Both
George Skelton and
Dan Weintraub are calling for the budget negotiators to get to work.
"Legislative leaders had wanted to avoid the death dance with its rigid posturing and positioning, hoping to all get along as they did last year. Forget it. This is a two-party political system, writes Skelton.
"
What Schwarzenegger calls 'post-partisanship' doesn't make sense in English or in practice. Political partisanship never will be eradicated in America, nor should it be. But there always will be periods of bipartisanship and areas of nonpartisanship.
"
So why can't these people get their work done on time? (Last year was a rare exception.) Who's the culprit?"It's not the Democrats. They haven't even proposed a tax increase, much to the GOP's chagrin. It's not really the Republicans. They're just representing their voters who believe, logically, that the state shouldn't be running on red ink. It's also not the governor, even if he has been largely absent from the Capitol. Legislators seem to negotiate better without him anyway.
"
Schwarzenegger is at fault, however, for having cut the car tax as his first major act without replacing the $5 billion in lost revenue by, say, extending the sales tax to services. He never has climbed out of that hole."
The Merc's Mike Swift reports on
the growing political clout of the Central Valley.
"
With a new state forecast predicting that California's population growth will tilt ever more toward the Central Valley, Southern California's Inland Empire and fast-growing areas around Sacramento, experts say the state's political center of gravity may shift, too - away from the more urbanized, coastal metropolitan areas that dominate the state's political and economic life today.
"
The Central Valley 'will clearly gain heft compared with the other metropolitan regions,' said Carol Whiteside, president of the Great Valley Center and the former mayor of Modesto. 'It won't be the baby cousin any more.'
Baby cousin? We always thought red-hedded step-child. But we digress...
"
The Central Valley will grow from 10 percent of the state's population in 2000, to 16 percent of all Californians by 2050. The Bay Area is projected to gain about 3.5 million new residents by 2050, but its share of California's population will drop to 17 percent, from 20 percent in 2000, an analysis of new state Department of Finance projections shows."
"But the biggest culprit is California's insane requirement of a two-thirds majority vote in each house for passage of a budget, or practically anything involving money. It's a system structured for stalemate. Only two other states, Rhode Island and Arkansas, require a supermajority vote for a budget."
Weintraub says it's time for Republicans to "show their hand."
"'It's time for the Republicans to come out of the darkness,' [
Fabian] Núñez said, 'and to talk about exactly what it is they want, and to be specific.'
"
Núñez is right. If Republicans don't like the budget the Democrats are presenting, it is up to them to suggest an alternative. I am guessing that one reason they have not done so is that they fear the Democrats will put the public spotlight on the Republicans' proposed cuts and bring advocates for those programs to the Capitol in protest."
Let the record show that July 15 was the day Dan Weintraub wrote, in print, that Nunez was right...
The LAT's Patrick McGreevey reports on
the lasting legacy of Lloyd Levine's spay and neuter bill, which died in the Senate this week.
"What appeared to be a straightforward proposal by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine to neuter California's dogs and cats instead met massive opposition and
may have spawned a potentially powerful lobby that now plans to play a significant role fighting for pet owners' rights nationwide."When Levine surrendered last week and withdrew his bill from consideration for this year, it was in front of an overflow crowd of animal owners at the state Capitol, many of whom were wearing lapel stickers bearing the lettering 'PetPAC.'
"
The brainchild of Bill Hemby, a retired San Francisco cop who raises and shows Russian wolfhounds, PetPAC started from nothing three months ago and today has signed up 35,000 supporters. They helped raise more than $200,000 to defeat Levine's bill that would have required Californians to spay or neuter their pets or face stiff fines."
Now, if they were opposed to tribal casinos, politics might get interesting around here...
The Bee's Shane Goldmacher reports on
the politics of term limits, and initiative fundraising.
"In a year when overhauling California's health-care system has dominated the Capitol,
hospitals, drug companies, doctors, dentists and others with a stake in the debate have contributed at least $500,000 to an account to alter legislative-term limits.
"Labor organizations, key players in the health negotiations, have given hundreds of thousands of dollars more to the term-limits effort, run by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez's top political adviser.
"
Some donors are giving without even supporting the measure they are financially backing."While trading campaign cash for specific government policies is illegal, at least one health industry donor acknowledges giving to get access to the levers of power as the state looks to dramatically reshape its health-care system.
"'The whole system of campaign fundraising is such that you have a [political action committee] because you want to get access to people,' said
Gary Robinson, executive director of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, which gave $5,000 to the term-limits measure in late June."
The Bee's Kevin Yamamura reports on
the governor's week ahead, campaigning for more water storage.
"As budget wrangling continues at the Capitol, Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger will head out to reservoirs and waterways this week to pressure lawmakers into approving water storage, conservation programs and a canal around the Delta later this year.
"The Republican governor hopes to revive his water package after legislative Democrats blocked his $5.9 billion proposal in April. He wants lawmakers to agree this summer on a multibillion-dollar bond that would appear on the 2008 ballot.
"
Schwarzenegger also has shown more interest in a canal to transfer water around the Delta. His administration has framed the "conveyance" as a way to solve the state's ongoing environmental problems caused by pumping water through the Delta, but the idea has been controversial ever since voters rejected a similar 'peripheral canal' in 1982."
"A German bus driver
threatened to throw a 20-year-old sales clerk off his bus in the southern town of Lindau because he said she was too sexy, a newspaper reported on Monday.
"'Suddenly he stopped the bus,' the woman named Debora C. told Bild newspaper. 'He opened the door and shouted at me '
Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can't concentrate on the traffic. If you don't sit somewhere else, I'm going to have to throw you off the bus.'"
This is exactly why we don't ride the busses anymore. This happens to us all the time! Those of you who've met us know exactly what we're talking about...
"A spokesman for the bus company defended the driver.
"'
The bus driver is allowed to do that and he did the right thing,' the spokesman said. "A bus driver cannot be distracted because
it's a danger to the safety of all the passengers.'"
