Gov. Brown appears to be backing of his pledge to shun gimmicks, smoke and mirrors in any final budget agreement -- a pledge that, if fulfilled, would mark a first for California, which is accustomed to tricky, intricate and surprise-filled budgets.
From the Bee's David Siders and Kevin Yamamura: "His changing rhetoric, following months of failed talks with Republicans, comes as Brown braces for the Legislature to send him a budget that does not include the tax revenue he is seeking."
"I will take a very hard look at it," Brown told reporters at the Capitol. "We've had discussions with the leadership, and I've told them the way I see things, and we'll see what happens when they bring it down."
"Such a move would be politically perilous for Brown's still-young governorship, but it remains unclear if he would follow through."
"Brown, who is trying to close the state's remaining $9.6 billion deficit, said he is still negotiating with Republicans and would continue to after Wednesday's rarely-met constitutional deadline. The Democratic governor could continue talks without committing to a budget for as long as 12 days after it is passed, the time he has to sign or veto it."
At the time it was approved by the voters, docking lawmakers' pay when the budget is late seemed like the least important of the reforms on the ballot. Now we'll have a chance to find out: Legislators will take a personal hit in the pocketbook for every day they dally.
From James Rufus Koren in the San Bernardino Sun: "State lawmakers could each lose about $400 per day if they don't pass a budget by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday."
"A ballot measure approved last year prevents lawmakers from collecting their salary and other pay if they don't pass a budget by the June 15 deadline seat in the state constitution. But local lawmakers - even those without lots of other income - say that's not a factor in how they're approaching the budget."
"The main issue here is that we need and must pass a budget by the constitutional deadline," Norma Torres, D-Chino, said Monday. "My priority is to pass a budget by Wednesday. ... And regardless if we get paid or not, we have to remember that we are Californians first and we must rise above party lines and simply do our jobs."
"
Torres and most other Assembly members and state Senators representing the Inland Empire make an annual salary of $95,291 - or $261 per day - plus so-called "per diem" payments of $142 for each day they are conducting state business."
Meanwhille, the Air Resources Board -- acting under court order -- releases a new analysis of the alaternatives to the so-called "cap and trade" program to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
From Craig Miller in Climate Watch: "The fresh look includes the original five options, including cap & trade and the option of doing nothing at all. It does not add any new options but rather seeks to flesh out the other three. The non-trading options include regulating emissions at the source, implementing a straight-up tax on carbon emissions, and a mixed bag of actions. The reworked analysis expands discussion of those three alternatives from a few pages to more than 60. It will be up to the courts to decide whether the extra paper carries enough substance with it to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act."
"Regulators were sent back to the drawing board by a Superior Court ruling in May that favored plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by environmental justice advocates. The groups charged that the state sidestepped its own environmental laws in its original implementation plan for AB 32, stacking the deck toward a cap & trade program, and giving short shrift to other approaches. The judge agreed. The Air Board appealed but went back to work on alternatives, anyway."
"The release of today's "functional equivalent" document starts the clock on a 45-day period for public comment. The Air Board is scheduled to consider those comments at its meeting on August 24."
The personal intentions of the gay judge who invalidated California's ban on gay marriage are at the heart of the legal dispute over whether that ban should be tossed out. Today in San Francisco, a court is expected to weigh in on the issue.
From the Bay Citizen's Katherine Mieszkowski: "The shifting nature of human relationships and the fickle human heart were rather comically on display at a contentious hearing in a San Francisco federal courtroom Monday morning."
"For more than an hour, proponents and opponents of Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, argued over whether marriage is the goal of a couple involved in a long-term relationship."
"One couple — one member of that couple in particular — was at the center of the debate. Both sides argued over whether Judge Vaughn Walker's relationship with a man was in any way relevant to his ruling last year declaring Prop. 8 unconstitutional."
"Attorneys for Prop. 8 supporters argued that Walker should have recused himself from the case when he was assigned to it, because Walker and his partner must have wanted to tie the knot, since they had been together for so many years. At Monday's hearing, they asked that his decision on the proposition be vacated. Walker has since retired."
Now here's something completely different: Assembly has begun on a giant machine that is going to dig a five-mile-long tunnel under San Francisco Bay. From the Mercury News' Paul Rogers.
"Dozens of construction workers in hard hats are welding together a massive, high-tech digging machine, transported from Japan on cargo ships in 65 crates, that by next month will begin carving a 5-mile-long tunnel under the bay's floor to deliver drinking water to more than 2 million people."
"It's like the giant worm in the movie 'Dune,' " said Bob Mues, project manager for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which is building the $313 million project."
"The tunnel is scheduled to be completed by 2015. It will be the first tunnel built under San Francisco Bay. The BART "tunnel" between Oakland and San Francisco is actually not really a tunnel, but a pre-constructed tube that sits on the bay floor."
"The purpose of the construction job is to improve earthquake reliability for the Hetch Hetchy water system. The tunnel will be able to withstand an earthquake up to 7.5 magnitude, engineers say, replacing a rickety system of two leaky steel pipes built in the 1925 and 1936 that now bring drinking water across the bay to Crystal Springs Reservoir."