"Los Angeles Democrat Karen Bass vowed urgent action to address California's budget crisis Tuesday when she was sworn in as Assembly speaker,
the first African American woman to lead a legislative
body in U.S. history.
"Bass struck some of the few somber notes in a joyous
celebration of the occasion, telling a chamber packed
with well-wishers that "we have to respond to the current economic crisis the
way we would a natural disaster."
That would make this an unnatural disaster, right?
"'
We have to toss aside the boxes we put ourselves in
and the labels we place on others and come together
to get the job done,' Bass said."
Bass will have a shot at addressing the budget crisis
as the ball lands in her court around noon today when
the governor releases the May Revise, er, May Revision .
"In his latest plan for closing a budget shortfall now
estimated at $17.2 billion, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will propose giving voters a choice between borrowing
against the state lottery and paying more sales tax ," report Evan Halper and Jordan Rau for the Times.
Or they can elect to sell their first born into slavery
in the hinterlands of the Yukon Territory.
"The sales tax proposal is a turnabout by Schwarzenegger,
who came to office as an anti-tax crusader and throughout his tenure has steadfastly
insisted he would never consent to new taxes. In recent
days, the administration repeatedly denied reports
that it has been laying the groundwork for a sales-tax increase.
"Deep cuts in services would still be needed to balance
the budget. According to advocates and lobbyists briefed
by the administration, Schwarzenegger will propose
reducing health services for the poor even further
than he had suggested in January, in his initial spending
plan.
"At the same time, he is walking away from some cuts
he proposed then that triggered loud howls of protest.
"Schwarzenegger Communications Director Matt David said
the latest proposal restores billions of dollars in
school spending and abandons plans to close 48 state parks and release tens of thousands of prisoners
early."
Nobody thought those plans were real, did they?
"The governor's new plan, to be released today, has already drawn
resistance from GOP lawmakers, who have pledged to
vote against any new taxes."
But the selling the kid thing was expected to be discussed
in caucus meetings later this week...
"The lottery proposal, according to David, would come
before voters as early as November and hinges on administration
estimates that California could borrow against future
profits to generate as much as $15 billion over three years."
Hey, why not just put the entire budget on the ballot,
and let us all get a summer vacation?
The Chron's Matthew Yi reports : "The governor's plan calls for using about $5 billion of the lump sum to help reduce the projected
$15.2 billion budget deficit. About $10 billion would be placed in a reserve that the governor
wants to create to use during times of fiscal crisis
as part of his proposed budget reform that he's been trumpeting up and down the state in recent months."
We're having a hard time seeing the Democrats swallowing
a $10 billion reserve while health and human services is
expected to face significant cuts.
The Merc's Steve Geissinger reports that some lawmakers have other state assets in mind to sell off in efforts to help close the budget gap.
"Lawmakers of both parties
moved Tuesday toward making sale of unneeded state
properties — not the
lottery — a way to ease painful cuts in services as a result
of next
year's huge budget deficit.
"The Senate Governmental
Organization Committee said it wants to rapidly obtain
the information,
then report back to the Democratic and Republican caucuses
in the upper
house for budget strategy purposes.
"Though Democrats hold the
majority in the Legislature, minority Republicans can
delay approval of
a spending plan because of the two-thirds vote requirement.
"GOP
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to unveil a
revised plan today for dealing with a deficit that
has grown to as much as $20 billion.
The governor is expected to incorporate leasing of
the state-run
lottery to blunt what will still likely be broad, deep
cuts in
government.
"Sen. Dean Florez, a Fresno-area Democrat who heads
the Senate government committee, said he would rather
"sell our surplus
property, before we sell or lease the lottery."
Still no takers on this whole first-born thing? We thought the plan was brilliant...
The Bee's Kevin Yamamura sets the stage for the difficult negotiations ahead .
"Schwarzenegger lost his chief Democratic ally Tuesday
when Fabian Núñez stepped down as Assembly speaker. His relationship
with Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata has been strained."
Like carrots.
"The governor also has little sway with his fellow Republicans,
who held out last year for 52 days before providing the necessary votes to approve
a less problematic budget. He has frustrated the conservative
GOP by striking deals with Democrats without Republican
support and telling his own party that it is "dying at the box office."
"Schwarzenegger recently rankled some rural legislators
by suggesting they lacked a worldview necessary to
tackle major public works problems because they hail
from "those little towns."
"Another problem is that Schwarzenegger lacks strong
relationships with individual lawmakers, said Sen.
Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica. She was engaged in negotiations last
year on health care that ultimately died in her Senate
Health Committee.
"The governor has been less hands-on than his predecessors, she noted, describing him
as 'much more standoffish and relying on pronouncements.'
"'I think he has lost influence with legislators since
his (2003) election,' Kuehl said. 'He came in with an enormous amount of good will, and
I think an enormous amount of expectations on the part
of legislators that he would be a person who would
roll up his sleeves with us and see what could be done.
Instead, over the years, we were pretty much handed
his ideas with very little flexibility on his part.'
"From a transactional view, however, Schwarzenegger
still has unique powers at his disposal. He can promise
funding for projects in lawmakers' districts and offer appointments in exchange for a
budget vote. He can look favorably on a legislator's priority bills.
"The governor, who continues to attract media attention
as a celebrity, also could promise political support
in future elections. Or he could travel to legislators' districts and criticize them. In 2004, for instance, he held rallies at shopping malls and
once attacked legislators as "girlie men."
"'Governors always have clout no matter how many times
legislators may proclaim a governor is irrelevant,' said Tim Hodson, director of the Center for California Studies at
California State University, Sacramento.
"Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear would not describe the governor's negotiating plans but said he considers legislators
his 'partners.'"
Silent, puny, insignificant partners.
Meanwhile, the smut peddlers of California are desperately trying
to fend off a new tax on their industry, reports the OC Register's Doug Irving.
"Sex shops and strip clubs would have to pay an extra
25 percent tax
on their sales and services under a proposed state
law meant to offset
the costs of allowing such businesses into a community.
"But
California's $4 billion-a-year adult industry has attacked the proposal
by Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Montebello, as unconstitutional and
based more on opinion than on fact. Adult-business owners in Orange
County say the tax would put strippers out of business
and break sex
shops that already must abide by strict rules about
where they can
operate.
"'I don't know how this business has any kind of bad
reputation,' said Jerry Tatarian, the manager of the Flamingo Theater,
a strip club in Anaheim. 'You walk in here on your own free will. We
don't show anything outside. We're just a regular business.'
"'Twenty five percent?' he added. 'What's he trying to do, become a partner?'"
Dan
Walters writes that it'll be another year full of gimmicks .
"Tapping into the lottery (and selling EdFund, a state student loan guarantee
operation, which is already in the works) sound like pain-free approaches that spending advocates on the left
and tax opponents on the right might embrace, as does
another move floating around the Capitol, selling the
State Compensation Insurance Fund, a state-owned workers' compensation insurer.
"All, however, would essentially be gimmicks aimed at
postponing the day of fiscal reckoning, perhaps long
enough for a movie star-turned-politician to end his term without biting the big bullet.
And, by the way, those who propose "temporary" tax increases are also in gimmick mode; one-time and/or temporary injections of cash don't really close a permanent, structural gap."
Well, at that rate, Dan, you're going to build consensus to double the newspaper
tax. Oh, wait. That won't work. Nobody buys newspapers...
But hey, this is California, man, where budget gimmicks
are about as newsworthy as Barry Bonds indictments .
"How such stopgaps would work politically is also uncertain.
Schwarzenegger himself has said, for instance, that
voters would have to approve any alteration in the
state lottery, since it was created by a voter-approved initiative in the 1980s. And any change in the lottery could face potentially
stiff opposition from powerful education groups (since the lottery's net proceeds now go to schools) and from casino-owning Indian tribes that don't want more competition.
"One thing is certain: Schwarzenegger will renew his demands for long-term budget reforms as part of any budget deal. But
what he /wants has already been rejected by Democratic legislative
leaders and their allies, including the school unions,
which are just as implacable on that point as Republican
lawmakers are in opposing new taxes.
"It could be a long summer."
"The president of EdFund on Tuesday said a severance package drafted for him and six other
executives was "not an exit strategy," but meant to retain key managers during the state's anticipated sale of the student loan guarantor program," reports Judy Lin in the Bee.
"Responding to a story Tuesday in The Bee about a severance
package worth more than $3 million, Sam Kipp, president of the Rancho Cordova-based public benefit nonprofit corporation, said the
executive staff drafted "boiler-plate samples" for the EdFund board to consider.
"'We were directed by the board to develop a draft sample
based on standard provisions that may be out there,' Kipp said in an phone interview. 'But there was never an expectation that that draft
would be definitive. It was simply a starting point
for discussion.'
"According to a copy of the proposed severance agreement
obtained by The Bee, Kipp and other members of EdFund's executive staff would be each entitled to two years' worth of salaries, bonuses and medical coverage if
the sale of EdFund goes through. They would be entitled
to as much as $20,000 each to help them find new jobs. EdFund would also
be on the hook for any tax they would have to pay the
state and federal governments."
And as the campaign season heats up, some legislative
campaigns are taking to the airwaves, rolling out big
time backers in front of the voting public. Take, for
example, the Sacramento-area 8th Assembly District, where Christopher Cabaldon has
unveiled a new television spot revealing the support
of, well, a talking owl.
Here's
a breakdown of the Top 10 Independent Expenditure donations from yesterday,
courtesy of ElectionTrack.com:
California Alliance For Progress And Education
Isadore Hall (Support)
$185,173
California Dental Association Independent Expenditure
Pac
John J. Benoit (Support) $46,725
Opportunity Pac Joe Nation
(Oppose)
$32,967
Opportunity Pac Greg Pettis (i) (Oppose) $22,220
California Real Estate Independent Expenditure Committee
Wilmer Amina Carter (Support)
$12,998
California Alliance For Progress And Education
Stuart Waldman (Support)
$11,714
Fair Public Policy Coalition Carole Migden (Support)
$9,089
Doctors Of Optometry For Better Health Care
Scott Kamena (Support)
$8,797
Californians For Balance And Fairness In The Civil
Justice System, Marty Block (Support)
$4,724
California Credit Union League Pac
Norma Torres (Support)
$2,500
Ok, Ok. We've come to our senses. We have shelved our selling
your kids to close the state budget gap plan, and decided
to back the sale of unclaimed property to help out
the state coffers. Which brings us to this story from
the Associated Press.
"An immigrant family left a 23-month-old boy in the Vancouver airport
and learned he was missing only when contacted during
the next leg of
the trip.
"Jun Parreno, the boy's father, told The Vancouver Sun the mix-up
occurred Monday as he, his wife and two grandparents
of the child,
J.M., were scrambling between their arrival in Canada and a connecting flight to Winnipeg on Air Canada.
"Running late after having to unpack and repack all
their luggage,
"we had 10 minutes before boarding," said Parreno, who was emigrating
with his family from the Philippines. "We were running for the gate."
"He said he thought his son was with the three other
adults, who were
running to the gate ahead of him, and they thought
the little boy was
with him."
Hey, that qualifies as unclaimed property, right?
Eds Note: We've switched our e-mail distribution this week, and hit a couple of small
bumps along the way. Please bear with us as we work
out the little ticks we've encountered (like getting yesterday's Roundup with no text, which, which surely some of
you thought was an improvement). But as we grow, the new email capacity will allow
us to get the Roundup out to more of you more quickly.
In short, we've simply outgrown the old system. The new e-mail system is just the first of many tweaks we will
be making to the Roundup over the coming months as
we finally decide to invest a little time and energy
tinkering with perfection.
