Via Capitol Alert, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Speaker Núñez have filed the initiative that would fund their health care reform package with the attorney general. The Bee explains:
Filing the initiative with the attorney general is critical to begin the process of qualifying the measure for the November 2008 ballot. The office of the attorney general now has as many as seven weeks to write a title and summary for the initiative before proponents begin gathering the estimated more than 1 million signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.
Meanwhile, from the “knock me over with a feather” newsdesk, Maviglio is adamant that this week’s ERISA ruling won’t cause any problems for the state plan. Because there were experts involved. San Francisco’s plan (and every other plan) forgot the experts. Thus we press forward.
So here’s an open thread for 2007’s final Friday. In keeping with our theme, please enjoy Matthew Sweet performing “Sick of Myself.”
In a ruling filed on Wednesday, a San Francisco federal judge struck down San Francisco’s employer mandate health care plan. Presumably, much of this ruling would also apply to the current state health care plan because, as the judge ruled (pdf):
“State laws are preempted by ERISA ‘insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan’ regulated by ERISA.”
The full decision is at the link, and Chris Reed gloats delightfully (and apparently accurately) that
It amounts to a brief against the governor’s and Fabian Nunez’s employer mandate proposal. It says over and over again that states can’t mandate health benefits and cites dozens of past rulings which illustrate this.
So on its face, it appears that the employer mandate portion of the state program that Speaker Fabian Nunez and Governor Schwarzenegger have been barnstorming about lately. Which would, if true, obviously be a pretty big problem for the tentpole legislation and all the political tit-for-tat that’s been going on around it.
In terms of healthcare though, the judge was not all doom and gloom about the prospect of providing universal health care (over).
However, as the Court noted at oral argument in this matter, the goal of providing health care for the people of San Francisco, as well as the nation, is a laudable one. On the other hand, Congress has evinced its intent to preclude state or local governments from passing any legislation that relate to ERISA plans so as to avoid a patchwork of state and local health care programs across the nation. The Court is not convinced that other alternatives for creating a program for providing public health care are not viable. Defendants propose an increased general tax requirement, but state the unfairness of not taking existing health care expenditures into account. Without wading into the legislative dominion, the Court can envision such a tax program that takes existing health care expenditures by private employers into account in the form of tax credits. Further, as the parties allude, there are alternatives such as funding a public health care system by requiring a hourly rate paid to the City. (See Intervenors’ Motion at 6-7; Opp. Br. at 10 n.8.)
Sure is nice of the judge to solve the problem- now will legislators step up and follow his lead? In the near future, does this completely kill reform for this year? It sure looks like it.
Back in August, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced that she was disallowing the majority of DRE voting machines made by Diebold and Sequoia. Part of her move in August was to require that 10% of votes in a close election (less than one half of one percent) be counted by hand. As a result of the potential “logistical nightmare” of having to count so many votes by hand, San Diego County has been pushing hard for people to vote by mail. But apparently that wasn’t going quite well enough. So now the Deborah Seiler, the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, is suing Debra Bowen over the issue.
The suit claims that counting 10% of votes by hand would create delays and extra work (boo hoo) and threaten the registrar’s ability to complete the tabulation during the 28-day canvass period after the February 5 election. San Diego County asserts that Secretary Bowen lacks the authority to mandate such a change without providing the funds to pay for it, although Bowen spokesperson Nicole Winger says the law “clearly” gives Bowen that authority.
So what, you may wonder, makes this a particularly big issue in San Diego County? Well, it could be that Ms. Seiler is a former Diebold saleswoman who participated in the sale of Diebold machines to San Diego in 2003? Her deputy is confirmed election corrupter Michael Vu, who presided over illegal practices during the 2004 Ohio elections. On top of that, once you start having to verify all these darn votes, you might have problems with letting volunteers take voting machines home overnight. Even though having random people be granted unfettered access to voting machines seems safe.
It’s really gotta be embarrassing for folks like Deborah Seiler to be complaining about votes being counted. Given that her job is to count votes. Wait, you want me to potentially count more than 1% of the votes? Who do you think I am? The Registar of Voters or something?
Meanwhile, Fabian Núñez is “so confident that we will be successful in reaching agreement that I have called for the Assembly to meet on Monday, December 17 in order to take up and pass AB 1X.” So where are we actually heading on this?
Governor Schwarzenegger is calling for 10% spending cuts across the board in response to the budget shortfall that everyone knew was coming. And as Dave points out, this means everyone who can’t afford to live without government gets screwed while the rich continue on their merry way. It also means that next year’s budget fight will likely turn this year into the good ole days of budget wrangling. And if Perata is serious about not passing anything as long as there’s a shortfall, then we ain’t passing anything for a while cause the shortfall isn’t going anywhere.
But before we even get to that, we find out whether all the extended sessions, coalition-shredding wars over an acceptable level of health-care (I’m looking at you Shum/Maviglio), time, money and both literal and cyber ink may end up coming to nothing because Don Perata can’t see spending on an important mandate when the political leadership in Sacramento can’t figure out how to balance a budget.
This is ultimately going to encapsulate most of the Calitics greatest hits from the past year; starting with health care, this runs through privatization, water usage, high speed rail and transportation, prison reform, Núñez pecadillos, labor relations, term limits, clean money, taxes, and the 2/3 rule. Because it all runs back to the ability of people to get elected and pass a budget.
Most of all, it’s likely to reinforce the absurd lack of strong, public political leadership in this state. There are no advocates. Nobody has tried to convince me to sacrifice. Nobody has tried to convince me of the inherent wisdom in a program that I might not otherwise think was a good idea. The art of the possible is starting to discover that, as it turns out, not very much is possible with a $14 billion shortfall and no bold attempts at change.
Perata’s statement closed by saying “The real issue now is the deficit and how this squares with everything else that we are going to do.” Everything is back up for debate. Now that we’re staring at the very real possibility of getting less than we started with, it might not be such a bad time for a return to the fundamental principles of budgeting and state spending. I’m not sure it could end up much worse.
It’s been a little while since it was open. What’s on your mind besides, now, this insanely catchy song West Coast by Coconut Record?
San Diego is having trouble getting out the message that people need to be conserving water. According to several commenters, the water shortage is a myth. I suppose as long as you can turn on a faucet, nothing is real for some folks.
In other San Diego news, the city can’t seem to keep track of its legal costs and isn’t sure what to do about it. Is that better or worse than oral transparency (which is my new and favorite term)?
New America Media says, thanks in no small part to Rep. Brian Bilbray, immigration is your 2008 wedge issue. Anybody want to ask why none of these Republican fear-mongers aren’t busting their corporate buddies?
Rep. Jane Harman teamed up today with Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) to editorialize in the Wall Street Journal on why Bush isn’t so badThe Limits of Intelligence. Leaving aside the hilarious range of jokes afforded by the title, it’s a nearly letter-perfect exculpation for the Bush Administration. To hear Reps. Harman and Hoekstra tell it, the information produced from the Intelligence community is inherently flawed and suspect. As a result, any conclusion could be right or wrong at any given point and assigning a value judgment is just silly:
Still, intelligence is in many ways an art, not an exact science. The complete reversal from the 2005 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear-weapons program to the latest NIE serves as its own caution in this regard. The information we receive from the intelligence community is but one piece of the puzzle in a rapidly changing world. It is not a substitute for policy, and the challenge for policy makers is to use good intelligence wisely to fashion good policy.
Or in other words, sure it looks like Harman, Hoekstra and the President totally dropped the ball on this over the course of three full years of Iran-focused hawkish rhetoric that apparently had no basis in reality, but that’s just how it works. And now that it’s been completely disproven, rather than admit an error, we’re simply going to blame the evidence. It’s been said that a good craftsman never blames his tools, and this may be the best demonstration in quite some time. Caught with their pants down the first time, it turns out that the assessment has always been correct no matter what the actual research or evidence might say, and we’re all best served just ignoring the inconvenient evidence and running with the stuff that we like. I liked this outlook best when it was justifying the invasion of Iraq, but I guess the classics never really die.
After her primary challenge last year, I was hopeful that Harman’s hawkish tendencies would soften. And in many ways, we’ve gotten that. Despite protestations that “Jane Harman hasn’t changed” since declaring herself “The Best Republican in the Democratic Party,” her votes on the war have gotten better- in fits and starts- over the past year. But lately she’s been trying to play thought police and now trying to justify a belligerent stance on Iran by legitimizing the same insanity that got us into Iraq. In 2002, the selective application of intelligence and deliberate misinformation to support a pre-established policy goal went on behind closed doors and, eventually, really pissed people off. Oh, and it also needlessly killed hundreds of thousands of people, bankrupted the country, further destabilized the Middle East and destroyed the nation’s international credibility. But this time we’re going to tell you to your face that we’re feeding a predetermined policy and tell you that it’s the only reasonable way to decide anything. Only the crazy irrational fringe would be swayed by actual evidence.
Perhaps the saddest part is that this whole article goes beyond political outrage and comes off as Rep. Harman’s “I drive a Dodge Stratus!” moment. She got passed over to Chair the House Intelligence Committee after Democrats retook the House, getting the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence instead. This sure does come off as a half-bitter, half-desperate attempt to reclaim relevance by grabbing a headline. Maybe her tendency to undermine the party in support of hawking an antagonistic foreign policy is why Rep. Silvestre Reyes is chairing the Intelligence Committee today. I’m just speculating there of course, but it’s tough to come up with a positive reading of this editorial, particularly when it finally boils down to “The government is telling you Iran is dangerous even though the government has established that Iran is not dangerous”:
Though the new NIE may be taken as positive news, Iran clearly remains dangerous. The combination of international pressure, economic sanctions and the presence of U.S. troops on Iran’s borders may have indeed convinced Tehran to abandon its nuclear-weapons program, as the NIE states with “high confidence.” Nevertheless, Congress must engage in vigorous oversight — to challenge those who do intelligence work, and to make site visits to see for ourselves.
This line of crap flew in 2002 and 2003 because Democrats like Jane Harman pushed it and there wasn’t a clear and recent debacle to prove how wrong-headed it was to its core. There’s no excuse now.
Updated with a swell picture from Russiablog. -Lucas
Via TPM , word of internal polling from Jackie Speier that shows her with a huge 30 point lead over incumbent Tom Lantos. Speier’s camp quotes a 57%-27% lead over Lantos is a straight “who would you support” poll of the 12th district.
The goodwill and name recognition that Speier built up during her primary run for Lt. Governor last year seem to be serving her well out of the gate. I’m sure Lantos will bounce back from numbers like these, especially once the incumbent protection kicks in. But if these numbers prove to be remotely accurate, it’s gonna be a heckuva race on the peninsula.
On Saturday night, the San Diego State Aztecs hosted BYU to close out their regular football season. The game was the 3rd Annual Fleet Week-sponsored game, rescheduled from October 27 because of wildfires. The Fleet Week Foundation describes the game like this:
San Diego State University plays in this third annual Fleet Week Football Classic. Pregame and half-time shows will feature flyovers, parachutists, the Navy Region South West and SDSU bands, and a tribute to our wounded warriors at Balboa Hospital and Camp Pendleton as well as a tribute to members of the Legion of Valor.
The festivities have a wide range of public and private sponsors and it’s fun for the whole family right? Well, for at least the second year in a row (probably all three), the halftime show included an American flag being parachuted onto the field by members of a nation parachutist team…who happen to work for Blackwater and use parachutes emblazoned with the Blackwater logo.
Attached is the promotional video from last year’s (2006) Fleet Week. You can skip ahead to the 2:43 mark to see the Blackwater parachutist bringing in the giant American flag. If you want, you can also zip over to about the 3:09 mark to see the flag being dragged across the field during landing.
Fleet Week events, which go on year round, are to honor veterans. I’ve attended several of them and in my experience they’ve been good opportunities to pay tribute to veterans. So I have a hard time understanding how Blackwater fits into the puzzle. They consistently undermine the work being done by our armed forces around the world and especially in Iraq. It seems a particularly unfortunate inclusion in the festivities; made all the more uncomfortable given that the Blackwater recall election culminates on Tuesday (12/11).
I spoke with Steve Becvar of the SDSU Athletic Foundation, which was involved in planning the event. He explained that this is the third year that Blackwater-affiliated parachutists had played a role in the Fleet Week game. He emphasized that the school was not seeking to make any sort of political point, simply to partner with the Fleet Week Foundation to honor veterans.
But despite what may well have been the best intentions of event organizers, Blackwater has NO business honoring veterans. Blackwater profits from war and has a vested interest in prolonging any military struggle as long as it increases revenue. They are, in fact, naturally at odds with everything that our veterans should be honored for. They dishonor the flag and all the people who have bled for it whenever they or their representatives try to wrap themselves or the Blackwater logo in the American flag.
Blackwater knows what it does. And they know that they’re nothing next to the members of the actual military. Past that, they know that their only hope for success or survival is to blur the distinction between their criminal behavior and the valor of American servicemen and women. As the Potrero vote peaks, I hope San Diegans and Americans everywhere refuse to be tricked. Blackwater is hoping for honor by osmosis, but they end up literally and figuratively dragging the reputations of our soldiers through the mud.
If people wanted yet ANOTHER reason to resist at every opportunity Blackwater’s plans for a training facility in Potrero, here you go. They’ve taken advantage of SDSU and the Fleet Week Foundation to undermine what otherwise could have been a wonderful evening for veterans. But Blackwater doesn’t serve the United States or its ideals. Blackwater serves the dollar. And they have no business being remotely affiliated with veterans or current servicemembers.
So from San Diego to Blackwater: Get out and stay out.
Jens Lekman – Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo
Lyle Lovett – Fat Babies
Mongo Santamaria – Fania Latin Jazz Party
The Roots – The Seed 2.0
Elvis Costello – Watching the Detectives
Clipse – Drop It (Les Bitches Remix)
Rock Kills Kid – Paranoid
The Pixies – Subbacultcha
The Coasters – Down in Mexico
The Sonics – Night Time is the Right Time
Taking in WAY back there towards the end. Fantastic. Night time is most certainly the right time to be with the one you love. Looking around the site, we’ve got all sorts of stuff going on. E-Board in Anaheim. Presidential Forum on Global Warming and Our Energy Future in Los Angeles. Volunteer for the Bay in San Francisco. Recovery efforts in Rancho Bernardo/San Diego through Volunteer San Diego. What’s on your mind and your calendar as we all gather ourselves and prepare to give thanks?
And because my main man DJ Lee is returning to San Diego tonight after several years of “touring the world,” I highly recommend you enjoy the musical stylings of Scratch Track. You’ll be happier after.
California’s first African American congressman died Saturday in Bethesda, MD. He was 100 years old. Hawkins was first elected to the California state legislature in 1935 and became the first African American to represent California in the House of Representatives in 1962, serving until 1991. He was the oldest living former congressman.
While in office, Hawkins was instrumental in legislation like the Civil Rights Act (sponsoring Title VII- the equal employment section), the Job Training Partnership Act, and the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act. He was also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
When he left office, his seat passed to Rep. Maxine Waters who said he was “the author of some of the most significant legislation ever passed in the House . . . particularly in the areas of education and labor. He cared about poor and working people.”
“It was Gus Hawkins who gave us the credibility,” said Rep. Diane Watson, D-Los Angeles. “It was Gus Hawkins who gave us the ideas. . . . He has left a sterling legacy.”
It’s a good opportunity to remember the good things government can do.
