Have you felt something missing in your life?  Tired of reading the news and not seeing competing screeds about the state budget, or temper tantrums from the Governor, or puddle-of-goo “can’t we all get along statements” from responsible punditry or centrist good government groups?

Well, fret no more, ladies and gents, because the California budget crisis is back, and with an all-new “the state can’t secure short-term loans” finish!

Two weeks after California enacted its 2008-2009 spending plan, turmoil in the financial markets and flagging tax revenues are forcing lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to reopen budget talks.

Capitol sources say a special session for new budget action is a serious possibility.

Legislative leaders and the Republican governor are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss options for dealing with the state’s worsening financial picture. The state relies heavily on personal income tax and sales tax to generate revenues, and state officials fear both sources will be significantly weaker than predicted when crafting the recently signed budget.

At the same time, the state needs a $7 billion short-term loan to have enough cash until the spring, when tax revenues are heaviest. While state officials have more confidence that they can obtain the loan in the wake of a $700 billion federal bailout plan, they have not tested the credit market since Wall Street faltered in late September. State Treasurer Bill Lockyer plans to do so next week.

Revenues appear to be down more than 10% across the board from initial projections.  And there’s the looming budget-buster in the form of a Constitutional mandate to provide adequate prison health care:

SAN FRANCISCO — U. S. District Judge Thelton Henderson scolded state officials today for refusing to furnish $8 billion requested by the overseer of prison healthcare to improve the medical system in state lockups.

Henderson, who appointed J. Clark Kelso as the receiver in charge of prison healthcare, said the state had agreed repeatedly that prisoners were dying needlessly and that the system needed to be fixed. But Henderson said politics appears to be getting in the way. The Legislature rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal this year that the state borrow most of the money Kelso wants.

“I am left with the impression that this . . . is the result of nothing more” than politics, the judge said.

You are left with the right impression!

I wouldn’t expect this special session to be called until after the election, though the Governor may want to put this into action while lawmakers are vulnerable, so you never know.  With Republicans cratering nationwide, clearly the Governor would want to call a session while his legislative firewall of Yacht Party Republicans is still intact.

The ink barely dried on George Skelton’s “see, the Legislature isn’t all THAT bad” column when this latest proof of their irresponsibility on the budget came to light.  It is more incumbent than ever that Democrats capitalize on the progressive wave and get as close to that needed 2/3 majority as possible so that we can deal with structural budget reform once and for all.

Welcome to a probably not-so-regular feature, offering the latest news on the ballot propositions.  The Calitics Editorial Board will be out with their endorsements on these initiatives sometime next week.

• Prop. 1A: A lot of good stuff on this race at Robert Cruickshank’s California High Speed Rail blog.  For instance, Arnold has come forward with his support:

There is far more economic opportunity in fighting global warming than economic risk….We shouldn’t let the budget crisis hold back good things for the future. 20 years from now you can’t look back and say “well they had a budget crisis so we didn’t do it.” Just because we had a problem with the budget does not mean that people should vote “no” on high speed rail. Our rail system in America is so old, we’re driving the same speed as 100 years ago, the same system as 100 years ago. We should modernize, we should do what other countries do…We should start in this state, we should show leadership.

Absolutely, especially when you consider that initiatives which reduce emissions routinely save money and improve quality of life.  A recent study showed that HSR would be a tremendous economic benefit to the Central Valley, with $3 billion in direct benefits and the creation of over 40,000 new construction jobs.  You can add that to the reduction of billions of pounds of CO2 annually, which would be significant in that region at a time where interest groups are successfully suing the city of Fresno for its failure to curb pollution and protect the environment.

In other news, The LA Times has come out in favor, and check out this neat little graphic anticipating the train route.

• Prop. 2: You can see it by clicking on the ad on the side, but, you know, Piggy Wonder deserves some main-page love.  Joe Trippi is apparently involved in the Prop. 2 campaign, which would help stop animal cruelty; I got an email from him promoting this video.

• Prop. 5: The LA Times has a series of profiles on all the propositions, and here’s their edition on Prop. 5, which would finally increase treatment for nonviolent offenders like drug users instead of warehousing them at our overstuffed prisons.  Opponents are smearing this by saying its true intent is to legalize drugs, but the failed Drug War is the great unmentionable sinkhole in state and national budgets, and a smart policy emphasizing rehabilitation is desperately needed, especially in California.  The No on 5 people must have better spinmeisters, however, as most of the newspapers in the state have come out against the measure.  Right, because the policymakers have done such a stellar job in sentencing law, we should just leave it to them.

• Prop. 8: An update on those million yard signs that were “in route” from China to the Yes on 8 campaign: they’re still not here.

It seems that the signs, some of them outsourced overseas, didn’t all arrive in time for the September event. And many still haven’t reached supporters of the measure that would amend the state Constitution to ban gay marriage.

“It takes longer to get a million than we thought,” said Sonja Eddings Brown, deputy communications director for the Protect Marriage coalition […]

Brown tried to spin the production glitch as a positive thing for the campaign — a sign, so to speak, of the overwhelming demand for lawn signs by voters who wanted to participate in “the most unprecedented and largest grass-roots effort ever attempted in California.”

Oh that’s just a FAIL.

Meanwhile, when the most reactionary editorial board in the state, the Orange County Register, comes out against your proposition, you know you’re having a tough time selling it.  As for the right-wing boycott of Google for opposing Prop. 8, the website orchestrating it advises its supporters to follow the fate of the proposition – on Google News.

I think I’m going to miss this initiative, it’s been hilarious so far.

So the Governor kicks sand in the face of the entire state Legislature, vetoing 130-odd bills with the same generic “Sorry, I couldn’t persuade any Republicans on the budget so now you will pay” message, including some which were passed out unanimously, and the leadership’s response is not “Time to override” but… “Oh yeah, well just try that again!”

Of course, the governor has always made it clear he prefers campaigning to governing. That has to change if we have any hope of solving California’s challenges. The people of California deserve better than constant campaign mode. The people of California deserve better than staged fights for the cameras.

I’m willing to look past all this and hope we can see a new start. Part of that should involve the new bipartisan blue-ribbon commission I’ve been pursuing to look at tax modernization and two year budgeting and other potential solutions to California’s chronic fiscal crises. The governor has been supportive of that effort, and it’s a good place for us to move forward from.

I will also be asking Assembly members to reintroduce all the blanket-veto bills and will expedite their passage so the governor can have a second chance to act responsibly on them.

That is weak from Karen Bass.  There is absolutely no reason not to go back into a lame-duck session in November after the elections and get this done.  Otherwise you are enabling a bully.  At least some lawmakers get this:

Assembly Majority Floor Leader Alberto Torrico vowed today to push for a bipartisan legislative backlash against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by overturning many of his recent vetoes.

“We’re all very frustrated, both Democrats and Republicans,” the Fremont Democrat said at a news conference this morning. “I don’t think there’s going to be any problem attaining the votes for an override.” […]

Torrico said that when the Legislature reconvenes in January, he will push for overriding vetoes of both Democratic and Republican bills that received two-thirds support in the Legislature. Dozens of bills could qualify, he said.

Torrico said that he had not yet discussed the idea at length with legislative leadership, but “I think that’s going to be the first order of business upon our return.”

Sadly, Torrico doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  The bills expire at the end of the legislative session and cannot be taken up in January.

Just leaves you brimming with confidence, doesn’t it?

Instead of just stamping your feet and talking tough, this is a perfect opportunity for action.  Go back to work before November 30 and override these vetoes.

The Senate passed the bailout bill, with 2/5 of the DeFazio plan embedded – the raising of FDIC insurance limits, which was long overdue, and the ability for the SEC to suspend mark-to-market accounting, which is some kind of fairy tale.  It also includes all kinds of other legislation, like a tax package which is mainly focused on renewable energy tax credits, the only – I repeat, only – provision through all of this which could grow the manufacturing sector and reindustrialize the country (which is, you know, the key to America’s economic survival).  It actually RAISES taxes for oil companies as well.  I don’t think “Exempt from excise tax certain wooden arrow shafts for use by children” needed to be in there, but hey, it’s Congress!

The Senate jammed the House pretty good on this one, and I think they’ll eventually comply.

My Senators, Boxer and Feinstein, both voted for it, which shows that this cuts across ideological lines.  And yet I can’t argue with a word Russ Feingold says here:

“I will oppose the Wall Street bailout plan because though well intentioned, and certainly much improved over the administration’s original proposal, it remains deeply flawed.  It fails to offset the cost of the plan, leaving taxpayers to bear the burden of serious lapses of judgment by private financial institutions, their regulators, and the enablers in Washington who paved the way for this catastrophe by removing the safeguards that had protected consumers and the economy since the great depression.  The bailout legislation also fails to reform the flawed regulatory structure that permitted this crisis to arise in the first place.  And it doesn’t do enough to address the root cause of the credit market collapse, namely the housing crisis.  Taxpayers deserve a plan that puts their concerns ahead of those who got us into this mess.”

This is all true, and this was ultimately a bad plan, but I respect the opinion of hold your nose caucus as well.  I would have preferred a short-term fix with a vote giving a popular mandate to the solution.

Because right now the public opinion situation is very muddled.  People absolutely believe this is a crisis and they might not want to bail out Wall Street but they are adamant that something be done.  This is acute in California.  The state, with its emphasis on selling bonds and borrowing, is currently unable to pay its bills.  Bonds for highway construction, schools, housing and water projects cannot be sold.  The credit crunch has real-world effects.  This is why the Governor wrote the Congressional delegation and urged passage.  This is also why you don’t run a government based on borrowing, but there you go.

And so you have the fascinating and strange situation where Democratic challengers in Congressional races are hammering their incumbent opponents for voting yes AND voting no on the House plan.  On the side of “how could you vote for this” are Bill Durston (who rushed out an ad hitting Dan Lungren for voting yes) and Ed Chau (who slammed Gary Miller in a press release).  On the side of “I can’t believe you didn’t vote for this” are Nick Leibham, who couldn’t have been more exercised about Brian Bilbray’s no vote (calling it “totally irresponsible”) and Charlie Brown, who defended the need to do something against nutjob free market fundamentalist Tom McClintock.

And then you have Russ Warner, who cited David Dreier’s hypocrisy while saying he would have voted for the bill as well:

Warner’s campaign pointed to a conflicting statement on Dreier’s website, where the 13-term incumbent writes, “I believe we need to empower families to make sound economic choices and avoid taxpayer funded bailouts.”

While Warner says he would have voted for the bailout bill as well, his campaign attacked Dreier for changing his position.

The point is that no politician has any idea what the people want, and the decision-making process is exceedingly complex.  Those who are taking principled stands are likely to be rewarded and those taking political ones punished, but even that is unclear.  I would steer clear of making definitive statements about the public mood; chances are they don’t even know what they think.

Robert made an oblique reference to it, but the Governor showed his true character with his series of vetoes this week.  Yes, he did allow some valuable bills to pass into law, particularly SB 375, the land use bill.  You will now be able to register to vote online thanks to the signing of SB 381, and your menus at restaurants will have calorie contact and nutritional information.  He also signed two green chemistry bills that will crack down on hazardous industrial chemicals, and in the biggest surprise, he signed AB 583, the clean money bill which would establish a pilot program making the Secretary of State races in 2014 and 2018 publicly financed races.  (It was a bit easier for Arnold to sign this one, because it also must be put before voters on the June 2010 ballot.)

So those are some of the success stories.  But there are hundreds of failures, some of them absolutely inexplicable.  We knew that Arnold would veto SB840, the single-payer bill, but he also vetoed health care provisions that were in his own legislation from last year’s health care reform overhaul, including one that would end rescission (dropping patients after they put in a claim) and requiring that 85% of insurance premiums be spent on health care.  He vetoed the California DREAM Act for the second year in a row, after it was altered to conform to the standards he set in last year’s veto message.  He vetoed a bill which would have done away with the archaic and authoritarian practice of requiring loyalty oaths for state employees, because it’s “our responsibility to ensure that public resources are not used for purposes of overthrowing the U.S. or state government, or for communist activities.”  He vetoed sensible card check legislation for farm workers that would have allowed employees to unionize while resisting employer intimidation.  He caved to Big Business – and Sarah Palin – and vetoed the groundbreaking port cleanup bill that essentially signs a death warrant for families living in and around that toxic stew.

All in all, he killed 35% of the bills sent to him this session, and 45% of those sent in the rush of the final week.  Most of the vetoes I described above reflect the right-wing ideology and fealty to the Chamber of Commerce that I’ve come to expect from the Governor.  But what’s unusual is his contempt for the legislative process itself.  Here’s Frank Russo:

On many of the bills the Governor did not give a clue as to why he did not sign them, and instead employed a cryptic boilerplate veto message: “The historic delay in passing the 2008-2009 State Budget has forced me to prioritize the bills sent to my desk at the end of the year’s legislative session. Given the delay, I am only signing bills that are the highest priority for California. This bill does not meet that standard and I cannot sign it at this time.” How will this look in the future-next year or when history is written? In the hundreds of bills that met this fate there are many that were trivial or could be seen in that light. Some were amended down to the point of a pilot project or study or some other pale shadow of their former selves and the original intention of the legislator that introduced them. Even in this form, to the people involved, some of these were very important.

Some of these bills were passed out of both chambers with UNANIMOUS support.  And he rejected maybe 500 bills with that dismissive message.

It’s not like these bills are foisted upon the Governor after being hidden away in secret.  There is public information on all of them, and I’m assuming he has a staff to read the bill text.  The excuse is not only lame, it’s a final middle finger at the legislature, a disregard for the work that they do.  As Dan Walters noted:

The budget imbroglio, the governor’s threat to veto bills unless it was resolved, the Legislature’s delay in sending him last-minute bills, the hundreds of vetoes, and his drive to change how legislative districts are redrawn every decade worsen his already acidic relationship with the Legislature. The relationship is now so bad that Schwarzenegger was unable to move a single vote from his fellow Republicans on the budget.

There’s really only one thing to do.  Veto overrides are incredibly rare in California, with the last one occurring I think 30 years ago.  But it is incumbent upon California lawmakers to stand up for themselves and immediately move into a session where all unanimous bills are voted on in an effort to override the Governor.  This is as much about checks and balances as anything else.  Schwarzenegger showed his contempt for the process by hijacking the budget late in the game and threatening to veto.  The “detente” against veto overrides should be dead and buried by now.  I’m sure Democrats would welcome the maneuver, and Yacht Party Republicans aren’t too pleased with the Governor in their own right.

This is about asserting the ability to carry out a core job function.  If unanimous bills can be vetoed with no consequences the legislature just diminished greatly in stature.  Stand up for yourselves.  Stand up to this bully of a governor.  Override.