"Income tax collections for the month, through April
29, totaled $7.7 billion, $1.2 billion below the $8.9 billion expectation the budget signed February 20 is premised on.
"Corporate tax collections stood at $1.6 billion on April 29, $700 million short of Schwarzenegger administration estimates.
"April’s lower-than-expected collections will substantially shrink the size of that reserve, pushing the net shortfall up closer to $8 billion."
"If voters reject proposals May 19 to fix the state budget, GOP Senate leader Dennis
Hollingsworth predicted Wednesday that "by default" his party's ideas for cutting public spending and easing business
regulations will catch fire," writes Susan Ferriss in the Bee.
"'Eventually they're going to have to start listening,' Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta, said of the Democratic majority in the state
Legislature. 'There won't be revenues available to do what they want to do.
They're killing the golden goose.'
"Speaking with reporters in his office, Hollingsworth
said that if most of the set of six measures on the
special-election ballot fail, the next day 'it gets uglier.'
"The GOP will be ready with proposals "global in nature," he said, for cutting public spending to plug an $8 billion deficit that would swell to an estimated $14 billion."
The Bee's Steve Wiegand talks to experts and learns that California voters are angry, confused and ambivalent.
Nevertheless, "Barbara O'Connor, a communications professor at California State University,
Sacramento, and a longtime observer of California politics,
agrees that proponents might be able to turn voters
around if they can convince them that things will be
much worse if the measures fail than if they pass – and be right back in the hands of the very politicians
they distrust and dislike.
"'If they can explain the issues right, I truly think
they may turn it around,' she said, 'but historically, what voters don't understand, they don't support.'"
Tick-tock, tick-tock...
Malcolm Maclachlan looks at how the special election is affecting state employee contract negotiations. "Against the backdrop of a faltering economy and a budget still in crisis, the Schwarzenegger administration continues to negotiate contracts with nearly nine public employee unions.
"The biggest union—the Service Employees International Union Local 1000,
representing about half of the state’s 190,000 unionized
workers—started negotiating their deal last year, when the
economy was bad, but not as bad as now. SEIU 1000 won numerous
concessions around worker furloughs and
other issues.
"Now some unions are rumored to want a deal that’s as good, while others
say the SEIU 1000 deal wasn’t good enough. Meanwhile, the bill needed
to ratify
that contract, AB 964, is widely rumored to not have the Republican
votes
needed to get to the governor’s desk."
Capitol Weekly profiles Assembly freshman Bob Blumenfield.
"Blumenfield moved West to work on the Clinton/Gore coordinated campaign in 1996, and to pursue other interests.
"'I had written a TV show about young people working in Washington and that was starting to get some play,' he said. 'That was another reason to move.'"
"We know what you’re thinking – a show about young people in Washington
in 1996. Was Blumenfield really the brains behind one of TV’s most
iconic TV shows?
"Not exactly.
"'I had sold the option and had an agent and rode the whole Hollywood rollercoaster,' he said. 'They had penned the long-term contract – the one where you get a little money up front and if it goes into syndication, you get a house in Malibu and a trophy wife and the whole thing. Then West Wing came and crushed it.'"
"Legislators and other elected state officials appeared to be headed for a pay cut after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday endorsed
a reduction and appointed new members, who he said
were like-minded, to a panel that sets the salaries," writes the LAT's Patrick McGreevy.
"The California Citizens Compensation Commission, which
determines the pay for legislators, the governor and
other officers, moved Wednesday to slice 10% from the salaries, noting that they are higher than
in many other states and that the Golden State is in
poor financial shape.
"'Given the economy, the budget . . . to vote for a decrease
across the board is the only way we should go,' said commission Chairman Charles Murray, who owns an insurance business in Los Angeles.
"A decrease would apply to officials elected next year.
Current officeholders would have their pay frozen through
December 2010.
"The commission on Wednesday voted 3 to 1 for the pay cut, then learned from its attorney that
four "yes" votes would be required. There were three vacancies
on the board when it met. But Schwarzenegger quickly
named people to fill them who "share my belief that state government needs to cut
back just like every California family and business
is doing," he said in a statement."
CW's John Howard looks at what's next for the state Air Resources Board. "A critical piece of California’s new law cutting carbon emissions from transportation fuels is getting a another look, with state air-quality regulators likely to vote by December on the issue known as “indirect land use.”
"The months of new study follows complaints from ethanol
producers and others who said the new rule unfairly
targeted farmers who grow fuel crops."
Greg Lucas looks at the dynamics of the special election in CD10, assuming Ellen Tauscher is confirmed.
"There are several other candidates besides Garamendi
who want Tauscher’s seat. Tauscher endorses Democratic State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier of Walnut Creek. Freshman Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, an Alamo Democrat, has told her supporters she is
running.
"Various newspapers report potential GOP candidates
to include Tom Del Beccaro of Lafayette, a vice chair of the state Republican
Party, and Nicholas Gerber of Moraga.
"Centered in Contra Costa County, the district includes
a sliver of Sacramento and parts of Alameda and Solano
counties. Registration breaks 47 percent Democrat to 29 percent Republican with 20 percent decline-to-state."
"An executive with the company that operates the social
networking Web site Facebook announced today that he's considering running for attorney general of California," reports the AP.
"Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer, said he had formed an exploratory
committee to consider a campaign to be the state's chief law enforcement official.
"The incumbent attorney general, Democrat Jerry Brown,
is considering a campaign for governor in 2010.
"Kelly said that he would use his experience to "protect California consumers, maintain an open and
accountable government and guarantee an effective legal
system."
"'We need a strong consumer protection advocate as California's chief law enforcement officer, defending people against
unfair practices and schemes,' Kelly said in a statement."
"Californians want public schools spared from state budget cuts,
but are less willing than before to foot the bill with
more taxes, according to a statewide poll released Wednesday," reports Mitchell Landsberg in the Times.
"In its annual survey on education issues, the nonpartisan
Public Policy Institute of California found deep dissatisfaction
with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature
over education policy and growing skepticism that money
is the answer to the problems facing public schools.
"'I think that the public's really concerned about what they're hearing about budget cuts, especially as they relate
to schools,' said Mark Baldassare, the institute's president and chief executive. At the same time,
he said, there is 'a real ambivalence about taxes and . . . a very strong
sense that the state leadership is really lacking today.'
"Just 20% of those surveyed approved of Schwarzenegger's handling of education, and even fewer -- 18% -- approved of the Legislature's record on the issue. Both are the lowest ratings
in the five years that the institute has been conducting
the education poll. "I didn't even know it could go that low," said Baldassare, who has been polling in California
for more than 20 years."
"The University of California on Wednesday proposed raising student fees by 9.3 percent for the coming academic year, the latest move by
the 10-campus system to close a growing budget deficit," reports the AP's Terence Chea.
"The UC Board of Regents is scheduled to vote on the
proposal when it meets in San Diego next week.
"Under the plan, UC undergraduate fees for California
residents would increase $662 to $7,788 a year. Adding fees charged by individual UC campuses,
in-state undergraduates on average would pay a total of
$8,720 in student fees.
"Tuition for nonresident undergraduates would increase
by 10 percent to about $22,000.
"Fees for in-state graduate students in academic and professional
programs would increase by 9.3 percent."
"The state Supreme Court left intact Wednesday a lower-court ruling that said a private religious high school
wasn't covered by California civil rights law and could expel students it believed were lesbians," reports Bob Egelko in the Chron.
"Over Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar's dissent, the court denied review of an appeal by
parents of two girls who were expelled from a high
school in Riverside County. A lawyer for the parents
said the ruling, which is binding on trial courts statewide,
would allow private schools to discriminate against
students on any basis they chose, including sex and
religion.
"The girls were juniors at California Lutheran High
School in the town of Wildomar when the principal,
Gregory Bork, called them to his office in September 2005 and questioned them separately about their sexual
orientation, after another student reported postings
on their MySpace pages.
"Bork suspended the girls based on their answers, and
the school's directors expelled them a month later. The girls,
who later graduated from another high school, have
not been identified and have not discussed their sexual
orientation, said their parents' attorney, Kirk Hanson."
Political consultant Robin Swanson takes issue with Capitol Weekly's Top 100 List, which she dismisses as a “directory of dudes.”
Finally, MNG's Josh Richman blogs: "Well, you’ve gotta give Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, extra points for cheekiness: Today she sent to her Republican legislative colleagues an invitation
to switch to the “Spectacular” Democratic Party, a la Arlen Specter.
"'Democrats will soon have 60 votes in the US Senate and be able to make many decisions
without filibusters—but it will take a bit of time for the final stages
of legal challenges and to finally count the votes
from last November’s election in Minnesota,' she wrote. 'If you act quickly, California can lead the nation
rather than following. We need 54 Democrats in the Assembly and 27 in the Senate to match this.'"