Yesterday, when the Assembly mustered a simple majority but not a 2/3 vote for the Democratic budget plan, Yacht Dog Democrat Nicole Parra did not cast a vote.  She has said that she would not vote for a budget unless it included a water bond for the November ballot.

Actions have consequences.

In the latest episode of Capitol punishment, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass tossed Assemblywoman Nicole Parra from her office on Monday morning after the Central Valley Democrat failed to vote for the budget on Sunday.

In a twist, Parra hasn’t been reassigned to more cramped quarters in the Capitol itself – but booted straight across the street to the Legislative Office Building. She will be the only member of the Legislature whose office is not housed in the Capitol.

“I knew going in Sunday that if I didn’t support the budget, something was going to happen,” Parra, D-Hanford, said in an interview shortly after receiving the news. The budget, now 49 days late, failed 45-30, with 54 votes needed for passage.

The state Assembly’s chief administrative officer informed Parra of the change shortly before noon and gave her staff until late afternoon to clear out of the office, she said.

“Boxes have been delivered,” said Parra, who added that she was unhappy she would be unable to pack her “personal stuff” because the Assembly was in session and she was on the floor.

Move her into Storage B for all I care.  Parra, who has all but endorsed a Republican to succeed her in the 30th Assembly district when her term ends in November, is putting her own interests above the needs of the state.  Water is obviously a crucial issue to the Central Valley but there are a variety of opinions on how to best deal with it.  There are no other Democrats in the Central Valley intending to hijack the state budget.  Parra, in short, is a selfish Yacht Dog who is comfortable with drawing attention to herself and being a media darling and uncomfortable with moving the state forward.

The quotes in the piece of Todd Spitzer coming to Parra’s defense are fairly nauseating, too.  Parra is done as a viable electoral prospect in the Democratic Party.  And when Fran Florez wins in November, we’ll at least have some leadership in the 30th Assembly district.  In my mind, that’ll be a pickup.

Over-reliance on multiple economic bubbles has led this state to a worse job profile than Ohio and a state government utterly incapacitated to do anything about it.

SACRAMENTO — California’s unemployment rate climbed to a 12-year high last month as the state continued to bleed jobs in the real estate and construction industries.

The rate jumped to 7.3% in July from 7% in June. It was even worse in the Inland Empire, where the unemployment rate is approaching 9%, the state reported Friday.

“The depth and magnitude of the job losses are accelerating, clearly,” said Esmael Adibi, director of economic research at Chapman University in Orange.

Adibi and other economists believe unemployment will continue rising next year even if the economy stabilizes. “Unfortunately, the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator,” he said.

Once the economy improves, people who have fallen out of the job market will jump back in, which will keep the unemployment rate well into the 7% range through much of next year, he said.

California has lost jobs in 10 of the past 12 months, and the rate is 2 points higher than it was just a year ago.  

I think it’s very clear how we got here.  Nationally, multinational corporations have moved manufacturing jobs overseas and narrowed the job market to few options beyond the service sector.  The knowledge economy and the housing boom provided an artificial cushion, but when they went bust there were no alternatives for the middle class.  And when the legislature is so sclerotic and logjammed that they can’t respond to any crisis, the cruelties of the free market take over.

What’s also clear is that they way out of this is with a sustainable new economy based on green-collar manufacturing jobs that stay right here.  The need to innovate our way out of the climate crisis provides a stellar opportunity that is starting to be realized.

Companies will build two solar power plants in California that together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale.

The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.

The power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the new plants, which will use photovoltaic technology to turn sunlight directly into electricity, to be competitive with other renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar thermal plants, which use the sun’s heat to boil water.

“These market-leading projects we have in California are something that can be extrapolated around the world,” Jennifer Zerwer, a spokeswoman for the utility, said. “It’s a milestone.”

This is about 57 times the largest photovoltaic plant currently in the United States.  Without the state mandate it simply would not be built.  So there’s a role to play for the state in encouraging job growth in the green sector.  This is a time with a lot of suffering, but with proper effort that could turn around.  That, and letting the government actually do their job.

There are budget votes scheduled for Sunday, but given that the Republican effort to impose an unworkable spending cap died in committee yesterday, it’d be hard to see how this all gets resolved in a matter of days.  Clearly the GOP’s ACA 19 overreached to the extreme, throwing in practically every goodie on their wish list and expecting the majority Democrats to roll over.  This time, they didn’t.

They are holding out for a strict formula written into the state Constitution that would limit how much spending can grow in a year. They unveiled their plan, ACA 19, written by Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines of Clovis, at a legislative hearing Friday. Democrats spent much of the 3 1/2 -hour meeting tearing it down, saying it would strangle government.

“It seems to me the objective of this proposal is clearly to promote less government,” said Assemblyman Sandre Swanson (D-Alameda). “I don’t think your proposal allows any practical flexibility to deal with real-life crises.” […]

An analysis by the California Budget Project, which advocates for low-income Californians in the budget process, concluded that the GOP plan would make it impossible for the state to keep funding schools at the current levels approved by voters through Proposition 98.

The nonprofit further said the GOP plan would “ratchet down the state’s ability to support public services” as government spending failed to keep pace with the state economy.

Republican lawmakers argued that the naysayers were basing their criticism of the spending cap on unrealistic revenue scenarios. Democrats responded that the entire GOP plan is unrealistic. And so it went. The plan was ultimately rejected by the Democrats who control the committee.

This just doesn’t sound like two sides reaching an endgame, but of course stranger things have happened in Sacramento.  Plus there are deadlines for the state ballot that hit in a matter of days.

The worry here is that, as Frank Russo notes (and he’s a must-read in these times), the lobbyists who hold much control over what happens in the state will use the chaos to carve out some treats for their industries.

A prime example (pun intended) is California’s response to the subprime mortgage mess, where our state is experiencing one of the highest rate of mortgage foreclosures-something that has kicked our economy in the gut-and has exacerbated the fiscal problems we have with our budget.

Even Halper of the Los Angeles Times exposed in an article yesterday that the Schwarzenegger Administration at the bidding of the powerful banking industry in California is trying in closed door meetings, with the connivance of legislative Republicans, to hold the budget up and extract hundreds of millions for their friends. The article starts off:

“One reason California still has no state budget is a closed-door dispute over a tax proposal that could be a multimillion-dollar boon to banks that engage in subprime lending.

“The proposal, according to legislative sources and industry lobbyists involved in the private budget talks, was brought to the table by the Schwarzenegger administration at the urging of lenders and other corporate interests. The proponents argued that it would help offset costs to businesses that could result from other tax changes under consideration. “

Essentially this would happen by refunding tax hikes to those companies who did poorly in 2008, i.e. subprime lenders.  It’s complicated but the beneficiaries are clear.  High-tech industries are trying to repeal some worker rights as part of a deal.  In the waning hours there’s going to be a lot of opportunity for mischief.  And then there’s Schwarzenegger’s blue pencil to deal with.

It almost makes you think it’s a GOOD thing there’s no budget yet.

Southern California actually becomes the center of the Presidential universe tomorrow afternoon, as Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church hosts John McCain and Barack Obama at a forum.  The candidates will not answer questions at the same time (though both will briefly appear on stage together), but they will have an hour a piece to share their views.

It’s likely that both fans and critics will be watching closely when Warren plays host to the two presidential contenders at his church complex in Lake Forest, home to 22,000 weekend worshipers.

The presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees won’t debate during the Civil Forum on the Presidency. But they will make a brief joint appearance, their first of the campaign, and Warren will interview each separately about the Constitution, poverty, AIDS, human rights and other subjects.

“America has a choice. It’s not between a stud and a dud this year,” Warren said. “Both of these men care about America. My job is to let them share their views.”

Warren may represent the softer face of evangelicals, but he still holds beliefs that hew strongly to the family values conservatism you would expect.  In fact, he says that he would have trouble voting for an adulterer.  I wonder which of the two Presidential candidates he’s obliquely referring to?

WARREN: John Edwards and others like him (emphasis added) have lost the trust of America because they lied, and fundamentally beneath every affair it’s dishonesty, its deceit, its deception. They’re lying to God. They’re lying to themselves. They’re lying to their wives and they’re lying to the public. How do you trust someone who’s constantly lying? You can’t. That’s why it is a myth to say their personal life doesn’t matter. It does matter — all of leadership is built on credibility.

TAPPER: Would you have compunctions about voting for someone who had cheated on his wife?

WARREN: Absolutely I would. Absolutely I would. Because if you can’t keep your faith to your most sacred vow – “’til death do us part” — how in the world can I trust you to lead my family? My government? My nation?…Absolutely I would. I think people first need to ask forgiveness and then earn trust back over time. Can trust be re-earned? Absolutely but it takes time.

I got my credential request in a little too late, but I am going to head down to survey the scene and give some kind of report.

Don Perata can crow about a budget deal all he wants, but a certain prison medical care receiver might throw that into some flux.

California prison medical care receiver J. Clark Kelso filed a legal motion today to force the state to come up with $8 billion over the next five years to fund his plan to build seven long-term care facilities and provide other improvements for inmate patients.

The action filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco also seeks contempt of court citations against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Controller John Chiang.

Kelso said he is still talking with the governor’s and controller’s offices and other officials to resolve the dispute over funding of his medical plan but that he will ask that both Schwarzenegger and Chiang be present at a scheduled Sept. 22 hearing in San Francisco if the issue is not resolved […]

Kelso said he wants $3.1 billion in the 2008-09 fiscal year. The request would increase the projected $15.2 billion spending shortfall for the year by another 20 percent.

Nobody paid much attention to this problem, but it was always there, threatening to blow yet another hole in the budget.  Democrats tried to borrow the money to pay for this but Republicans blocked it twice.  But this isn’t some minor inconvenience that can be flitted away.  This is about unconstitutional prison conditions that is causing at least one needless death a week.  It would be bad for business to actually remedy this, so lawmakers ignored it.  Aggressively.

Kelso blasted the Legislature for failing so far in its current session to provide bond funding for his project. He singled out the state Senate’s Republican caucus for holding up the bonds because of its concern that last year’s prison construction bond plan hasn’t taken hold.

A spokeswoman for Senate GOP leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto did not have an immediate comment on the receiver’s motion.

“No comment” has been the watchword of the GOP in this budget year.

Kelso’s going to win this case, too.  He’s operating under a federal court order and his mandate is clear.  And yet we’re going to put in a temporary regressive tax instead of a structural revenue overhaul.

More great leadership from Sacramento.  Hope the cocktail weenies are good at tonight’s round of fundraisers!

The NYT has more.