"Frustrated that the state has no budget more than two
weeks into the fiscal year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
said Wednesday he may insist that legislative leaders begin marathon
negotiating sessions until they secure a deal," reports Kevin Yamamura in the Bee.
"'It is almost like there is no emergency there,' Schwarzenegger told The Bee in an interview. 'At one point or the other, you have to say, like they
do with labor negotiations, 'let us sit in the room and not leave the room until
it's done.' We have done that in the past, we have sat here until
three in the morning. Eventually, I'm going to go and ask them again to sit down and let's not leave the room until it's done.'"
Now that we've moved from "girlie men" to sending legislative leaders to "time out," surely we'll get a budget.
"For several weeks, Republican and Democratic leaders
in both houses have met without the governor in an
as yet unsuccessful effort to resolve a $15.2 billion shortfall in the $101 billion general fund budget.
"Schwarzenegger ramped up criticism of lawmakers this
week, but he so far has refrained from using harsh
tactics such as visiting lawmakers' districts and cajoling them, as he did during a late
budget in 2004.
"The Republican governor has been meeting with leaders
individually, though he said he 'didn't really want to interfere with their process.' The parties remain divided over whether the state
should use tax increases to bridge the gap, as majority
Democrats have proposed.
"The governor has scheduled a "Big Five" meeting with the four legislative leaders for today, the first such session in a month.
"'We'll judge by that meeting what will be the best way
to move the process forward and come to a conclusion,' he said."
The Chron's Matthew Yi gets the governor to talk about his relationship with
Fabian Nuñez.
"Question: Do you miss Fabian Núñez?
"Governor: Yes.
"Question: You guys worked pretty well together.
"Governor: He got it. He got it. And he was willing to fight
off those who were pulling on him and pushing him from
the outside. He was willing to fight them off and see
the bigger picture. So I think that this is what we
need more of in this building.
"Question: Do you think it would be helpful (in negotiations), when you think about budget, water, health care,
if he did get involved?
"Governor: It's hard to say since he's just had vocal chord surgery, so I don't want to bother him. ... But I think in the end he
will be helpful. I'm absolutely convinced, you know, because Karen is
a terrific woman, but it's the first time she's involved in this. ... (Núñez) saw the bigger picture, but it took him time to get
there and now when he got there, he has to go and leave.
So, what's that? What kind of system do we have to reward someone
who has done well that you have to leave? It doesn't make any sense.
"And here's what Speaker Bass had to say in response to the governor's comments that Núñez may be helpful in negotiating big ticket items:
"Bass: Speaker Emeritus Núñez is here on the third floor and I'm sure any of us can talk to him if we choose to, but
I think I have worked very well with the governor ...
the reality is that I'm the speaker."
"A voter initiative to reinstate a ban on same-sex marriage will remain on the November ballot, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously
Wednesday," reports Maura Dolan in the Times.
"The court issued a brief order rejecting arguments
that the initiative, Proposition 8, was an illegal constitutional revision and that voters
had been misled when they signed petitions to put it
on the ballot. The decision, reached in closed session
during the court's weekly conference, cleared the way for what some
observers expect to be a close vote on the marriage
measure.
"The signatures for the initiative had already been
gathered when the California Supreme Court decided
4 to 3 in May to strike down a state ban on same-sex marriage. Same sex couples began marrying in California
last month.
"Gay rights groups issued a statement Wednesday expressing
disappointment with the court's decision."
Capitol Weekly's John Howard reports on the fight over revenues for firefighting. "The smoke and heat from California's round of wildfires has seeped into the Capitol. There,
strapped budget writers have doubled the magnitude
of Republican Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan to raise money to fight fires by levying a surcharge
on property insurance policies. The action adds yet
one more contentious element to a budget fight that
may last through the summer.
"The issue is simple: It costs money to fight fires and cope with disasters,
and where's the money going to come from? At midweek, there were
nearly 100 fires burning across the state and more than 866,000 acres had been charred. One commercial building was
lost and 100 homes were destroyed, according to a joint state-federal command center.
"Schwarzenegger's plan, after some rewriting and negotiating, would
have raised about $125 million annually by adding a 1.4 percent surcharge to insurance premiums, both residential
and commercial, in high-risk areas; in low-risk zones, the fee was put at .75 percent.
"Last week, the Democrat-controlled budget conference committee, its six members
drawn from both houses, approved the governor's plan, but with a twist: they doubled the numbers.
"The new plan would raise an estimated $250 million to $280 million with
high-risk surcharges of 2.8 percent, and low-risk fees at 1.5 percent.
A policyholder with a $1,000 homeowner's policy in a high-risk area
would pay about $28 extra; a low-risk homeowner would pay about $15
more."
Malcolm Maclachlan looks at the governor's stalled Green Chemistry initiative.
"DTSC was scheduled to deliver the recommendations to
their parent agency, the California Environmental Protection
Agency (Cal-EPA) on July 1 as part of the Schwarzenegger
administration's potentially-groundbreaking Green Chemistry Initiative.
Based largely
on a program in the European Union, the initiative
is designed to document the health effects and known
alternatives for thousands of chemicals used in consumer
products and industry.
That deadline passed without the DTSC delivering the
recommendations for a framework to regulate chemicals
in California. In fact, DTSC has not even delivered
the draft recommendations that were due on May 15. This has some environmentalists worried.
"A number of stakeholders have been involved with this
for the past year and a half, and we're getting anxious," said Gretchen Lee, legislative director with the Breast
Cancer Fund."
CW also looks at the increased role nonprofit foundations are playing
in state journalism as the newspaper industry suffers.
"For California political journalism, bad news is everywhere.
As newspapers wrestle with shifting financial realities,
papers across California have scaled back or eliminated
their Capitol bureaus.
"But while for-profit papers are scaling back their coverage, a number
of the state's largest non-profit foundations are coming together,
searching for ways to fill the void left by the ever-shrinking Capitol
press corps.
"So, how do the simultaneous declines in traditional
Capitol coverage mesh with this growing interest from
the non-profit sector? Will non-profits be part of the new economic picture for journalism?
"Will the foundations save political journalism?"
"Six years after launching her effort, state Sen. Sheila Kuehl made a final pitch Wednesday to a legislative committee
for a government-run universal health care system," writes the Bee's Aurelio Rojas.
"Senate Bill 840 would establish a single-payer system in which the state would assume the role
that private insurance companies now play.
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a earlier version
of the legislation in 2006, calling it "socialized medicine," and has vowed to do so again.
"That did not stop Kuehl, now in her last year as legislator
because of term limits, or the Democrats who control
the Assembly Appropriations Committee from praising
a single-payer system during the overflow hearing.
"'This plan would cover every California resident with
comprehensive, affordable health benefits,' Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, told the committee. "Once put into place, it would seriously contain the
growth in health care spending and improve the quality
of care that's provided."
"Earlier this year, the Senate Health Committee that
Kuehl heads rejected a health-care expansion plan negotiated by Schwarzenegger and
then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez. SB 840 then became the only option left in the Legislature."
"California's first true count of high school dropouts shows that
one in four kids quit school last year - 127,292 - which is far more than state educators estimated before
they began using a new student-tracking system," reports the Chron's Nanette Asimov.
"The statewide 24-percent dropout rate also shows African American and
Latino students leaving school at much higher rates
than other ethnic groups, according to data released
today by state schools chief Jack O'Connell.
"The dropout rate is well above the 13 percent (67,107 students) that educators had earlier estimated using a less
sophisticated counting method relied on for years.
"'I was quite shocked at how many students are falling
through the cracks,' said O'Connell. 'This is a crisis.'
"The state Education Department says it can now calculate
dropouts far more accurately using its new "Statewide Student Identifier System" in which every student is given a unique, anonymous
ID number. With that, schools can track the whereabouts
of missing students for the first time, and learn whether
students are truly AWOL, or whether they are somewhere
legitimate."
"The University of California regents questioned a faculty proposal Wednesday to change student
eligibility for admission to the system's nine undergraduate campuses, significantly reducing the number who are guaranteed
a seat.
"Several regents, including new UC President Mark Yudof, who was attending his first regents meeting in Santa
Barbara, asked for more time to study what the proposed
changes mean.
"'I'm on the pro-diversity team and I want to increase diversity in
the student body,' he said. 'That's not my issue. (But) I want to carefully assess this proposal. It's one of the most consequential things the regents
will approve.'
"The revision would reduce the percentage of students
guaranteed admission. Instead of assuring a seat to
the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates, it would promise
a seat to roughly the top 10 percent of graduates. That would broaden the campus
admissions officers' power to consider the individual merits of more students
instead of simply using a set formula of test scores,
courses and grades.
"Supporters say that it would be fairer and improve
access for students at inner-city and rural high schools that don't have all the classes UC requires or counselors who
can advise them on the right courses and tests. Critics
have cautioned it could undermine the popular admission
guarantee and might actually reduce the number of African
American, Latino and Asian American students."
Capitol Weekly's Andrea Weiland analyzes a week in the Capitol without Rough and Tumble.
"For many Capitol news junkies, there are certain things
that are optional in the morning - breakfast, shower, etc - and others that are mandatory. And for most of us,
right after that morning cup of coffee, a scan of Jack
Kavanagh's Rough & Tumble is de rigeur.
"But this week, many have been without their
morning fix, and as a result we are all a bit more
lost
and confused, and less-informed, than usual. Rough and Tumble
(http://www.rtumble.com), the daily roundup of the latest capitol news
frequented
by journalists, politicians and insiders, was put on
hiatus July 12.
"I feel totally out of it," said Morgan Crinklaw, communications director for
the Assembly Republican Caucus. "I keep reading stories from July 11th thinking they're new."
"Among those hit hardest by the site's absence are Capitol reporters, who rely on Kavanagh
as a one-man distribution system for their stories to the Capitol
community.
"'You can write something and nobody may see it if it
doesn't get play on Rough and Tumble,' said Los Angeles Times Capitol
reporter Evan Halper.
You can write a story you've been working on for months, and you're
convinced will change everything, and if it doesn't get good play, it's
like it didn't exist."
Kavanagh has posted on his Web site that he has been
diagnosed with colitis and has been released from the
hospital. He expects to have his site up and running
Friday. Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Jack.
And if you've ever been in the market for a self-cleaning toilet, has Seattle got an offer for you.
AP reports the city is auctioning off some troublesome self-cleaning stalls on eBay.
"Starting bids are $89,000 apiece.
"Neighbors and city-commissioned analysts said the unisex facilities
attracted drug users and prostitutes, and were less
cost-effective than
regular public restrooms."
