We're sure there will come a day when we're not focused on the state's budget problem. Unfortunately, today is not that
day.
Capitol Weekly looks at the strange sequence of events that led to last minute changes in the state budget.
"This is the story of how the teachers’ unions overpowered Senate Republican Leader Dennis
Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta, and how that led to the eventual decision
to spare more than $1 billion in local government cuts. It highlights the
Machiavellian art of California politics, and shows
how personal feuds and the law of unintended consequences
loom large in state policy making.
"Conflicts between members of the Senate Republican
caucus, between Democrats and Republicans, and between
the Assembly and Senate all played a role in the strange
sequence of events that led to the state abandoning
an earlier budget agreement to take more than $1 billion in local gas tax revenues from the Highway
Users Tax Account (HUTA).
"By late morning, the entire budget deal was in a precarious
position. Blakeslee was refusing to put up Republican
votes to borrow the $2 billion from Proposition 1A. If the Proposition 1A borrowing was not approved, the entire budget plan
was in jeopardy.
Blakeslee believed he had been double-crossed by the Senate, and that his colleague, Hollingsworth,
was in on the betrayal.
Blakeslee gathered his caucus and called down to the
governor’s office.
"The governor’s team, led by chief of staff Susan Kennedy and legislative
director Michael Prozio, tried to smooth the problem
over. Prozio engaged in a bit of shuttle diplomacy,
running between the governor’s office and the room on the third floor where Republicans
were huddled, trying to bring Assembly Republicans
back into the fold."
And then there's the tale of the oil-drilling vote, which, according to public record, never
happened.
"The bill went down to defeat, with only 28 Assemblymembers voting for the bill, and 43 members voting No.
"But look for the vote on the state’s public database, and you won’t find it. In a bit of Assembly magic, the vote disappeared
from the official record when the house agreed to expunge
the vote on the oil-drilling bill.
“Certainly, George Orwell would be proud,” said Assemblyman Chuck
DeVore, R-Irvine, author of the bill. “It sure went down the memory
hole, didn’t it?”
CW has a copy of the expunged vote, and puts it all
in print.
John Howard looks ahead to the next big Capitol fight to come -- water.
"After months of budget wrangling, lawmakers are preparing
to make water policy a central focus of the final month
of this year’s legislative session.
"How does the state get more water from the north to
the south while protecting the delta east of San Francisco,
the vast, fragile estuary through which most of California’s water flows? Can it do both? Can lawmakers satisfy
farmers, environmentalists and water districts?
"Apparently, they’re going to try."
But this budget fight ain't over yet. The Chron's Bob Egelko writes the governor's line-item vetos will likely be challenged in court.
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's cuts of hundreds of millions of dollars
from state health and welfare programs are probably
headed for the
courts, which will decide whether he has the power
to reduce spending
that lawmakers have already lowered from previously
approved levels.
"
California's Constitution allows a governor to reduce or eliminate
"items of appropriation" without vetoing an entire bill. The action is
the line-item veto, which is regularly used to trim newly passed
state
budgets. That's the authority Schwarzenegger invoked Tuesday when
he
cut $489 million, mostly from programs serving the poor, sick
and
elderly, before signing legislation to eliminate a
$24 billion deficit
from the 2009-10 state budget.
"But legislators had already reduced funding for those
same health
and welfare programs last week when they revised the
budget, which they
had adopted in February."
"Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has sunk to an all-time low among Californians in
a new survey that also finds that residents, while
strongly in favor of
environmental regulations, want to slow down on environmental
reforms
while the economy is still taking a beating.
"Schwarzenegger's
job approval rating is now at 28 percent, according to a poll by the
Public Policy Institute of California, comparable to the ratings faced
by former Gov. Gray Davis before he was recalled in
2003."
And finally, "Members of a prominent Chicago-based sorority are suing to oust
their national president -- former Chicago Housing Authority
comptroller Barbara McKinzie -- saying she misappropriated funds and
commissioned a $900,000 wax figure of herself.
She also is accused of taking nearly $400,000 for personal expenses
and arranging for a $4,000 monthly stipend to be paid to herself after
she leaves office."
Wax statue? Really?
