Jerry Brown’s proposal to take property tax revenues from the redevelopment agencies and give it to schools and local governments is generating a lot of controversy – and a lot of discussion. One of the more enlightening articles about it is Monday’s column by Dan Walters, giving a quick history of redevelopment agencies and their use of property tax funds:

Redevelopment dates back to the 1950s, empowering local governments to attack urban blight by acquiring land and repackaging it for development with subsidies. A key part of the program allows redevelopment agencies to retain all of the increased property taxes in project areas.

That provision began to bite after Proposition 13 passed in 1978, imposing a cap on property taxes.

City redevelopment agencies could skim their take off the top of the property tax pool, and eventually that reached 12 percent of all property taxes, leaving less for counties, schools and other local governments.

A decade later, voters passed Proposition 98, which requires the state to make up property tax losses to schools. State taxpayers thus are paying nearly $2 billion a year to underwrite local projects.

In short, Brown recognizes that we have to choose where these property taxes go, and that schools have the stronger case for those funds than redevelopment agencies. It’s difficult to argue with that logic, especially given the cuts K-12 schools have faced since 2009.

And yet the loss of funds to redevelopment agencies is a much bigger blow than Walters is willing to admit. While building a new Chargers stadium in San Diego is surely not the best use of redevelopment funds, the overall concept of using tax revenue to reshape urban space to help enable cities to meet new desires for using that land is still sound.

That’s especially true during a severe recession like this. Redevelopment funds could be used to spur more sustainable developments, particularly urban density and transit-oriented developments. California is moving away from low-density sprawl and toward mixed-use urban developments. Redevelopment can help accelerate this process, providing the basic infrastructure needed to spur the greater density that the market is starting to demand.

California shouldn’t have to choose between schools and redevelopment, just as we shouldn’t have to choose between schools and parks, health care and buses, and so on. The wealthy and the big corporations are sitting on a huge pile of cash that would be better used to fund these public services.

In this case, there might be additional options. Walters believes Brown is pushing local governments to fund redevelopment projects themselves. Well, let’s make it easier to do so. In addition to the badly-needed majority rule for approving tax increases, Brown could also champion methods to assess higher property taxes  – or assess other kinds of fees – on the projects built with redevelopment funds. One model could be the Mello-Roos fees levied mostly on new suburban developments to pay for schools, a fee enacted in the early 1980s partly in response to the passage of Prop 13. Mello-Roos fees can be assessed in urban areas as well, although this is rarer, but they typically pay for public services and not redevelopment directly. Still, the concept could be extended to redevelopment projects as well.

Whatever the solution, Governor Brown should not be content to simply take the redevelopment money, give it to schools, and hope that localities find a way to fund their own redevelopment projects. The underlying structure of paying for government is broken. Brown had once before avoided that deeper question, 30 years ago when he centralized funding of schools and local government in Sacramento. That “solution” never really worked, as three successive asset bubbles made state revenues look like they’d recovered, but the busts revealed the basic weakness.

I can understand Governor Brown wanting to assure schools are funded this year, and I can justify taking redevelopment money to do it. But there needs to be a long-term fix as well – not just for redevelopment, but for our broken system of funding our public services. Otherwise this won’t be any more desirable than the post-1978 system Brown helped build, the same system he is now pledging to undo.

Governor Jerry Brown released his budget plan yesterday. It’s no surprise that Brown is mixing cuts and revenues, but the overall thing has an air of disappointment to it, particularly the fact that he proposes to extend the February 2009 taxes and not seek more fundamental reforms, such as restoring the Wilson-era upper income tax brackets or seeking an oil severance tax.

Brown also is proposing some ugly cuts, and is suggesting these may be permanent. The social services cuts resemble those that Arnold Schwarzenegger frequently proposed, although Brown is thankfully not suggesting anything like eliminating CalWORKS, as Arnold did. The proposed cuts drew concern from Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project:

However, the Governor also proposes deep cuts that will weaken the public structures that many Californians rely on, including CalWORKs, the state’s highly successful welfare-to-work program; state- assisted child care for families struggling to make ends meet; Medi-Cal, a state-federal health insurance program; and the Healthy Families Program, which helps families purchase affordable health coverage for their children.

Protecting our core public systems and structures is essential for securing a prosperous future and paving the way for an economic recovery. Lawmakers and voters should examine the Governor’s proposals in the context of what they mean not just for the next 12 months, but also five, 10, and 20 years in the future.

Ross did praise Brown for adopting a “balanced” approach to the budget, seeing new revenues as a core element of the solution instead of as a small and grudging concession, as did Arnold Schwarzenegger, fueled as he was by an ideologically anti-tax attitude. But the proposed cuts will have lasting negative consequences that will be devastating to the safety net, and therefore, to the ability to produce lasting and sustainable economic recovery.

It’s regrettable, but not surprising, that Brown still sees value in austerity, even if it’s to be balanced out by some new revenues. The Brown Administration projects a possible $3 billion surplus by 2013-14 if the revenue increases are approved, and while that might be a pathway to restoring some of the cuts, he’s much more likely to want to hoard it (which would be as stupid an idea as it was in the late ’70s) or to use it to pay down debt.

The shift of money and responsibility to counties will be very, very interesting and has to be watched closely to ensure this doesn’t become a license to red counties to misuse the money and screw people who need services. And the fight over the redevelopment agencies will be a massive battle, as they have well-funded allies who won’t go down quietly.

Still, it seems worth mounting a fight for the new revenues anyway, especially if they are presented to voters in a “clean” form, not weighed down by right-wing trojan horses as was Prop 1A in May 2009.

Governor Brown’s political instincts have never been radical. He has always believed in taking the electorate as it was (or at least as he thought it was), instead of trying to move voters toward a new political understanding. In that way he shares a lot with President Obama, who also counsels Democrats to accept a supposed reality of a center-right electorate and to be content with incremental gains.

There’s no doubt that much in Brown’s budget has the potential to dramatically reshape California government, and to help provide some stability to public services. At the same time, Brown has again shown his cautious and conservative (in the sense of being unwilling to rock the boat) instincts with this budget. In the end, I have to agree with those who have called Brown’s budget a missed opportunity. It’s better than what we’d have gotten with Meg Whitman, of course, but it shows progressives that they still have work to do in order to reshape the discussion of programs and revenues in Sacramento, even as we work to get voter approval for the spring initiatives.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today issued a “ruling” of sorts on the appeal of Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling that found Prop 8 to be unconstitutional*. The “ruling” was actually a certification of a question to the California Supreme Court about the all-important matter of whether Prop 8 proponents have standing to appeal Judge Walker’s decision:

Whether under Article II, Section 8 of the California Constitution, or otherwise under California law, the official proponents of an initiative measure possess either a particularized interest in the initiative’s validity or the authority to assert the State’s interest in the initiative’s validity, which would enable them to defend the constitutionality of the initiative upon its adoption or appeal a judgment invalidating the initiative, when the public officials charged with that duty refuse to do so.

We understand that the Court may reformulate our question, and we agree to accept and follow the Court’s decision.

A further reading of the document issued minutes ago by the 9th Circuit indicates that the court is ready to rule that Prop 8 proponents DO have standing to appeal. In turn, that would enable the 9th Circuit to decide whether Prop 8 is a violation of the 14th Amendment (and obviously it is), a decision that would have major ramifications across California and the country. Here’s what the 9th Circuit said:

If California does grant the official proponents of an initiative the authority to represent the State’s interest in defending a voter-approved initiative when public officials have declined to do so or to appeal a judgment invalidating the initiative, then Proponents would also have standing to appeal on behalf of the State….

We are aware that in California, “All political power is inherent in the people,” Cal. Const. art. II, § 1, and that to that end, Article II, section 8(a) of the California Constitution provides, “The initiative is the power of the electors to propose statutes and amendments to the Constitution and to adopt or reject them.” We are also aware that the Supreme Court of California has described the initiative power as “one of the most precious rights of our democratic process,” and indeed, that “the sovereign people’s initiative power” is considered to be a “fundamental right.”…

The power of the citizen initiative has, since its inception, enjoyed a highly protected status in California. For example, the Legislature may not amend or repeal an initiative statute unless the People have approved of its doing so….

Similarly, under California law, the proponents of an initiative may possess a particularized interest in defending the constitutionality of their initiative upon its enactment; the Constitution’s purpose in reserving the initiative power to the People would appear to be ill-served by allowing elected officials to nullify either proponents’ efforts to “propose statutes and amendments to the Constitution” or the People’s right “to adopt or reject” such propositions. Cal. Const. art. II, § 8(a). Rather than rely on our own understanding of this balance of power under the California Constitution, however, we certify the question so that the Court may provide an authoritative answer as to the rights, interests, and authority under California law of the official proponents of an initiative measure to defend its validity upon its enactment in the case of a challenge to its constitutionality, where the state officials charged with that duty refuse to execute it.

So what does that all mean? Let me boil it down. Basically, California’s constitution and various CA Supreme Court decisions in the last few decades have indicated that the initiative power is a right inherent to the people of the state, and does not stem from the Legislature. It sets up the people as a kind of fourth branch of government. And therefore, if the Governor and the Attorney General refuse to defend a proposition in court, that could essentially nullify the fundamental rights of the voters. Since ballot initiatives stem from the people, presumably the people – in the form of the initiative proponents – DO have standing to defend Prop 8 in court and to appeal it to the 9th Circuit in order to preserve the people’s initiative power.

But because such a ruling would have a significant impact on future legal battles over California ballot initiatives, the 9th Circuit is deferring to the CA Supremes. The CA Supremes could say “yes, the proponents do have standing” or “no, they proponents do not have standing,” or they could simply not respond at all. The first and third options are more likely, and based on the CA Supremes’ longstanding (and I believe flawed) unwillingness to interfere with ballot initiatives, the CA Supremes will probably conclude that the Prop 8 proponents do indeed have standing to appeal.

In which case, the 9th Circuit would then rule on the issue of Prop 8’s constitutionality. I am guessing that their ruling will be to uphold Judge Walker, otherwise they would just say Prop 8 is constitutional and moot the question of standing.

The 9th Circuit also concurrently ruled that Imperial County does not have standing to appeal Judge Walker’s decision, a ruling that was widely expected in the wake of the farcicial appearance before the 9th Circuit court of Imperial County officials.

The CA Supremes can take as long as they want in answering the 9th Circuit. It could be days, weeks, or months. Whatever the outcome, it shows again the need to reform our initiative process. One reason our state government fails is that we’ve essentially set up a fourth branch of government – the people – that can negate anything done by the other three branches, but without any real checks or balances on the powers of that fourth branch.

In American constitutions, at least until the present day, the power of the people has been limited and bounded to ensure that all rights are protected. The right clearly wants to undo that convention, and give the people the power to trump the Constitution by mob rule. Whatever the outcome of the Prop 8 case, it’s time to bring some sense and sanity to ballot initiatives here in California.

*Somehow I doubt that the 14th Amendment will be read out on the House floor this week by Republicans, who hate the 14th Amendment and want to pretend it doesn’t exist.

As Jerry Brown finishes the first 24 hours of his third term as California governor, we’re learning more about his proposed budget solutions – specifically, the austerity he will use to try and shock voters into approving new revenues, and what those new revenues might be. The Sacramento Bee has more:

The broad set of budget cuts that Gov.-elect Jerry Brown will propose in the coming days would touch nearly all Californians, eliminating local redevelopment agencies, shrinking social service benefits, shuttering parks and reducing library hours, according to a source familiar with his budget proposal.

Brown, to be sworn in this morning, wants to slash virtually every state-funded program to help balance California’s massive deficit, in many cases resurrecting cuts sought by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger but rejected by lawmakers. Brown would restrict Medi-Cal access, divert low-level offenders to county jails and cut deeply into California State University and the University of California.

The Democrat is counting on lawmakers to approve the cuts to encourage voters to also provide revenue. A June ballot measure would extend higher tax rates on income, vehicles and sales set to expire this year, as well as eliminate a new corporate tax benefit. The money from the vehicle and sales tax extensions would be sent to local governments, which would take on some functions the state performs now.

The article goes on to note that Brown will try to get voters to approve moving funds from Prop 10 (the First 5 program, funded by cigarette taxes) and Prop 63 (the mental health surcharge on incomes over $1 million). You might remember that voters once before rejected raids on those funding sources, when Props 1D and 1E went down in flames in the May 2009 special election.

In many ways, Brown’s proposals resemble the May 2009 special election closely. His other revenue proposals would be extensions of those existing revenues, just as was proposed in Prop 1A. That initiative failed when progressives balked at the spending cap. Brown hopes that progressives will support these revenues in order to reverse the all-cuts budget, and that other Californians not on the right will support them out of a desire to protect schools, parks, libraries and other vital services.

Similarly, some of Brown’s other revenue proposals didn’t fare well at the ballot, such as Prop 24, which would have closed the 2008-09 corporate tax loopholes but was rejected by voters in November 2010. And voters didn’t seem too interested in saving state parks for a measly $18/year, which most voters could easily afford. Brown is obviously banking on Californians being sick of austerity and, finally seeing that there really are only two options – collapse or new revenues – that they will choose to save California.

To put it mildly, this strategy is pretty fucking risky. It may be the only way to get new revenues approved, but it is going to require a major mobilization of progressive activists to make the case for these revenues – especially to voters who consider themselves progressive but who have bought the right-wing talking points that they’re “taxed enough already” and that if they’re asked to pay another dime, they’ll vote no out of spite. We saw some comments to that effect the last time I discussed Brown’s shock doctrine. While the resentment at the way the rich have escaped their burdens is understandable, letting kids and the poor suffer isn’t a legitimate response. If these initiatives are clean – i.e. not compromised by some right-wing thing like a spending cap – then progressives should support them. Either we’re all in this together, or we’re not. And besides, if we want to convince voters to approve new taxes for the rich, we have to show that a statewide electorate will raise taxes at all.

The other interesting story here is Gov. Brown’s proposal to eliminate the redevelopment agencies. Getting rid of enterprise zones is a no-brainer; those things have been a costly failure. But the redevelopment agencies aren’t as clear-cut a case. Many such agencies are providing some of the most effective and forward-thinking urban planning in the state, much moreso than the relatively status quo-friendly planning departments of most cities. Further, many major urban projects are dependent on redevelopment dollars, such as a convention center expansion in San Diego.

On the other hand, one could make a pretty strong case that funding our schools is more important than enlarging the San Diego convention center so that Comic-Con doesn’t move to LA or Anaheim. And Gov. Brown may not need voter approval to abolish the redevelopment agencies and redirect their funding to schools.

Overall, this is a very risky move by Gov. Brown. I’m a bit surprised that he appears to be trying for tax increases and financial solutions that were rejected by voters in 2009 and 2010, and while Californians do need to be shown what will happen if those revenues aren’t approved, Brown would also do well to add some new kinds of tax solutions as well – particularly higher taxes on those making $200,000 or more. Either way, progressives are going to have quite a fight on our hands this year, and if we lose, California will be headed into the abyss for some time to come.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is packing up his office in the Capitol and finally, after 7 long years, leaving his post as governor of California. It comes not a moment too soon, as he has distinguished himself as the worst governor in California history by quite a wide margin. The Sacramento Bee’s readers agreed there was one word that encapsulated his misrule: failure.

George Skelton has recognized that the recall of Governor Gray Davis in the fall of 2003, which brought Schwarzenegger to office, was a colossal mistake. John Myers of KQED offered a more in-depth assessment of Arnold’s signature failure, his inability to fix the state’s budget mess. And he leaves office with approval ratings at record lows – at or below the numbers Gray Davis had when he was recalled.

But why exactly did Arnold fail? Getting that story right matters quite a lot as Governor Jerry Brown and the Democratic legislature seek to fix not just the 7 years of misrule, but 32 years of destructive policies that were initiated by the passage in June 1978 of Prop 13. More below.

Arnold’s defenders and apologists blame the state’s broken political process and its entrenched “special interests” for making it impossible for the former action movie star to “blow up the boxes” in Sacramento. There’s no doubt that California’s government is indeed broken, and many labor unions – often the target of the “special interest” charge – helped mobilize voters to reject Arnold’s proposals.

But this lets Arnold off the hook for his own failures, which were ideological in nature. Arnold Schwarzenegger became the worst governor in California history through his unwavering commitment to a far-right economic agenda, his fealty to the large corporations who helped elect him back in 2003, and his pursuit of a shock doctrine attack on the state’s institutions and prosperity in the service of his ideology and of his wealthy backers.

Early in his tenure in office, Arnold rejected advice from Warren Buffet and others that he needed to raise taxes in 2004 to close the state’s budget gap. Instead of this responsible – and necessary – solution, Arnold stuck to his ideological guns. He pushed through a costly campaign promise to repeal the restoration of a higher Vehicle License Fee, costing the state $6 billion a year in expenditures to local government to make up the lost funds.

Arnold’s “solution” to the structural revenue shortfall was to borrow our way out of the mess. A total of $25 billion in bonds were sold to help pay the operating costs of the state in 2004 and 2005. While deficit spending in a recession is sensible, California’s economy was in recovery during those years, and could have handled a tax increase. In fact, a tax increase, especially on property taxes, might have slowed the growth of the real estate bubble that eventually crippled the state’s economy. The debt service on those bonds takes away from other spending priorities, and lessens the state’s ability to borrow to build infrastructure.

After Arnold’s extremist special election initiatives were rejected by voters in 2005, he embarked on a high-profile effort to moderate his image and, for a time, his governance. The only product of this period worth noting was his belated support for AB 32, a bill that any Democratic governor would have signed in a heartbeat. Meanwhile Arnold ignored other concerns, such as a growing property bubble and the need to wean the state off of its dependence on oil. While Arnold was signing AB 32 in the late summer of 2006, he was threatening to eliminate the funding for the California High Speed Rail Authority, risking the HSR project.

This short period of moderation did not last. From 2007 onward, Arnold became a truly destructive force. As the economy turned south, he began implementing a shock doctrine attack on California’s basic prosperity. The term comes from Naomi Klein’s 2007 book The Shock Doctrine, she explains how the last 30 years of neoliberal economic policy, aimed at the transfer of wealth away from working people and toward a small elite, was implemented largely through the taking advantage of a crisis, a crisis usually manufactured by those same neoliberals. As she explained it to Democracy Now!:

The shock doctrine, like all doctrines, is a philosophy of power. It’s a philosophy about how to achieve your political and economic goals. And this is a philosophy that holds that the best way, the best time, to push through radical free-market ideas is in the aftermath of a major shock. Now, that shock could be an economic meltdown. It could be a natural disaster.

This describes Arnold Schwarzenegger’s approach to California government after mid-2007 quite well. Surrounded by Friedman acolytes such as David Crane, Arnold sought to use the recession and the budget crisis to push through a radical attack on government and prosperity that he would never have accomplished before the crisis – a crisis he himself provoked by his failure to resolve the underlying budget problems as described above.

What did Arnold’s shock doctrine attack look like? Let’s review the list:

• An unprecedented attack on education. Over $9 billion was cut from K-12 schools in 2009, leading to mass layoffs of teachers and a collapse in instructional quality. The intent appears to have been to force parents and students into the arms of private charter school operators, something that had been resisted prior to the crisis.

• Similarly, Arnold slashed higher education budgets as part of a predetermined plan to privatize higher ed. While the privatization isn’t complete, UC and CSU education has become increasingly unaffordable for most Californians. Along with the K-12 cuts, these cuts threaten the state’s future prosperity.

• Beyond education, Arnold pushed a broad privatization project, intended to encompass as much of state government as possible, including infrastructure projects – despite the higher cost of public/private partnerships.

• Arnold has pushed mass transit in California to the brink of collapse through his cuts to state transportation funding. Despite a massive increase in mass transit ridership after gas prices rose in 2007, Arnold has attacked mass transit in the service of his oil company donors, who want to eliminate the competition and force Californians to pay their exorbitant prices. Without affordable, available mass transit options, California cannot possibly hope to recover from a recession triggered when gas prices rose above $3/gal in 2006.

• Arnold’s attack on health and human services, from his cuts to Medi-Cal to his effort to eliminate CalWORKS and even his proposed cuts to HIV/AIDS services, has been designed with two purposes in mind: to increase poverty, and to push more people to spend their health care dollars in the private sector.

• Arnold frequently acted as a puppet of the right-wing, anti-business California Chamber of Commerce, implementing their job-killing agenda of favoring large corporations at the expense of small and medium-sized businesses of the state. Under Schwarzenegger, California lost millions more jobs than under Gray Davis. Unemployment rates in 2010 were nearly double those of the peaks seen during Gray Davis’s tenure as governor.

We could go on, and I encourage others to add in the comments the ways in which Arnold Schwarzenegger has destroyed the California Dream.

But the conclusion is clear and obvious. Arnold failed not because he couldn’t get his agenda through Sacramento – quite the opposite. He failed because so much of his right-wing shock doctrine did make it through Sacramento to become law.

I wish that Arnold had been defeated at every turn. Sadly, he wasn’t, and only in his final year in office did Sacramento Democrats learn that resisting him was necessary – and only then after the public had already turned on the governor.

Arnold’s failure is the failure of his right-wing ideology. No wonder California voters soundly rejected Meg Whitman last month, who promised to continue Arnold’s right-wing policies.

It’s unclear whether Jerry Brown can use his third term as governor to fix this mess. It will take a long time to recover from the catastrophic Schwarzenegger Administration. We might be able to begin the recovery in spring 2011 if voters approve new revenues to restore the cuts Arnold brutally pushed through. But even then it will just be the start of a long road of recovery.

Back in 2003, many joked about the Terminator becoming governor of California. Nobody is laughing now. Arnold Schwarzenegger terminated the California Dream, smashing prosperity and gutting the public services that made the middle-class possible. In an ideal world, he would be chased from office by pitchforks and torches, and would be forced to flee California entirely. Instead he slinks from office back to Brentwood to enjoy his riches along with his wealthy allies, untouched and apparently unmoved by the suffering they have wrought.

It’s up to us to fix what he destroyed. And it begins by ensuring everyone knows why Arnold failed, and why we must never allow his policies to become law again.

Calitics is coming to you today from Orange County, where I’m about to go visit my new niece, whose birth and health care were enabled by the wages and benefits provided to California’s public school teachers. All Californians should have the ability to start a family without worrying about how to pay for the costs of health care and child care for both the mother and child. While some attack teachers for being able to cling tenuously to middle-class status, we should instead celebrate it and fight to extend good wages and benefits to every worker in this state – rejecting the right-wing nonsense of “if everyone is poor, then we are all rich!”

Along those lines, your holiday present is Michael Hiltzik’s recent column in the LA Times about economic growth and job creation, and why we need to seize the opportunity provided to us in 2011 with a new governor to reframe this conversation.

We’ve already been doing this at Calitics for some time now, including in the most recent post below this one. But it is time for that conversation to be taken across the state. It is time for progressives to seize control of not just the discussion and the framing, but seize control of this state’s destiny.

By now we’re all familiar with the right-wing story of California: we overspend, risking bankruptcy; we overtax and over-regulate, driving jobs away to places like Texas.

That story is bullshit, lacking any basis in evidence whatsoever. If our political culture prized truth and accuracy it would have been dead and buried a long time ago. Unfortunately, as we all know, our political culture, fueled by a gullible media, is one where lies and myths flourish. And that’s why Treasurer Bill Lockyer and Steven Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy published an excellent op-ed in the LA Times earlier this week debunking three anti-California lies: that we’re on the risk of default, that we overspend, and that we drive jobs away with our taxes and our regulations:

Payment of debt service is constitutionally protected, with bond payments required even when the state is operating without a budget. Debt service has second call on general fund dollars, right behind education. Under the California Constitution, making sure bond investors get their money is a higher priority than providing healthcare to kids, protecting the environment and keeping our communities safe.

During the current fiscal year, general fund revenues are expected to total $89.4 billion. Education spending under Proposition 98 will total $36 billion. That leaves $53.4 billion available to pay debt service on bonds – more than eight times the $6.6 billion the state will need.

Personally I think we should look at changing this – why exactly should bondholders have such a priority over other important uses of our funds? But the rules are the rules, and there is no doubt at all that California faces no chance at all of default. Well, unless there’s a total economic collapse that drives revenues below $6.6 billion. Even if that happened, we’d have bigger problems to worry about.

That $6.6 billion figure should also be a spur to creation of a California state bank. Why should that money be going to Wall Street? Let’s plow it back into our services and our state.

Lockyer and Levy then turned to the “overspending” argument:

Our critics say we are addicted to spending. But the numbers show that isn’t true. Thirty years ago, general fund expenditures totaled about $7.43 for every $100 of personal income. In the 2009-10 fiscal year, that ratio was almost $2 less, at $5.52 for every $100 of personal income. In the current fiscal year, per capita general fund expenditures will total $2,246, less than the $2,289 spent 10 years ago and roughly equal to the inflation-adjusted level of 15 years ago.

Moreover, state and local government has grown slimmer relative to California’s population. In 2009, the state had 107 state employees per 10,000 residents, the fourth-lowest proportion in the nation and 25% below the national average. California also has the sixth-lowest combined number of state and local government employees relative to population, 12% below the national average and 16% below Texas.

The truth is that over the last few decades, especially starting with the 1991-92 budget cuts but even before then, we have seen a steady decline in public services and state spending in California. You’ll often hear Republicans whining about how California shows the flaws of liberal policies, but in fact we have had thoroughly conservative, even right-wing policies on taxes and spending since the passage of Prop 13 in 1978 – and they have totally failed us, bringing our economy and our public services to verge of collapse. Arnold Schwarzenegger was fond of this particular lie, as was Meg Whitman. Thankfully Arnold is almost out of power, and Whitman has been kept far from power.

Finally, they turn to the lies about California losing jobs to other states:

And what about the claim that we have a hostile business climate? Companies build new facilities, and move or close other facilities, all the time. If you compile anecdotes and look only at the folks who leave, it is easy to buy the “business is fleeing” mantra. But the Public Policy Institute of California reports that from 1992 to 2006, business relocations to other states accounted for just 1.7% of California’s job losses. Nationally, an average of about 2% of job loss in states was due to businesses moving out.

They go on to note that California’s loss of manufacturing jobs tracks those of other states, indicating that the problem is jobs are going overseas, not across state lines. Here again Californians have already rejected this lie, denying Carly Fiorina her bid for the US Senate in anger at her role in sending tens of thousands of California jobs overseas during her time as CEO of HP.

The facts are clear. California isn’t at risk of default. We don’t overspend. We don’t overtax, we don’t over-regulate, and we aren’t losing jobs to other states. If you’ve been reading Calitics for any length of time you’d have known that, since we’ve repeatedly made those points. But it is good that our state Treasurer knows it too, and took to the pages of the LA Times to tell the truth.

Hopefully the next time a Republican or right-winger repeats one of those claims, the media will report it for the outright lie that it is. I’m not holding my breath, though, so we’re going to have to spread that truth ourselves.

This morning the US Census Bureau released its official population count for the nation, the 50 states, and the reapportionment of seats in the US House. For the first time ever, California will not gain a seat in the House – our growth rate of 10% wasn’t nearly enough to keep up with states like Texas (+4), Florida (+2) or Nevada, Arizona and Washington (+1 each). That means California will still have 55 electoral votes in the 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections.

The overall US population is 308,745,538. California’s population is 37,253,956, still the most populous state by far – Texas is in second place at 25,145,561.

California needs to keep pace and hold off Texas in the coming years – single-payer health care, free child care, and greater urban density would all help us preserve our lead, which is important if we are to avoid Texas becoming dominant in the US House (although if Texas swung to the left, it would be more acceptable).

With a population of 308 million, that means a Congressional district now represents about 708,000 people. By contrast, after the 1790 Census a Congressional district represented about 34,000 people. Since 1913 the size of the House was capped at 435. It’s an absurd situation, and the House needs to be expanded so that each district represents around 100,000 people (though I’m willing to go even smaller than that). In that scenario, the House would have 3,080 members, of which 370 would come from California.

Sound far-fetched? A new lawsuit seeks to force the House to expand, claiming the current cap of 435 is a violation of the “one man, one vote” doctrine:

The U.S. Supreme Court could decide as soon as today if justices will hear a case on whether those disparities violate the principle of “one man, one vote.” Justices were scheduled to discuss the case behind closed doors Friday.

The lawsuit, Clemons v. U.S. Department of Commerce, seeks a court order to force Congress to add more members so that the sizes of congressional districts would be more equal.

Last July, in a decision that quoted liberally from the Founding Fathers, a special three-judge panel ruled against changing the current system. “We see no reason to believe that the Constitution as originally understood or long applied imposes the requirements of close equality among districts in different states,” it ruled.

Although the lawsuit is brought by two right-wing activists, it is something progressives should very strongly support. It would massively increase the number of progressives in Congress, both as an absolute number and as a proportion of the overall total. And it’s the right thing to do – huge Congressional districts distort power and, with the Electoral College capped at 538, it distorts the presidential vote as well.

Let’s hope this lawsuit succeeds. It would certainly make life much more interesting for the new redistricting commission!

Over a month and a half after Meg Whitman went down in flames, losing to Jerry Brown by 13 points, recriminations are still flying among California Republicans about the embarrassing loss. George Skelton’s column today uses an interview with Rob Stutzman, a Senior Advisor to Meg Whitman and a former communications director for Arnold Schwarzenegger, to point out that a big factor in Whitman’s defeat was her alienation of the Latino vote:

But the veteran Republican strategist is blaming the mini-landslide size of Whitman’s loss on some ugly dust-ups over illegal immigration that alienated Latinos from the GOP….

“Republicans need to understand that they live in suburbs with second-generation Mexican American neighbors whose parents came here and worked in agriculture and the service industries and are very proud” of their families’ success, Stutzman says.

“They sit around at cocktail parties and they listen on talk shows and hear their parents referred to as ‘illegals.’ And we wonder why these people don’t want to register as Republicans.”

It’s good that Stutzman recognizes this reality. Of course, if you’ve been reading Calitics, you’d have known months ago that Whitman’s attack on immigrants renders her unelectable.

Stutzman lamented to Skelton the influence of “talk shows” – i.e. John and Ken – on Republicans. But Stutzman could and should go further. The problem, as we’ve explained several times here at Calitics, is that the California Republican base hates Latinos, does not accept the fact that there are almost as many Latinos as whites in California, and sees any effort to treat Latinos as fully equal and desirable members of our state’s society as being some kind of sellout.

Because of this hatred of Latinos, it’s now impossible for a Republican to win the party nomination (which requires appeasing that hatred) as well as the general election (which requires winning Latino votes). Republican statewide candidates are therefore stuck between pleasing their base or winning Latino votes. Either way, they lose.

So Stutzman is absolutely right to point out the dilemma and explain to Republicans that their candidates cannot win until the anti-Latino sentiment is abandoned. But that’s not likely to happen anytime soon; the base clings to its hatreds with a tight grip. And instead of reacting to what Stutzman said, the right-wing base prefers to shoot the messenger, if Debra Saunders’ response is any indication:

Let’s start with the biggest factor in Whitman’s Titanic disaster of a campaign — the overpaid political class coronated her because of her money, even though they had no reason to believe that she would be a good candidate or a great governor….

I talked to Stutzman who told me it would be a misreading of his conversation with Skelton to conclude that he was blaming Whitman’s loss on the GOP’s Latino vote deficit. Fair enough. And I agree that the party can do a better job shunning activists who speak as if all immigrants should be presumed illegal — which oddly was the Democratic argument during the Diaz controversy.

That said, let’s start with the mistake that spawned all other mistakes. The GOP’s permanent political class went for the money.

Saunders isn’t being serious here. Whitman had everything she needed to be a formidable candidate. Democrats and progressives spent most of 2010 scared to death that she would roll right over Jerry Brown. But she didn’t. And her need to appease her anti-Latino base played a big role in it.

Saunders also deliberately understates the problem. It isn’t a matter of “shunning activists” – it’s a matter of the California Republican base as a whole sharing these anti-Latino beliefs. If that base were shunned, if the activists were shunned, then they’d just go to another Republican candidate who would satisfy their desire to hate on Latinos. It’s exactly the move Steve Poizner attempted this spring in the primary, which forced Whitman to play up her own anti-Latino sentiments.

So the problem is dire, and it’s one major reason why the California Republican Party is a dying political party, destined to be marginalized as California politics is being realigned as a battle between progressives and corporate elitists.

But Democrats should not yet assume the Latino vote is theirs. As with any voting bloc, Latinos expect to hold positions of power, expect their needs to be addressed, and expect that politicians they support will deliver on their promises. California Democrats in Congress backed the DREAM Act, and it was Senate Democrats from other states who sabotaged its passage. Still, it’s a reminder that California Democrats don’t have a lock on the Latino vote, and need to work hard to ensure that Latinos are empowered and enriched, as they deserve to be as full members of California society.