'It's going to put us out of business.'"
The Chron's Tom Chorneau
looks at why the governor has been unable to secure a budget agreement. "His biggest immediate problem, political analysts said Thursday, is that many of his fellow Republicans are unwilling to follow his lead - especially the 14 GOP senators who have held out against a $145 billion budget because it would spend more next year than the state expects to receive in tax revenue.
"'
The contradiction is that while he's been talking about post-partisanship, the rest of the world is still very partisan,' said Jaime Regalado, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles.
"'
He can try to rise above it all he wants, on his magic carpet, but the reality is that he's in a Capitol building that is still as partisan as ever.'"
The Chron's Haley Davies provides readers
bios of the fourteen Senate Republicans holding up the budget.
Meanwhile, the Bee's Dan Smith looks at
the one senator that bolted from the GOP caucus. "Within hours of the vote, [
Abel] Maldonado's decision drew the wrath of GOP activists, who say his move away from the caucus position will cost him.
"
Mike Spence, president of the conservative California Republican Assembly, questioned whether the GOP should raise and spend $1 million or more to defend Maldonado next year in what could be a tough re-election battle for his Central Coast Senate seat.
"'A Democrat would have cast the same vote, and I can't find a place his votes would have made a difference in advancing the Republican cause,' Spence wrote in Jon Fleischman's popular Republican-oriented blog, the FlashReport.
"
In an interview Thursday, Spence suggested greater consequences for Maldonado -- a challenge in the Republican primary."
However, there's another picture to be painted...
"'
He's the sole Republican state senator up for re-election who is not in a safe, gerrymandered district,' said GOP consultant
Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of the California Target Book, which handicaps state political races. '
All the other Republican senators have a reason to be concerned with what Jon Fleischman thinks. Abel has to be concerned with what independent voters think.'"
Dan Walters
suggests using the time of the budget impasse to clean up the budget mosaic that's been put together. "The stalemate is an opportunity to make the budget an honest and balanced spending plan,
not only prioritizing expenditures but facing the possibility that the state may need more revenues -- while cleaning up the trailer bills that have become ornament-laden Christmas trees for special interests."Just passing a budget doesn't get us anywhere. It's time to do it right, no matter how politically painful that may be."
"Caltrans officials on Thursday
began emergency structural inspections of 69 bridges across California in the wake of the collapse of a span in Minnesota," report Sharon Bernstein and Catherine Saillant in the Times.
"Many of those bridges are among nearly 3,000 in the state that the federal government found to be structurally deficient, with inspectors concluding that they must be repaired or replaced.
"State transportation officials said Thursday that the federal findings don't mean the bridges are unsafe for vehicle use. Routine inspections have found all spans to be structurally sound, they said.
"Caltrans Director
Will Kempton said the state plans to inspect the 69 bridges built with steel trusses similar to those that failed in the Minnesota accident. The state owns 22 of those, and city and county governments own the rest."
While senators are stuck in a quagmire,
California mosquitos are hard at work, leading the governor to delcare a state of emergency in three counties.
An emergency was declared in "Kern County after West Nile virus killed two people in Kern County and have infected 56 others statewide," reports the Bakersfield Californian.
"'I agree that there is a need to address this issue to protect our fellow Californians against an epidemic,' Schwarzenegger wrote in response to a letter from state Sen.
Dean Florez, D-Bakersfield.
"Schwarzenegger also declared a state of emergency for Colusa and San Joaquin counties. The counties each recorded one death from the virus this year.
Florez asked for a minimum of $48 million in state money to battle West Nile virus.
"Schwarzenegger's staff is working with the Department of Public Health and staff at vector control to determine the needed resources."
And Assemblymembers are already looking to the future. Republican
Guy Houston announced yesterday he was
opting out of a run for Congress, and running instead for county supervisor. "Assemblyman Guy Houston, R-San Ramon, will run for the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors in 2008, a surprising political move that reflects the unintended consequences of term limits in California," reports Lisa Vorderbrueggen.
"The state lawmaker, who terms out next year, also vowed to bow out of his Assembly district race even if voters alter term limits next February in a ballot measure that would allow him to serve another six years.
"'My commitment is to Contra Costa County,' Houston said at a press conference Thursday with his wife and three children by his side. 'I believe my experience as the past mayor of Dublin and as a state lawmaker will allow me to make a valuable contribution to the county.'"
Let the developer money flow...
And former Assemblyman, and vanquished water board candidate
Paul Koretz announced his candidacy for Los Angeles City Council. Of course, he used to serve on the city council of West Hollywood, but that's not important right now. LA Observed reports, "Assemblyman Paul Koretz put himself in the running for the 5th council district race that will be fought the next two years over the seat to be vacated by
Jack Weiss. Koretz claims the
endorsements of Speaker Fabian Núñez and council members Herb Wesson, Bill Rosendahl, and Dennis Zine." Weiss is expected to run for city attorney.
And in
a victory for Joe Camel, or at least the late cartoon character's creators, Bob Egelko reports, "
California can't regulate cigarette advertising aimed at minors because that's a job for the federal government, the state Supreme Court said Thursday in a ruling that consumer advocates said weakens restrictions on youth-oriented tobacco ads.
"The unanimous ruling doesn't affect a 1998 settlement between state governments and six tobacco companies that included a ban on advertising, promotion or marketing directed at minors. But the state attorney general's office, which enforces that ban in California, argued that state laws against deceptive advertising were needed to provide greater protection."
And you thought your roommate smelled bad. Reuters reports, "A woman in Mexico City kept
the body of her dead husband by her bedside for a year until neighbors, disturbed by the smell, called the police.
"Police broke down
Mercedes Velarde's door on Tuesday and found the putrefied body of her husband Edmundo on the floor of her bedroom."