The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) posted a map today detailing the benefits for the Recovery Plan.  The DCCC has made Congressman Calvert one of 12 GOP House members they are targeting in an e-mail, text, and telephone campaign calling these members out for voting against the stimulus package.  As the DCCC states, “Congressman Ken Calvert’s vote against President Obama’s economic recovery package means that he tried to block a badly needed and shovel-ready project to repair streets in Riverside, California, creating 23 jobs alone.”

To view the map, visit www.DCCC.org/Content/Recovery

In Mr. Calvert’s world of bizarre partisan purity, the Stimulus Bill spends too much. This argument hardly seems credible coming from a gentleman who voted to bailout banks and corporate CEOs to the tune of seven hundred billion dollars with no oversight, and who repeatedly voted to spend a budget-busting trillion dollars in Iraq.

As of November 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics ranked Riverside the highest unemployment rate in the country (surpassing Detroit).  Failed trade agreements, deregulated financial markets, and tax policies that have encouraged the concentration of great wealth into pockets of a handful of Americans have put the middle class at risk.  All things that Mr. Calvert supported and voted for.  Today, in Riverside County hundreds of businesses have shut their doors.

By voting against this Bill, Mr. Calvert once again proves how out-of-touch he is with his own constituents and why he lost 80% of his district.

To help oust Calvert once and for all, visit HedrickforCongress.com and donate to the campaign.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t governing by magazine cover, he’s governing by Sunday talk show.  This is a good venue for him, because nobody asking him questions has any idea what Arnold’s actually done to California, and he can spout off one-liners and talk the Beltway language of post-partisanship without rebuttal.  These kinds of interviews are never given to reporters in his home state, because they might actually have experience with his tenure and thus would be in position to know a lie when they see one.

For example, the Governor is getting a lot of ink for the line about how he’d be willing to take any stimulus money from any governor in the country who rejects it.  Less discussed is the essential falsehood present in this comment:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So when you — we’re looking at a similar budget crisis in the coming years here in the United States. Does the Republican Party have to re-think its absolute opposition to tax increases of any kind?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, no, I think that the Republican Party or any party has to always think, when you make a decision, “Do I want to make a decision that’s based — that’s best for the party? Or am I a public servant and have to serve the people, what is best for the people?”

And in this particular case, in order to solve a $42 billion deficit, the only way you can do that is a combination of making severe cuts and also having some revenue increases.

Really?  Arnold was “listening to the people” when he helped ram through a massive corporate tax cut, in a time of deficits, for large multinational corporations?  Show me the poll where the public was clamoring for a multinational corporate tax cut.  How about the poll where the public was desperate for waiving environmental laws regarding public works projects and delaying implementation of laws regulating diesel emissions?  Actually, the California public has spoken pretty profoundly that they want a serious reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

I mean please.  This is a guy who campaigned almost entirely in 2003 on cutting the vehicle license fee, costing the state almost enough to fill this entire budget gap over 6 years, and now he’s raised it after admitting defeat.  Arnold Schwarzenegger is a born liar.  He has the interests of the California Chamber of Commerce and anything but the people of California.  That’s why he refuses to engage with them or their elected representatives, preferring to float above it all and run to the national media with false tropes about “serving the people.”  Forget just apologizing to Gray Davis, he should abdicate to him.

This last bit from John Myers was amusing:

And in non-governor news, he confirmed an interest in a cameo appearance in an upcoming Sylvester Stallone flick, picked Mickey Rourke to win an Oscar, and said The Candidate was his favorite political flick. That movie is an interesting choice, given it’s about a candidate who’s so focused on winning — rather than governing– that after his victory famously says: “What do we do now?”

Exactly.

A frequent topic of online discussion on the budget crisis in recent weeks has been a call to legalize and tax marijuana in order to help close the budget deficit. This would have two beneficial effects – reducing the prison population and increasing the revenue stream for state government. It was even the most popular question at Change.gov back in December.

Today Assemblymember Tom Ammiano announced he supports this basic concept, and to that end is introducing AB 390 – a bill number you’ll be hearing a lot about in coming months. From a press release sent via email:

Today Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) announced the introduction of groundbreaking legislation that would tax and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. The Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education act (AB 390) would create a regulatory structure similar to that used for beer, wine and liquor, permitting taxed sales to adults while barring sales to or possession by those under 21.

“With the state in the midst of an historic economic crisis, the move towards regulating and taxing marijuana is simply common sense.  This legislation would generate much needed revenue for the state, restrict access to only those over 21, end the environmental damage to our public lands from illicit crops, and improve public safety by redirecting law enforcement efforts to more serious crimes”, said Ammiano.  “California has the opportunity to be the first state in the nation to enact a smart, responsible public policy for the control and regulation of marijuana.”

Ammiano estimates this will bring in $1 billion in annual revenue. That could double when considering the impact of savings on prison spending.

This is clearly an idea whose time has come. I do not know of any recent polling on the topic, but I have to believe that support for regulating marijuana like alcohol has risen in recent years. 2009 offers an interesting moment, where long-time legalization advocates can now ally with Californians who want to solve the budget crisis and can no longer afford to ignore the high costs of a failed marijuana policy.

Ammiano is also following in the footsteps of other San Francisco legislators. In 1975 then-State Senator George Moscone got a bill passed and signed by Governor Jerry Brown to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. Ammiano’s proposed legislation is of a much larger scale, but it makes sense to treat marijuana, a drug that is already widely available in California, the same way we treat alcohol.

It’s good to see someone in Sacramento stand up and point out that there’s no reason we should maintain a policy that has failed so totally and completely, and at such an enormous cost, as marijuana prohibition.

 Cross-posted at Living in the O.

As Robert mentioned in his post this morning, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) will be voting this Wednesday on how to use federal stimulus funds. While they’ve scrapped one of their initial wasteful proposals, the Transbay Terminal train box, they are still proposing to use $70 million for the Oakland Airport Connector. V Smoothe summarized the proposed project and its history last week at OakBook:

BART’s Oakland Airport Connector is a proposed 3.2-mile elevated tramway that would ferry passengers from the Coliseum BART station to the Oakland Airport. Since the agency did not have enough funding to finance the project in full, they began seeking private partners to help build the rail line. All three interested parties dropped out of the project last year, citing concerns about profitability. At the time, BART officials said they would drop plans for the elevated train and begin exploring more affordable ways of providing a reliable connection between the station and the airport, such as dedicated bus lanes.

But then of course Congress passed the stimulus package, and MTC staff proposed to use $70 million of the funds to revive the Oakland Airport Connector project.

Now, I can understand why the Oakland Airport Connector is such a tempting project. I’m going to be taking BART to the airport this Friday evening, and a quicker and more reliable connection would save me a lot of time. The problem with the project as currently proposed is that it’s incredibly expensive, and like so many of BART’s projects, relies on ridership statistics that are entirely unrealistic. (They’re predicting that more people would use this connection than take BART to SFO!)

Another problem, as TransForm explains, is that the Airport Connector is not “shovel ready.” Meanwhile, transit agencies around the Bay Area are struggling, especially since the state has pulled all funding from public transit statewide. These local agencies, including AC Transit, desperately need these funds to continue providing an adequate level of service and to avoid raising fares. Even spread out among the regional transit operators, $70 million would have a huge impact.

The best part is that even if MTC decides not to provide this $70 million to the Oakland Airport Connector, BART already has sufficient funds to solve the problem of slow bus travel from the Coliseum BART station to the Oakland Airport. That solution is Bus Rapid Transit. BRT would take buses out of traffic and shuttle riders quickly and reliably to and from the Oakland Airport. And BRT could be completed in much less time and with far less money than the current proposed connector, shifting the $70 million to where it could make an impact now.

MTC staff seem pretty stuck on this idea so it’s up to us to convince the MTC that the needs of local transit agencies should take precedence over another pie in the sky BART proposal. Here’s what you can do, via TransForm:

Join us on Weds., Feb. 25th at 10am at MTC (101 8th St., across from Lake Merritt BART) in telling the Commissioners to direct new funding to critical public transit needs, not the costly Oakland Airport Connector. It’s important that we coordinate our message for maximum impact. Please let us know if you’re coming and get a copy of talking points by contacting Joel Ramos.

If you can’t make the meeting, email your comments opposing the use of recovery funds for the OAC to John Goodwin at MTC now at [email protected].

Eric at Transbay Blog agrees about the Oakland Airport Connector and provides more background on this project and the MTC’s funding proposal.

Crossposted from the California High Speed Rail Blog

One of my lingering concerns about the Obama Administration has been that they might be tempted to claim victory with the $8 billion in HSR funding added to the stimulus and not follow up on that money, which as we know merely pays for some initial costs. But Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood made clear last week that in fact, the $8 billion in HSR stimulus really is intended as a signal to America that Obama is truly serious about building HSR:

LaHood said that for Obama building high-speed rail networks is, “if not his No. 1 priority, certainly at the top of his list. What the president is saying with the $8 billion is this is the start to help begin high-speed rail projects.” He added that the administration “is committed to finding the dollars to not only get them started but to finishing them in at least five parts of the country,” although he declined to elaborate on where these projects might ultimately be built.

And don’t worry about the right-wing freakout over the Vegas HSR project – California is in better position than any other HSR project in America to use that stimulus funding. We can begin construction in late 2010 or early 2011; no other project is anywhere close to that point.

This couldn’t be better news for us in California, where we have long known that at least $15 billion in federal aid, spread out over 10 years, will be needed to build the SF-LA line. Unfortunately the news is tempered by the fact that the Obama Administration’s support for HSR did not extend to mass transit as a whole. Here in California the state has decided to zero out the State Transit Assistance account, costing local agencies over $500 million in funding. The federal stimulus isn’t nearly enough to make up the difference. And as the San Jose Mercury News reports, that’s setting up a situation where HSR may be pit against local transit agencies:

The MTC meeting Wednesday in Oakland could turn contentious, as the current plan calls for allocating $75 million to help build the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco, which would serve as the final stopping point for a high-speed rail line and Caltrain (UPDATE: the MTC now plans to seek train box funds from the $8 billion HSR stimulus, not the general transit stimulus funds – see Transbay Blog for more info) and $70 million to build a BART spur to Oakland International Airport. Those two projects alone would take 43 percent of the $340 million headed to the area in stimulus funds for local transit.

Some want money for those new two projects scrapped or reduced – and redirected to cover the cost of paying for day-to-day transit needs.

But MTC officials counter that building the Transbay Terminal now will save millions of dollars in later costs, and combined with the $8 billion in stimulus funds set aside for high-speed rail could accelerate that program.

I support using that money for the Transbay Terminal, although I’m less certain about whether BART to OAK is all that necessary; the AirBART buses work pretty well (I used them on numerous occasions when I was an undergrad at UC Berkeley, although that was 10 years ago).

But I really hate it when HSR pitted against other forms of transit. I have said it before and I will say it again – HSR and other mass transit need each other to be successful. It should not and must not be an either/or choice. I don’t blame the MTC for being stuck in this position – that blame lies in Sacramento and Washington DC. But we transit advocates need to not fall out along modal lines.

I’d like to propose a solution, one that I don’t even know is possible under state law but makes a ton of sense to me. The nine-county SF Bay Area region should implement its own gas tax, which will solely be used to fund public transit. I haven’t penciled out the numbers so I don’t know exactly what the tax amount should be, but it should be indexed to the price of gas, and not a fixed cent number.

This money would initially be used to backfill the loss of STA funds, and allow the federal stimulus money to go to new transit infrastructure such as Transbay Terminal or BART to OAK. Ultimately the STA funds must be restored by a statewide gas tax increase, but it is much more politically possible to implement a gas tax in the Bay Area first than to try and get the Central Valley and the Southern California exurbs to buy into this (they can be brought on board later, once the 2/3 rule is eliminated).

It’s very difficult for folks living in the nine counties to evade the tax, with the possible exception of Gilroy residents who might drive to Hollister to fill up. Most folks will simply pay the increase rather than drive far out of their way to get a cheaper gallon of gas.

I’m not sure if this option has been explored by the MTC and the member counties, but it ought to be. It’s a sensible solution that would not only help spare transit agencies from “Armageddon” but would itself be a long overdue policy shift that would give a real boost to transit efforts in the SF Bay Area.

The weekly Democratic radio address (which ought to be a YouTube address, come on guys) called for an end to the 2/3 requirement for budget and tax increases.  This is the first time in my memory that so many lawmakers are openly talking about revising 2/3.  It’s not a new problem – 28 of the last 32 budgets have been late due to legislative squabbling, with the fights becoming more protracted than ever over the past decade.  And every economic downturn, no matter how slight, sets off a crisis.  Assemblyman John Perez made it clear:

The budget would not have taken so long and would have not included non-budget related issues like an open primary if California did not have the unusual requirement of a two thirds vote for budget approval.

Reforming this two-thirds requirement should be a priority for all Californians.

Perez did not reference whether the new requirement should be the arbitrary 55% number, which is what the current initiative being circulated states, or a simple democratic majority.  We’ve learned where a number of Democrats stand this weekend:

• Darrell Steinberg decided not to mention 2/3 hardly at all in his op-ed in the Sacramento Bee.  That’s a lack of leadership.  No elected official should be speaking in public and pass up the opportunity to advocate for majority vote.  He instead opted for a Broderist call for working together and the awkward tag line “Smarter going forward.”

In comments to David Greenwald, Steinberg did call for repeal, but failed to pick a side.

“The answer in my view is to take this two-thirds supermajority requirement. We are one of three states in the country that allows a small minority of members to hold up the progress…. It doesn’t really work for California; it worked this time barely because of the magnitude of the crisis… We need to take the question this two-thirds supermajority to the ballot. I feel even stronger now than I did when I started on December 1.”

• Karen Bass is also talking about 2/3, but she is looking at the arbirtrary standard:

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, has proposed one that would allow lawmakers to approve budgets with 55 percent majorities if they do it by June 15. After that, it would take two-thirds votes.

It’s not necessarily that this kind of measure would definitely not pass because all the thrust of majority democratic rule is lost, but that’s certainly a factor.

• In that same article, Loni Hancock calls for a simple majority:

Hancock has introduced a constitutional amendment that would require only simple majorities to approve budgets.

“California needs to have a normal democracy like every other state in the nation except Rhode Island and Arkansas,” she said.

That’s a talking point.  55% is mush.

The point is that we have the Democratic leadership finally talking about the main impediment to the perpetual budget crisis.  Without two-thirds, you can fix a tax system that is too closely tied to boom-and-bust economic cycles.  Without two-thirds, you can end the virtual bribery of Yacht Party and moderate lawmakers.  Without two-thirds, you can end the Big Five process that facilitates official secrecy and backroom deals and use a deliberative process involving the committee structure and relying on the input of the entire caucus.  And without 2/3, you won’t have to hear from high Broderist windbags tinkering on the margins with proposals that make them feel good but will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem.  It’s kind of hilarious that the LAST proposal in George “Can’t We All Get Along” Skelton’s long list in today’s column is this:

* A simple majority vote for budget passage; 55% at most. Scrap the two-thirds vote requirement.