Daily Archives: December 2, 2008

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Karen Bass Kindly Requests that Governor Schwarzenegger Do His Job

The Speaker’s office uploaded a video of her Inauguration Speech to the incoming Freshmen Assembly Members, but I found this video a lot more interesting.  It’s from a press conference where she’s answering questions from the Sacramento press, such as it is.

She’s pretty blunt about what she’s expecting from Schwarzenegger: 3 votes in each house. I’m not sure if there’s a lot more Democrats can do. We’ve gone a long way, too far if you ask me, in the way of cuts.  And still the Republicans stand there looking like goofballs with their hand on their hips watching as our ship of state sink.

And from the more bad news category, there’s this little tidbit about the lottery.  As you may recall, selling out the lottery for a short chunk of cash fast was one of the big GOP/Arnold plans. It was really the key to the Republican plan, and was in a few of the Dem plans.  Well, don’t hold out for a flood of cash to come in. Sales are down:

Ticket sales by the California lottery are off about 10 percent compared to a year ago, a drop lottery officials are pinning on a bad economy. But California Lottery officials say they don’t think the lagging sales will interfere with efforts to modernize the lottery and revamp it to give more revenue to the state.

For the first four months of the 2008-2009 fiscal year, the California Lottery sold $985 million worth of lottery tickets, down from $1.09 billion for the same period a year ago. (Capitol Weekly 12/2/08)

Like every other revenue source we have, the lottery is cyclically dependent on the economy.  It’s just one more way to ensure that our budget is crazy every year, because we wouldn’t want any dull times around here.

Budget

Nothing New From The Yacht Party

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On the first day of the legislative session there was an irrational burst of optimism that the roadblocks put forward by the Yacht Party on the budget and taxation would somehow be hurdled.  It’s true that Democrats have three more seats in the Assembly (though currently one less in the Senate, pending the filling of Mark Ridley-Thomas’ vacant seat), lowering the amount of Yacht Party members they’d have to bring aboard for any solution.  But the idea that these new Republicans represent any kind of fresh thinking or newfound moderation is a fantasy.

Though Democrats picked up an aggregate of three seats in the Assembly, Niello said, they still need at least three Republicans to cross over and vote for any legislation that requires a two-thirds vote, such as a state budget.

Because the GOP caucus is united around opposition to any new taxes and wanting to see reforms such as a state spending cap and improving the state’s regulatory environment on businesses, Niello said, Democrats will have to give to get any of those crossover votes.

“We’re still solid, still firm on the things that are priorities,” Niello said.

Newly sworn-in Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Linda) sounded a similar note.

“We’ve got to create wealth, and we’ve got to grow our way out of trouble, not tax our way out of trouble,” Logue said. “Raising taxes will drive more jobs to Nevada.”

Some of this could be bravado, and there are a couple legislators who were in close races – Steve Knight in AD-36, Bill Berryhill in AD-36, Tony Strickland in SD-19 – who would, in theory, do well to part ways with ideology and compromise to enhance their chances in the next election.  But this would contradict the Iron Law of Institutions – “the people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself.”  Republicans who give in on the budget will be primaried and feel far more fear from that internal challenge than from the opposition.

The only way to counteract this is to make the challenge from without more vital than the challenge from within, and to make the power inside the institution line up with the power of the institution.  It means getting 2/3 and making anyone who rejects the will of the people pay.  SEIU has the right idea with their new ad campaign about the budget, playing off of Obama’s popularity in the state, and John Burton’s curt response to Yacht Party efforts to roll back labor and environmental regulations as payment for a budget solution – “The Republicans are full of crap” – ought to be said a bit more often, maybe in less colorful language, to make clear who is causing this crisis.  

I’m not sure any of it will be enough, though.  The Yacht Party is still the Yacht Party.

Budget

Welcome to the Capitol – Now Get Out

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As the new Legislature is sworn into office there are hopes that the change in personalities might lead to a resolution of the budget crisis. Many of the new members are hoping to produce exactly that. And while their desire to solve the crisis is admirable, they may not yet have realized that solutions lie outside the Capitol, not inside it.

The San Francisco Chronicle article on the new lawmakers explains their desire to produce change:

Paul Fong, previously a community college trustee, said his first priority will be “to make friends with Republicans and get them to see the light” when it comes to approving new taxes and fees to ease the state’s budget shortfall.

I have to guess that’s a remark for the media – hopefully Fong realizes that the Republicans are in no mood to “see the light” on the budget. They have shown themselves to be quite happy obstructing the budget and demanding destructive, reckless cuts that will push California deeper into an already severe recession. Many of the new Republican legislators made a show of signing anti-tax pledges, making them even less willing than their predecessors to agree to new revenues.

More importantly, Fong’s desire to “make friends with Republicans” is misplaced. It’s not Republican legislators he needs to court – it is Republican voters, constituents of Republican legislators. They’re the ones who can force the obstructionists to give way to common sense and dire economic necessity.

The most important thing the new class of legislators must learn is that the budget crisis will not be solved in Sacramento. Not in the back rooms, not on the chamber floor. The last few years should have proved that already.

Instead it will be solved in the public – in the streets, at the kitchen tables, at the ballot box. The most consequential budget-related actions in this decade came not from legislators but from the people, whether it was the 2003 recall or the 2005 defeat of Arnold’s right-wing agenda.

It’s Californians themselves who need to be reached out to, mobilized, engaged. Don’t stay holed up in the Capitol – get out there and get the public involved in solving this crisis. Reach out not to obstructionist Republican who will never give in, but reach out instead to the decline to state and moderate Republican voters.

Follow the Obama model. Take your message to the places where Democrats have traditionally not organized. Mobilize your base and then use them to reach out to the millions of Californians desperate for change, desperate for solutions.

Democrats have to build a coalition with the people of California. Arnold has been a complete failure as governor, and the Republicans are busy thinking up new anti-labor, anti-environment demands for the hostage crisis they’ve provoked.

Californians voted overwhelmingly for people-powered change on November 4. It’s time for the new legislature to bring that home and engage the public more directly and fundamentally on solving this crisis.

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Cyber Monday Open Thread

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As we all know, California has a tech company or two.  So, I hope you got on the interwebz and bought some good California tech gadgetry.  Now, for some links.

• SF Mayor Gavin Newsom has a virtual State of the City up on his YouTube channel and an accompanying diary at Daily Kos.

• Here’s a pretty neat tool from Total Capitol to look at all electoral seats in the state at a glance.

• LA County Supe Zev Yaroslavsky has a nice op-ed in the Jewish Journal about Prop 8.

• A funny little story of an “independent” Orange County Blog.

• A new tactic in the marriage debate? Tom Ackerman suggests not recognizing straight marriages and see the reactions you get.

• Boogey-Boogey: Nobody should get promotions in the Capitol ever again!