As Janice Hahn racks up the endorsements and continues to do well in the polls, State Senator Dean Florez is considering leaving the race for Lt. Governor according to the Fresno Bee:

In an interview today, the Shafter Democrat emphasized that he is still “100%” in the race. But he said the next few weeks will be critical as he does more private polling on his chances of beating Los Angeles City Council Member Janice Hahn. Hahn, the sister of former Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn, enjoys high name recognition in voter-rich Southern California and has performed well in private polling.

“Janice Hahn is formidable, no doubt,” Florez said. “I am going out to poll this next week and I’m anxious to see if the electorate has moved at all since her poll and I’m going to look at the poll and make a very informed decision.”

Florez also cited several key union endorsements Hahn has recently snared, including the California Federation of Teachers union and California Professional Firefighters.

Such an outcome wouldn’t surprise me at all. Hahn is a strong candidate with statewide appeal and who has taken some good progressive positions on key issues. Florez hasn’t been able to keep up, and given that Hahn already planned to exploit Florez’s weakness of being a sitting state legislator, I wouldn’t be surprised if Florez is using these polls to make a graceful exit.

But there’s another intriguing factor here. Whereas Dean Florez had been said to be lining up opposition among the Senate Democratic caucus to letting Abel Maldonado become the next Lt. Gov., that seems to be fading as Dems seek to cut a budget deal with Maldonado:

The wildcard in the race is Abel Maldonado, a Republican state senator and the governor’s pick to serve out the lieutenant governor term of Democrat John Garamendi, who was recently elected to Congress. Democrats have suggested they will reject his confirmation. But it is also widely speculated that Dems might not roadblock Maldonado if he cooperates with them on a state budget deal. Maldonado, a moderate Latino from the Central Coast, says he will run for lieutenant governor in the fall even if he’s not confirmed.

This is a more sensible approach to the Maldonado confirmation from the Dems than the “we won’t confirm him” stuff we’d been hearing in late 2009. It is in the Democrats’ interest to let Maldonado become Lt. Gov. and win back 15th Senate District seat. But why not use the leverage you do have over Maldonado while you’ve got it? If Dems can get Maldonado to vote for a decent budget, it’s worth trading that for letting him become Lt. Gov., a seat he’s unlikely to retain in November anyway.

Just as the trial of Proposition 8 was about to get underway in Judge Vaughn Walker’s courtroom in San Francisco this morning, the US Supreme Court delivered an injunction against the promised video feeds and rebroadcasts of the trial. Calitics emeritus blogger David Dayen was in Pasadena at a 9th Circuit courtroom when the news came down. The injunction, which Justice Steven Breyer objected to, lasts until midday Wednesday when the full court will hear arguments about whether the broadcasts will go forward as planned, be expanded, or be ended entirely.

Several bloggers were able to make it into the Burton Federal Courthouse in downtown San Francisco this morning where the trial is happening, including the Courage Campaign’s founder and chair, Rick Jacobs, who is liveblogging at the Prop 8 Trial Tracker, a website we at the Courage Campaign (where I work as Public Policy Director) set up to monitor and hold accountable the right-wing organizations that are trying to undermine the course of justice. Jacobs has described fascinating exchanges between Judge Walker and Ted Olson such as this:

The judge is probing extensively whether or not the problem would be solved if the state of California “got out of the marriage business.” He and Olson had a colloquy about whether domestic partnership for all would solve the problem. Olson had to have a note handed to him from his team to say that only opposite-sex couples over 62 can have domestic partnership. Judge Walker is very interested in seeing what change has occurred that should force the federal judiciary to enter the issue. He wants to know what evidence will show that makes the matter worthy of judgment. The judge is very, very smart. This is really, really fascinating. Olson is doing a great job in answering him. “What’s the evidence going to show that Prop. 8” intended to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Olson: no question that Prop. 8 intended to discriminate. We’ll put on evidence from the plaintiffs and others that show how they felt about the campaign, the sentiments that may have been used to motivate the voters.

At the outset of the trial, Judge Walker also made reference to the debate over the broadcast. He said that by 5PM last Friday, 138,542 comments were received in favor of broadcasting the trial – and only 32 were received opposing it. The Courage Campaign Institute and CREDO Mobile delivered a petition on Friday to Judge Walker with 138,248 signatures calling for the trial to be televised. It is a clear sign that the people want this case tried in full public view, and reject entirely the self-serving arguments of the anti-equality forces, people who are afraid to let the public know their bigoted motives for putting Prop 8 on the ballot.

No matter what happens at the SCOTUS this week, the Courage Campaign will continue to track this trial and the right-wing reaction to it.

UPDATE:We could also use your help in keeping this going. Maintaining the liveblog isn’t free – if you can contribute $25, $50, $100 or more to the Courage Campaign Institute, we can continue to maintain the site as the trial unfolds. Thanks.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has released what is, mercifully, his final budget. It is a shocking “fuck you” to the people of California, a brazen hostage taking that proposes to eliminate basic social services unless the feds pony up $7 billion dollars. Even if they do so, Arnold plans to propose the same cuts that were rejected by the voters and the courts in 2009. This budget, more than any other proposal he has offered since he became governor in late 2003, shows the massive contempt Arnold Schwarzenegger has for his fellow Californians.

Although we may seem used to this kind of thing, the full details show just how horrifying and thuggish this governor and his budget are. It is a budget designed to protect the wealthy by making everyone else suffer, by driving the economy deeper into recession and strangling what little economic recovery we have witnessed.

• Massive cuts to (and essentially, the elimination of): CalWORKS, IHSS, Healthy Families. The IHSS cuts were done last year and have been blocked by the courts; Arnold’s contempt for the law continues to know no bounds

• However, if the feds come through with $7 billion, the above can be spared. The other cuts described below, however, would happen anyway

• Changing gas tax to an “excise tax” to enable state to make further cuts to public transportation, part of Arnold’s war on public transportation and his desire to shackle Californians to their cars, to rising oil prices, and to his oil company buddies – and would force $2 billion in further cuts to schools under Prop 98

• Raiding Prop 10 and Prop 63 funds even though voters rejected this in May 2009

• Approving the Tranquillon Ridge offshore oil drilling project and giving the funds to state parks, partly to block the ballot initiative to raise the VLF to fund parks

• $1.2 billion cut to school administrators. Before you say “but admin is bloated” – most school administrators are making $50K-$60K if that, and are basically solidly middle-class folks looking to make ends meet

• 14% pay cut to 200,000 state workers, though their furloughs would end

• $1.2 billion cut to prison medical care, even though the federal courts have said this is not possible

• No Medi-Cal benefits to legal immigrants who have been in the US less than 5 years, Healthy Families eligibility slashed to 200% FPL, elimination of adult health daycare

• No new taxes, and preservation of the indefensible corporate tax cuts made in the 2008 and 2009 budget deals

And a host of other things that have likely not yet come to light.

This budget is Arnold’s parting shot – literally – to the people of California, his effort to prove that he really is, as David Dayen put it yesterday, “the worst, absolute worst chief executive in national history.”

In the wake of Arnold’s State of the State address, most legislators made silly and obsequious statements to the effect of “we like what Arnold had to say, we can work with him!” One of the only legislators to give a proper response was Ted Lieu, who equated the prison privatization plan to Blackwater and pointed out that many groups, including religious groups, are vehemently opposed to private prisons.

Will Sacramento Democrats fold in the face of this crappy budget? Or will they follow Ted Lieu’s lead, and House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s lead from the 1980s, and declare Arnold’s budget DOA? Refuse to even consider it?

There may be signs that the Sacramento Democrats have found their spines. According to Capitol Weekly Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg’s response was “you have got to be kidding” and “we are going to take a different approach.” That’s a start, but Steinberg needs to reject this out of hand.

Progressives and Democrats across the state will be watching their legislators very closely and carefully in the coming weeks and months to ensure they take a strong, firm stand against this reckless and insane budget. California Democrats will have a very, very difficult time motivating their base to show up in November if they yet again give in to Arnold’s thuggery. It’s time they stood up and said “no” in a firm, loud, and collective voice.

The most important battle over the budget in January won’t be happening in Sacramento. Instead it will be happening north of the border, where Oregon voters will decide whether to close their own budget gap by raising taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. Progressive Californians should take a close look at what’s happening up there with Measures 66 and 67 – if they pass, it will be a clear sign that the voters ARE willing to embrace progressive taxation, no matter what Jerry Brown says.

Last summer Oregon’s Democratic legislature and governor approved bills to raise the income tax on people with joint incomes over $250,000 (or $125,000 for individuals) and reduce income taxes on unemployment benefits, as well as increasing taxes on corporations with Oregon profits of more than $500,000. Almost immediately, a coalition of large corporations such as timber giant Weyerhauser and FreedomWorks (Ari Fleischer’s teabagger group) raised money to put the tax increases to voters. The vote will happen all month long – Oregon is an all vote-by-mail state – and “election day” is January 26.

A progressive coalition has come together to defend the increases, including Oregon’s labor unions, in a campaign they’re calling Vote YES for Oregon. Polls show the Yes side has a 17 point lead. The opposition, Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes, is funded not only by Weyerhauser and FreedomWorks, but also Phil Knight and NIKE, Columbia Sportswear, and other Oregon companies.

Steve Novick, who ran against Jeff Merkley in the 2008 US Senate primary, is one of the leading organizers and spokespeople for the Yes campaign. Here’s how he explained the popularity of Measures 66 and 67 in an email I received last week:

We are winning because Oregonians care about education, health care and public safety.  They care about investing in our future; they care about protecting the vulnerable. And indeed, if more people knew the simple fact that 90% of the state general fund budget goes to education, health care and public safety, we’d be even further ahead. (So please – keep sharing that fact with them.)  

We are winning because Oregonians think that it’s reasonable to ask households making more than $250,000 a year to pay 1.8% of the amount they make above $250,000 to protect those services. That makes a whole lot more sense to voters than cutting basic services or raising taxes on struggling families.

We are winning because Oregonians think that it doesn’t make much sense for most Oregon corporations – including over 100 corporations (most of them headquartered out of state) that do over $100 million a year in business in Oregon – to continue paying just $10 in the corporate minimum tax.

This message is both populist and popular. Voters understand instinctively that in tough times, the wealthy should pay more in order to continue the public services that are even more necessary in a severe recession. The notions that the anti-taxers are peddling, that the taxes will hurt jobs, or that “waste, fraud, and abuse” can be found and cut instead, aren’t being taken seriously or credibly by Oregon’s electorate.

The Oregon netroots are getting involved as well, with Kari Chisholm and Carla Axtman at Blue Oregon leading the charge against the right-wing’s misstatements. It’s an impressive effort that, hopefully, will win the day when the ballots are counted on January 26.

So what does this all mean for California? It should be obvious. Using progressive taxation to solve a budget deficit is really popular. If Measures 66 and 67 pass later this month, it would be a huge blow to the notion that way too many California Democrats hold, that the state’s voters won’t increase taxes even on the wealthy and large corporations to save their services.

It may be too much to expect Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has consistently bowed to the wishes of California’s wealthy and the California Chamber of Commerce, to ever be willing to do what Governor Kulongoski did in Oregon and help close our budget gap by embracing progressive taxation.

But it’s not too much at all to expect Democratic legislators – and candidates for statewide office – to embrace it. Maybe Speaker-elect Pérez can take the caucus on a field trip to Portland later this month?

Carla Marinucci caught up with the once and future governor Jerry Brown after Arnold Schwarzenegger’s State of the State address to get his take on the budget solutions. What she found is a man who is still trapped in a 1978 mentality, and who has not yet grasped the present day political realities that will shape his third term, should he win it in November:

On how he would close the current budget gap as governor: “What is most important is that people act as Californians.. not as members of the two parties….we have a state that has tremendous riches. I love the way that Arnold is so optimistic. But now, he’s got to knock heads together.”

In other words, Brown has no plan for the budget deficit. If he thinks Republican legislators will put aside their partisanship he’s going to get an even ruder awakening on that subject than Barack Obama did in 2009 – and he’ll have even less excuse than Obama does, since Republican budget obstruction is as clear as day to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to Sacramento. California Republicans are one of the most ideologically right-wing Republican legislative caucuses in the nation, have been for some time, and will be for the foreseeable future. If Brown really thinks he can get them to come together on any budget solution that isn’t a completely wingnut solution, he’s out of his mind.

On his own experience as governor during the last taxpayer revolt: “There’s a big difference. The last crisis, we had a $6 million surplus. Now the trouble is, we’ve been spending it. And now, we have the same crisis, but we have no surplus….there is no easy answer. The main point is, don’t hide the ball. Level with the people and tell them, “This where we are. We didn’t get here overnight, and we’re not going to get out of it (overnight).”

One of the problems here is Marinucci’s framing of 1978 as the “last” taxpayer revolt, assuming there’s going to be another one.

If so, I’m not seeing it. A funny thing happened in 2009 – California raised taxes, and hardly anyone noticed. Teabagger efforts to recall GOP legislators who voted for the tax increases were embarrassing failures. The public hasn’t reacted with great vengeance or furious anger, there was NO taxpayer revolt in 2009 and none seems to be brewing in 2010. Voters didn’t approve the extension of those taxes at the May 19 special election, but that was largely because they were tied to a spending cap.

Brown’s answer to Marinucci’s question was basically babble, so let’s see what he had to say on taxes in particular:

On increasing taxes: “I would never approve of a tax increase unless the voters themselves called for it and voted on it.”

As I explained above, this is totally unnecessary, since there was no voter revolt against the February 2009 tax increases. Polling from 2009 shows that there IS majority support for some tax increases, so Brown has no political need to punt to the voters.

The only reason he would do so is that he is still living in 1978, and not in 2010. Here in 2010 it’s clear that Sacramento can raise taxes and “get away with it” especially when the taxes help fund vital and popular services. There’s no inherent taxpayer revolt waiting to gobble up a governor who raises taxes, since voters are in a very different place in 2010 than they were in 1978.

In 1978, voters believed they could maintain the prosperity they had AND the services they liked AND cut their taxes. This was a foolish belief that has been proved catastrophically wrong. And while that belief still has its adherents 32 years later, a majority of Californians has rejected it, realizing that things like quality and affordable education, job creation, and guaranteed health care are more important than keeping taxes as low as possible.

Jerry Brown as governor would have an opportunity to lead the state in that direction – to end the 1978 mentality and create a progressive 21st century vision for California. And perhaps that’s his plan, given the way he phrased his comments on taxes. But he’s not going to get there by being coy about it. Brown needs to move beyond 1978 if he’s going to win and have a successful third term.

Note: I’m the Public Policy Director at the Courage Campaign

Later this month the long-awaited trial of Proposition 8 will commence in a federal courtroom in San Francisco. Judge Vaughn Walker will preside over the case brought by a legal dream team of Ted Olson (former Solicitor General under President Bush) and David Boies (who represented Al Gore in the Bush v. Gore case in 2000). Olson and Boies argue – correctly, in my view – that Proposition 8 is a straightforward violation of the 14th Amendment and should be struck down.

People across California and across the country are eagerly awaiting the trial, and fully expect to be able to follow it on television. But Judge Walker may close the courtroom to cameras, following on an outrageous demand from Prop 8 supporters.

One of the fundamental legal principles this country was built on is the openness and transparency of the judiciary. For the system to work, people must believe the process is fair, the outcomes just. And for that to occur, the public needs to be able to see what is going on in the courtroom.

On a case this important, the public’s right to know should be protected and upheld in the broadest possible form. That means televising the proceedings. Since this isn’t a criminal trial, there’s no defendant who could be harmed by having this made public, no jury that could be swayed by the cameras. Since only a tiny handful of people will ever be able to be in the courtroom itself, that would seem like an open and shut case for allowing cameras in the courtroom. Right?

Well, not if you’re the forces who put Prop 8 on the ballot and helped it pass. They are afraid of public scrutiny. Afraid of the camera. Afraid to let the people of this country hear the bigoted truth behind their defense of Proposition 8.

They have decided to organize the far-right to pressure Judge Walker to close the courtroom to cameras. Focus on the Family is circulating a petition to prevent the trial from being televised, and have generated tens of thousands of signatures.

Judge Walker was planning to allow cameras in, but as a result of the Prop 8 supporters’ protestations, has agreed to hold a hearing on the matter next week. He is asking for public comments by this Friday. So you have a chance to determine the outcome – will Prop 8 supporters be able to hide their true arguments, or will the public interest and democratic transparency win out?

The Courage Campaign Institute, where I work as Public Policy Director, isn’t going to wait to find out. We’re going to organize to deliver petitions of our own to Judge Walker, as he has solicited, in order to uphold the public interest and demand that this trial be televised.

You can sign your name here – along with CREDO Mobile, we will hand deliver the signatures to the court in San Francisco on Friday. Your signature matters – the more signatures we deliver to the court, the more likely it is that he will do the right thing in the name of equality, accountability, and transparency.

More below.

Here’s the letter I wrote that the Courage Campaign Institute and CREDO are using for our petition:

To the Honorable Judge Vaughn Walker:

We are writing to insist that the trial of Proposition 8 be televised to the public. In any democracy, openness and transparency are necessary to the proper functioning of our courts. Americans have the right to know what is being said and argued in their courts, and allowing cameras in the courtroom to broadcast the trial is the best, most efficient way to provide the transparency to which we are entitled.

This case presents issues that are very important to the public, and will affect millions of people. However, only a tiny fraction will ever be able to watch the trial in person. By televising the trial, the public will be able to see for themselves the arguments and evidence presented by both sides, and will therefore have more confidence in the outcome of the trial.

Justice is blind, but the public is not, and should not be blind in this case. We urge you to uphold the public’s right to view this important trial on television.

Please sign it by clicking here. The right-wing, led by James Dobson and Focus on the Family, are already organizing their members to write to the court. Are you going to let them beat us?

This whole episode raises the question of what the Prop 8 supporters have to hide. They haven’t been shy about their vocal support for denying equality in the past. Few have faced intimidation and harassment for it.

It’s more likely that their true motivation is to prevent the American people from hearing the powerful and compelling case that Boies and Olson are going to make in that courtroom. Both lawyers are expert litigants, and are pursuing a sensible Supreme Court strategy designed to swing Anthony Kennedy to join Stevens, Ginsberg, Breyer and Sotomayor to uphold the 14th Amendment and overturn Prop 8. Kennedy has made rulings favorable to LGBT rights in the past, including Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 which decriminalized sodomy.

Dobson, Prentice and the backers of Prop 8 want to hide that compelling argument from the public. They also want to hide their own anti-equality arguments from public view. In March 2009 they had Kenneth Starr argue in the California Supreme Court that voters can pass whatever they like at the ballot box, a view I label the Starr Doctrine. Such a radical idea won the day in the California Supreme Court, disappointingly enough. But in federal court, the Prop 8 backers seem to want to hide that argument from the American people.

Ironically, that trial in California Supreme Court last March WAS televised. And nobody was intimidated or harassed because of it – well, except for those who lost the right to marry the person they love when the court upheld Prop 8.

The anti-equality folks’ argument is:

Following a short public-comment period – only five business days – the battle could bring a circus-like atmosphere. Chief Judge Vaughn Walker is considering allowing video cameras in the courtroom.

Ron Prentice, executive director of Protectmarriage.com, is concerned Walker’s decision could cause problems for proponents of Prop. 8 who have already come under attack.

“Intimidation and harassment will continue,” Prentice said. “And, those who are put on the stand or are seen in the courtroom may very well be recognized and further intimidation or harassment may continue.”

Not only is this ridiculous on its face – the people who have faced genuine “intimidation and harassment” as a result of Prop 8 are the LGBT couples who lost their rights when it passed – but it is a pretty weak reason to deny the public their right to know what is going on in that courtroom. If the Prop 8 supporters want to defend the law, they should have no hesitation to do so in a public manner, on television.

There is simply no reasonable justification for keeping cameras out of the courtroom. Thankfully, Judge Walker wants to hear your thoughts on the matter. Take him up on his offer by signing our petition right now. Thanks!

The SF Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli has a very good article today examining the public support for marijuana legalization. Although the subheading reads “Bid to legalize pot is counter to U.S. trend” the article itself shows the trend favors legalization, partly because suburbanites have come around:

The suburban “soccer moms” who are likely voters have told pollsters that the measure, which would give local governments the authority to tax and regulate the sale of cannabis to adults 21 or older, would provide a safer way for their adult children to buy pot.

“One of the scary things to some people is that their kids may be buying it from someone dangerous,” said Ruth Bernstein, a pollster with EMC Research, an Oakland firm that has been doing polling and focus groups on behalf of the measure’s proponents.

This jibes with the current on-the-ground reality in California, where the battles over the present quasi-legal status of marijuana are largely taking place in suburbs and smaller towns. Here on the Monterey Peninsula there’s a debate over whether to authorize operation of “clubs” that are permitted by the state to sell marijuana to patients with a prescription. And Richard Lee’s initiative to legalize pot includes a local option that will let local governments refuse to expand the sale and use of pot beyond the state minimums that the initiative would create.

The shift of suburbanites would seem to indicate the trend favors legalization. So too does the timeline the article offered:

Legalization (with some regulation)

1986: Oregon, 24 percent. Defeated.

2000: Alaska, 41 percent. Defeated.

2002: Nevada, 39 percent. Defeated.

2004: Alaska, 44 percent. Defeated.

2006: Nevada, 44 percent. Defeated.

Removal of all penalties (without taxation, regulation)

1972: California, 34 percent. Defeated.

2006: Colorado, 41 percent. Defeated.

Decriminalization

2008: Massachusetts, 65 percent. Approved.

Those numbers certainly look like a trend to me.

The final item from the article that would seem to give credence to the notion that the trend favors legalization is the opposition’s intellectually bankrupt arguments:

“The legalizers have yet to explain what the social betterment is by legalizing another mind-altering substance,” said John Lovell, a lobbyist for law enforcement agencies, including the California Peace Officers’ Association, that are opposed to legalization. “They’re smoking something if they think soccer moms are going to go their way.”

In fact, the legalizers have a battery of effective arguments, from the benefit to the state budget, the reduction of the prison population, and the legalization of a practice that is extremely widespread throughout this state. Pot has become a mainstream drug, used by a wide variety of people, and is largely socially accepted in this state, including in the suburbs. The local option in the initiative means that those suburbs that don’t want to become a new “Oaksterdam” don’t have to, but their residents who prefer to smoke in the privacy of their homes will have greater legal protection, and their stressed and stretched police departments won’t have to waste time on the issue.

You’d assume that the lobbyist for the CPOA would understand the need to let the police focus on other crimes, especially when police budgets are facing cuts. Instead the people of California are going to have to make the sensible decision on their own this November.

It’s been rumored for a few days now, but today it’s been confirmed: Richard Pombo, the far-right member of Congress beaten by Jerry McNerney in a memorable 2006 contest, is running to replace George Radanovich in CA-19:

Pombo confirmed his upcoming candidacy to McClatchy Newspapers, saying he looks forward to getting back into politics. He previously represented the 11th Congressional District, which includes Tracy and much of San Joaquin County.

“I do miss the policy issues,” he said. “A lot of the things that I worked on while I was there are very similar.”…

His home in the Tracy area isn’t in the new district he wants to serve. But Pombo said the boundary is just a few miles from his property and the issues are the same. Water is a defining issue for both districts, he said.

“It’s all California water issues,” he said. “They are very complicated, but it’s all the same issues I’ve dealt with for years.”

In other words, Pombo is going to revive his anti-Endangered Species Act shtick in order to try and win votes on the east side of the Valley – a place that actually hasn’t had the same kind of water issues as the Westside has. Still, the framing of the water wars is one of farmers vs. hippies, so Pombo thinks he can still get some mileage out of this in the Sierra foothills.

Of course, Pombo isn’t going to have it so easy. The same progressive and netroots forces that beat him in ’06 are already starting to put the band back together. Talking Points Memo offers a comprehensive list of his ethical challenges, while Matt Ortega, a veteran of the ’06 netroots mobilization against Pombo, is tweeting #dickpombofacts from his account, @MattOrtega, including these gems:

Richard Pombo’s 2006 campaign kickoff turned out ZERO people. NONE #dickpombofacts http://bit.ly/6SNvlq

Richard Pombo once tried selling 15 national parks: http://bit.ly/8GMsIP #dickpombofacts

Richard Pombo lied about contacts with Jack Abramoff, said he was never lobbied: http://bit.ly/8YtZaT #dickpombofacts

George Bush, Dick Cheney and John Boehner all campaigned for Pombo in 2006, and he still lost by almost 6 points #dickpombofacts

And as for the presumed GOP advantage in CA-19, Matt Ortega had this to say about what happened in CA-11 in 2006:

CA-11 went from safe GOP to lean Dem takeover in about six or seven months #dickpombofacts

Pombo still has to contend with Jeff Denham, who so far has shown no sign of wanting to jump out of yet another primary to make way for another candidate – at some point you might think Denham would tire of being the California GOP’s sloppy seconds – but the bigger point is that Pombo has already once motivated progressives and netroots to destroy his career. He probably thinks they can’t do it again in 2010. If so, he’s being as reckless now as he was four years ago.

Fellow Orange County native Ezra Klein picks up on a point we’ve been making a lot here at Calitics over the last few years:

Polarization isn’t a new story, nor were California’s budget problems and constitutional handicap. Yet the state let its political dysfunctions go unaddressed. Most assumed that the legislature’s bickering would be cast aside in the face of an emergency. But the intransigence of California’s legislators has not softened despite the spiraling unemployment, massive deficits and absence of buoyant growth on the horizon. Quite the opposite, in fact. The minority party spied opportunity in fiscal collapse. If the majority failed to govern the state, then the voters would turn on them, or so the theory went.

That raises a troubling question: What happens when one of the two major parties does not see a political upside in solving problems and has the power to keep those problems from being solved?…

The lesson of California is that a political system too dysfunctional to avert crisis is also too dysfunctional to respond to it. The difficulty is not economic so much as it is political; solving our fiscal problem is a mixture of easy arithmetic and hard choices, but until we solve our political problem, both are out of reach. And we can’t assume that an emergency, or the prospect of one, will solve the political problem for us. If you want to see how that movie ends, just look west, as we have so many times before.

Ezra’s column shows how the looming dysfunction in the Senate, where the Republicans are preparing to block all solutions to our problems that are not deeply ideologically conservative, is a tactic perfected here in California. I wish he had pointed out that “polarization” is a natural outcome of a 50-year political process that has seen public opinion evolve to a point where there is clearer distinction between the two parties, and that this is not necessarily a bad thing. Personally I welcome polarization, voters deserve a genuine choice, especially when the “bipartisanship” people yearn for was itself a very temporary phenomenon of the 1950s, a product of an economic boom the likes of which we’d never seen before and will never see again.

Although Ezra doesn’t offer clear solutions here, he is pointing out that both California and the US Congress have the same problem: rules that empower a minority are a rule for catastrophe in a polarized politics. By implication, you basically have two options: eliminate those rules, or eliminate the polarized politics.

Again, since “polarization” is the product of very deep and fundamental historical forces, ending it is going to be rather difficult anytime soon, and may not be desirable anyway, since a less polarized politics generally means more corporate politics, cramming down working people in the name of bipartisan comity so that the rich can get richer. Calitics and most California progressives have frequently embraced a restoration of majority rule – let the majority make policy and let the chips fall where they may.

Predictably, large corporations don’t like that option, and still believe they can and should produce more corporate-friendly politics. So instead of supporting a restoration of majority rule, they’re going to try to manipulate the process to reduce the polarization that voters repeatedly embrace.

That’s the takeaway from an extremely revealing profile of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group in today’s New York Times. The article is one of Dan Weintraub’s first pieces since moving to the NYT from the Sacramento Bee, and it’s quite good, showing how the SVLG thinks about “reform”:

With nearly 300 companies on its roster, from Accenture to Yahoo, the group stands out as a small island of ideological diversity in a sea of partisan polarization….

One is a June measure that would create open primaries in California elections. If the proposal passes, voters would be able to choose among all candidates in the primaries without regard to party affiliation. The top two finishers would advance to a run-off election.

“The open primary,” [Carl] Guardino [head of SVLG] said, would help “free well-meaning legislators from the grips of the party caucuses.” The result might be a Legislature that looks a little more like Silicon Valley and less like Orange County or Marin County.

That last line is probably Weintraub’s spin, but it is telling. Guardino and the SVLG haven’t noticed that Californians have self-selected themselves into communities of shared political philosophies over the last 30 to 40 years. If they have noticed, they think it’s somehow a bad thing that voters in San Francisco or Mission Viejo have decided they share some deeply held values and prefer their representatives reflect that. I call that a genuine example of “representative democracy.” What does Guardino call it?

Apparently he calls it something crying out for technocratic manipulation. Since it’s not possible to draw districts in California that are competitive without truly massive gerrymandering and diluting the preferences of the electorate, which is much more strongly Democratic than anything else, Guardino and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group are throwing their weight behind Abel Maldonado’s top two primary, which he got on the June ballot only through an act of blackmail.

The top two would do two things that Guardino wants. First, it would push primary battles out into the general election in most CA districts, which will always be drawn to favor one party or the other, since that’s how Californians have chosen to self-associate. The SVLG’s members can then play a bigger role in determining the outcomes of those races, where money will play a bigger role. They can also use a few of those races to distract progressive activists while the big boys focus on even bigger races, such as California governor.

Second, it would give a boost to conservative Democrats in some key districts by enabling Republicans and other right-wingers to choose the outcomes of a Democratic primary. Let’s take AD-27, my assembly district, which includes the  very progressive electorate of Monterey and Santa Cruz. If SVLG decided to fund a “centrist” Democrat, they’d probably garner enough votes to make it to the general election against a more progressive Democrat. That would give them the ability to combine some conservative and Republican votes to try and sneak the centrist in, combined with spending to sell the centrist to a more progressive electorate as the only winnable candidate. It might not work in every district, surely many progressive voters would see through the ruse, but in districts where the Democratic electorate isn’t as strongly progressive, the strategy could swing some seats to corporate-friendly right-wing Dems. Which is exactly the opposite of what we want as progressive Californians.

This is what you get when large California corporations see the natural outcome of the right-wing policies they’ve endorsed and funded for decades: they don’t like the “polarized” politics, don’t like the collapsing infrastructure and inability of government to fund a competitive job climate. But since they also can’t accept that they’d have to give up a measure of their own power and some of their money in order to have more stable economic growth – after all, these are fundamentally greedy people – they won’t admit their earlier error and try to destroy the right-wing’s power by restoring majority rule.

Instead they’ll try and one more time revive the “bipartisan centrism” that had worked so well at growing their power and wealth in the late 20th century. And they’re willing to massively manipulate the state’s political system in order to do it.

Eventually they will learn the same lesson every other corporation learns: when you help build a right-wing political movement, you are creating a Frankenstein monster that you will be unable to control and that will cause so much damage and chaos that you’ll lose more than you’ve gained. But since corporate neoliberal centrist politics and Doctor Frankenstein share something fundamental – an unending belief in their own god complex – they’re going to keep on trying it until its failure is beyond doubt, and until the populist masses take up pitchforks and torches and clean house.