One of the few bright spots of this 8-week budget roller coaster has been the leadership of State Controller John Chiang, who stood up and simply said “no” to the shock doctrine tactics of the Governor and his attempts to slash state worker salaries to the minimum wage and eliminate the jobs of thousands of others.  Schwarzenegger’s talk of compromise among the legislature and right-wing Republicans didn’t extend to state workers, and he took Chiang to court to force him to uphold his executive order.  As a result of Chiang at least offering resistance, the workers have a reprieve for August.

State workers targeted by a gubernatorial order to cut their pay to federal minimum wage have dodged that bullet – at least for August.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge Wednesday set a hearing to decide the pay dispute for Sept. 12, too late to affect this month’s state payroll.

Judge Timothy Frawley’s timetable ensures that 145,000 state employees and an additional 30,000 managers and supervisors will receive full pay for August.

This doesn’t happen unless Chiang goes to back for those employees.  And the grassroots in California is grateful.  Frank Russo reports on a meeting in Oakland:

California Controller John Chiang spoke to the Alameda County Democratic Lawyer’s Club yesterday at a small restaurant in Oakland and had a lot to say about the state employee pay order. But he had a lot more to say, about his approach to government, helping average Californians, and his values and philosophy about government while speaking for over a half hour without notes and then taking questions.

From the beginning, he was treated as a rock star-introduced by club President Meredith Brown, as “the man who stood up to the man.” He covered a lot of territory-and was paid rapt attention as he challenged this body of lawyers to continue their good work for the betterment of society. He even worked in themes from the Obama campaign, as he prepares to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and appear on the national stage. Josh Richman, a reporter and “blogger” for the Oakland Tribune attended this meeting and you can see his write up for a feel of what transpired as well.

Read the whole thing for Chiang’s comments, which are great.  Hopefully he’ll repeat them at the DNC this week.  Amazing what can happen to Democrats if they stand up for themselves, isn’t it?

UPDATE: The big issue, as Russo details in a separate post, is making sure this case is decided in federal court and not state court.  Otherwise, California could be on the hook for billions in fines.  Read the post at the link.

When San Francisco blogger Sasha McGee noticed that Gavin Newsom was being feted by PG&E and AT&T at the Denver convention, it wasn’t much of a surprise to see a DLC candidate running for governor of the largest state. What was a surprise, was that Moveon was also listed as a sponsor.

But fear not, Moveon hasn’t sold out, their logo showing up was a mistake.

In addition to the somewhat unseemly relationship between Newsom and PG&E, it seemed strange that MoveOn would cosponsor an event with one of the big drivers behind the move to preemptively absolve the nation’s biggest telecommunications companies of any consequences from their spying on Americans. MoveOn was a strong champion of the idea that these companies broke the law, and should suffer the consequences. That much of AT&T’s involvement took place in San Francisco only added particular irony to the situation.

Well, MoveOn now calls their being listed as a sponsor “a mistake” (they’re apparently sponsoring an event at the same time), and swears they’re going to get their name taken off the publicity for the event.

Indeed. And there is a huge gulf between the people-powered progressive side of the Democratic Party and the corporate-powered, DLC side represented by Gavin Newsom. For instance, compare how Moveon and Gavin Newsom responded to Al Gore’s push to go to 100% clean energy. Moveon issued a challenge to sign on that they would deliver, “to elected leaders and candidates across the country.” Gavin Newsom apparently didn’t get the memo as he opposes San Francisco turning on 100% clean energy:

When I approached Newsom at Netroots Nation after he gave a well-received speech on climate change, I asked him if he supported the Clean Energy Act. His initial response was “yes,” but he added that he didn’t think it was all that substantive. Eric Jaye was standing next to us at the time – and as I started to walk away, Jaye said something to Newsom. The Mayor then called out to me and asked, “did you mean the one about PG&E?” I said “yes,” and he then said: “oh, it’s horrible. I don’t support it.” Newsom wouldn’t explain why, and denied that Jaye working for PG&E had anything to do with his position.

And moveon plays well with other, while just last week Gavin Newsom’s taxpayer funded press secretary used the term, “lunatic fringe” to refer to the Democratic Party. Moveon works in solidarity with progressive blogs, while Gavin Newsom crossed the local netroots picket line and hired former Lieberman-consultant Garry South, whose idea of listening to online feedback can best be summed up in his own words (directed at calitics publisher Brian Leubitz:

Here’s my final word: When you have actually run and won a campaign electing a Democrat to any office at any level, instead of just sitting at your computer composing bile and bilge and hitting “send,” come back and talk to me.  Until then, you can kiss my . . . baby.

If Gavin Newsom wants to publicize AT&T and PG&E buying his ass, that is his decision. But he can’t hide behind moveon. And to have two of the worst corporations pay for him to have a party during the speech of the VP nominee is selfishly uncool. As for moveon, always cool. Please spread the word so people don’t get the impression moveon has any association with the awful corporations trying to elect Newsom governor.

Yup, 2008 could be the year of four statewide elections.  Sure, it’s a presidential year, so you expect two. Then we moved up our presidential primary, but not our regular primary, to Feb 5, giving us three elections.  Now that we are rapidly approaching the drop dead date to get propositions on the ballot for November, likely this Sunday, without a budget, we are increasingly facing the specter of another election either in December or January.  After all, printing millions of ballots can’t be done overnight, so to pull off the gimmicks that will get us through Fiscal Year 2008-2009, we’ll need some help from the voters.

As an aside, I still wholeheartedly believe that this state needs real reform to revert back to a representative democracy. We go to the ballot far too often for issues that are far too important and complex for people to be deciding on in 3 minutes in a voting booth. It’s an issue that must be addressed before we get to the days of voting on 30 propositions on a ballot.  Oh wait, too late. This year, in San Francisco at least, there will be well over 30 initiatives on the ballot. Terrific, at least it keeps consultants in business…Props out to my consultant readers working 25/8…w00t!

Ok, back to the Special election. Arnold mentioned it yesterday:

A budget deal after Sunday would mean the governor would have to put his budget measures – calling for budget overhauls and for borrowing against future lottery sales – to voters in a special election later this year or next year.

“We can have a special election. … I prefer to put it on this ballot, but you always have to go for the next best thing. You can’t always have it exactly your way,” he said Thursday.

The last special election in California was in 2005 and cost the state about $50 million, according to Kate Folmar, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Debra Bowen.(SF Chronicle 8/22/08)

Sweet! I’m sure it will be great fun to find $50 million in the budget for that. On the plus side, who doesn’t love a holiday season peppered with political ads. What more could a hack wish for?

He was elected by voice vote with no opposition as the new President Pro Tem of the California State Senate.  I’m not sure what this means for the current legislative leadership, though it seems that he wouldn’t start until December, so Perata is likely to continue through the budget slog.

I wish it was sooner, but I’m happy to get to the day when we have the leadership of Steinberg and Bass in the legislature.

Congratulations, Senator.