One of the most pernicious aspects of Arnold’s budget proposal, which despite some long overdue moves toward new revenue still relies on way too many cuts, is its impact on public schools. As I explained on New Year’s Day, Arnold’s budget proposal includes this devastating proposal:

The governor has proposed to ease the pain, in part, by accounting transfers involving state transportation funds and by deferring $2.8 billion in school payments from April to July. Wells said the state, by deferring payments for three months, would place an “awful” new burden on school districts to secure short-term loans.

At the time I predicted this would have an extremely negative impact on schools. And now we’re starting to see it, beginning in San Luis Obispo County:

Three San Luis Obispo County school districts may face funding shortfalls through 2011 if Gov. Arnold Schwarzen-egger’s latest round of budget cuts pass, a move the county’s top educator said will result in “extensive” layoffs of teachers and staff.

“I would say it’s one step short of an emergency,” county Superintendent of Schools Julian Crocker said Friday, noting the affected districts are Lucia Mar, Atascadero and Shandon.

Despite a double-dose of statewide funding reductions hitting schools at the beginning of the fiscal year and again in midyear cuts, the state requires that districts maintain a pool of reserve money. How much depends on how many students are enrolled.

What Arnold is doing is raiding school districts’ savings accounts. The delayed payment means they’ll have to dip into reserves. The ongoing funding cuts mean they will have a difficult time building the reserves back up. That will require laying off teachers and compromising educational quality. And in an NCLB environment that is a recipe for catastrophe, as schools will lose funding and Arnold can accomplish privatization through the back door.

The numbers:

The governor’s proposals would further reduce school funding countywide by a minimum of $14.2 million by the end of June 2010, Crocker said – resulting in a $48.5 million loss over the two years.

The countywide reduction represents a loss of approximately $34,000 per classroom, or about 15 percent of total district revenue.

Lucia Mar will lose an estimated additional $4.3 million, Atascadero will lose an additional $2 million and Shandon is projected to lose an additional $126,000 in ongoing revenue sources.

Shandon, a small town east of Paso Robles on Highway 46, is already proposing cutting bus service – imposing a huge burden on a rural population dependent on that service. And as most of SLO County districts are expecting to run into similar problems, soon educational quality is going to be impacted countywide – and statewide, as SLO County schools’ problems are almost certainly being experienced around the state.

It’s hard not to read this as a deliberate attack on public schools by a right-wing governor whose privatization crusade seems to extend now to our schools. IOUs and schools may just be what Californians need to wake up and start getting angry about this budget mess.

SLO County residents are especially well positioned to act. Their state legislators – Assemblymember Sam Blakeslee and Senator Abel Maldonado – are among the most important Republicans for us to target in getting to a 2/3rds vote on a sensible budget deal. SLO County parents ought to pay Blakeslee and Maldonado a visit and ask them why they’re willing to jeopardize their children’s future to fulfill a promise to Grover Norquist.

That someone is Peter Schrag in yesterday’s LA Times, calling the Yacht Party California’s Kamikazes – a party in terminal decline in the state but determined to take everyone else down with them:

In a state where whites have been just another minority for the better part of a decade, and where Latinos will in another generation be an absolute majority, it may not be surprising that that GOP narrowness leads to a gritty sense of besiegement and a kamikaze mentality that seems ready to take itself over the cliff, and the rest of the state with it….

But in the current crisis, the Democrats have in fact agreed to major cuts; the Republicans remain adamant on revenue. That resistance, as most people must know by now, is made possible by California’s nearly unique constitutional provision requiring a two-thirds majority in the Legislature to enact a budget or increase taxes. If five Republicans — two in the state Senate, three in the Assembly, both of which have Democratic majorities — broke ranks, there’d be no gridlock.

But that’s only part of the story. In a survey last year by the Public Policy Institute of California, 52% of the state’s Democrats identified themselves as liberals, 31% as “middle of the road” and 17% as conservative.

Republicans were far more rigidly conservative: 67% called themselves conservative, 21% called themselves middle of the road and 8% said they were liberal.

So Democrats are not quite as hard-line as the folklore suggests.

One wonders if the LA Times editorial board read Schrag’s column closely. Schrag is making many of the points we have been making here at Calitics, but he makes them especially effectively, and hopefully the rest of the state’s media will listen and stop lying to their readers that the problem in Sacramento is that legislators won’t negotiate – that instead the Yacht Party is determined to claw back some political relevance at the cost of the state’s viability.

The Republicans in California are the equivalent of a failed state. The party hasn’t been viable on a statewide basis since 1996. 2002 and 2003 saw some momentary gains but those faded, and the only Republican with meaningful statewide success – Arnold – has made distancing himself from his own party a key to his electoral victories. So they exploit the 2/3 rule to maintain a semblance of power and arrest their slide into irrelevance – the Libertarian Party with a few more votes and some actual seats.

Schrag recognizes that the only way this death cult’s death grip on the state will be ended is by eliminating the 2/3 rule:

The fastest way to restore responsibility all around is to rejoin the rest of the democratic world and bring back straight majority votes to enact budgets and raise taxes. That would break up the GOP cult, make both parties more responsible to the voters as a whole, force them to make the tough choices and take the heat for the consequences, and — most important — get on with the business of governing.

This is an eminently sensible conclusion. It’s a shame it’s taken weeks, if not months, for the LA Times op-ed page to start making sense on this, but they couldn’t hide from reality any longer. The Yacht Party are now the Kamikaze Party, determined to sink the ship of state out of spite and desperation.

While Arnold Schwarzenegger is making claims to want “economic stimulus” with his demands for gutting environmental and labor laws, he is also undermining one of the core means of economic stimulus and recovery – higher education.

When the economy is in recession many laid-off workers take the time to return to school and finish a degree, or get new forms of training and expertise. This helps keep the workforce skilled and up-to-date on the latest innovations and insights, thereby keeping California workers globally competitive. And it can create jobs at the colleges to meet the demand. At the local community college enrollment is soaring – instructors are finding long waiting lists to get into their classes, which they haven’t seen for a long time.

For all this to work, of course, those students need financial aid, since in a recession they have a difficult time affording a return to school out of pocket. Which is why Arnold’s plan to slash Cal Grant funding is so reckless:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing major cuts in Cal Grants, the state’s main financial aid programfor college students. The most significant change would involve abandoning the state’s commitment to cover any rise in tuition for grant recipients, and it comes as officials at both the University of California and California State University are gearing up for 10% fee increases in response to the yawning state budget gap….

A spokeswoman for the governor said he “understands how difficult these cuts will be” but is responsible for leading the state through the economic crisis. “The governor doesn’t want to cut programs and he doesn’t want to raise taxes, but in the face of a $42-billion budget deficit and with the Legislature’s failure to pass a comprehensive solution, we’re simply running out of options,” she said.

Which is the typical BS being put out by the governor’s office these days, quotes not worth the paper on which they’re printed. The Legislature DID pass a comprehensive solution and Arnold vetoed it. Arnold has been completely unable to get a single Republican vote for his budgets over the last few years, yet continues to insist against all available evidence that the two parties in the Legislature try and work out some agreement, which is impossible as long as Republicans refuse to play.

Cal Grant cuts combined with yet another UC and CSU fee increase will put higher ed out of reach for thousands of qualified students and workers looking to remain competitive. California as a whole will suffer – but perhaps that’s the point, the endgame of Arnold’s term in office: destroying what remains of our shared prosperity so his friends in the elite can grab what is left over.

The LA Times today has a bizarre editorial in support of a proposed initiative that would fire all the legislators and the governor if they do not agree on a budget by the Constitutionally-mandated deadline of June 15:

Brad Morisoli of Livermore has proposed an initiative that provides, among other things, that if the Legislature fails to adopt a budget by midnight on June 15, every elected lawmaker’s term ends. The governor’s too. Right then, right there. See ya. None of those people could hold office again for at least two years. The “Pass Our Budget Act” is not just cranky, it’s kooky. Simplistic. Destructive. Where do we sign?

What this would do is essentially turn California government into a parliamentary democracy, where a government falls and an election is called if a budget is defeated. I’m not entirely opposed to that concept. But this is not a solution to the budget crisis.

Once again the media, in the form of this LA Times editorial, ignores the elephant in the room. The budget crisis is being caused by Republican obstruction alone. Democrats have bent over backward to try and get a budget done. But instead of telling its readers that fact, the state’s largest and most influential paper has this to say about the Legislature:

But no, Democrats, Republicans and the governor are acting like brats on a playground. “They started it!” “Did not!” “Did so!” “We did everything we could.” No, folks, you didn’t.

All those angry and irresponsible ballot measures Californians have adopted over the years have exacerbated the situation, but it’s hard to believe that we deserve the childishness we are getting from the Capitol in this fiscal emergency.

Adopt a budget. Now.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read in a newspaper in quite a long time. Legislators aren’t children – they’re adults engaged in a political process. One side – the Democrats – are willing to piss off their base and cut a bad deal to balance the budget. The other side – Republicans – refuse to do anything, placing Grover Norquist above the economic security of 36 million Californians.

The LA Times editorial is the equivalent of a driver standing over a mechanic screaming “fix it! fix it! fix it! fix it!”

Except in this case, the state’s paper of record could actually help fix it by refusing to mislead its readers about the situation in Sacramento, and tell Californians the truth – Republican obstruction is the only reason California lacks a balanced budget.

Note: I work for the Courage Campaign

Still vivid in my memory is the night in March 1991 when I stayed up to watch the KTLA News at Ten for their breaking news, which turned out to be a shocking video of the LAPD beating the hell out of a guy they’d pulled over – Rodney King. It came against the background of rampant police brutality under the leadership of Darryl Gates, and even as I watched the video I knew that the public reaction would be furious.

At least Rodney King survived the attack. Oscar Grant did not. When he was shot and killed by a BART police officer on New Year’s Day it revealed an ongoing lack of accountability from the BART police toward the public they serve. As the San Francisco Bay Guardian noted BART police have been involved in two other shooting deaths that appeared unjustified in recent years.

At yesterday’s BART board meeting activists demanded the creation of an oversight board along with other measures to reform BART and bring the officer who killed Oscar Grant to justice. Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and Senator Leland Yee have proposed legislation at the state level to mandate BART create such a board.

If that effort is going to be successful, the public needs to mobilize behind the creation of a civilian oversight board – that has real teeth – for the BART police.

That’s why the Courage Campaign is asking our members to sign a letter supporting the creation of an oversight board for BART. Our effort is cosponsored by ColorofChange.org.

Oscar Grant deserves justice, and the officer who shot him needs to be held accountable. We also need to work to ensure that this horrible event never happens again on the BART system. A civilian oversight board is a necessary step in that direction. Properly implemented, it can mandate changes in BART police methods, and provide the public transparency and accountability in police actions. The board can help get to the bottom of controversies and rebuild trust that is clearly lacking.

The civilian oversight board won’t solve the problems alone. But it is a necessary part of the long-term solution.

The email we sent out today is reproduced over the flip.

Dear Friend,

Never again.

I’m sure you’ve seen the shocking video.

On January 1, Oscar Grant — already subdued by police and lying face down — was shot in the back and killed by a BART police officer at the Fruitvale station.

BART’s failure to take direct action and immediately investigate this tragedy has fueled community outrage. As a resident of San Francisco and frequent BART rider, I was deeply disturbed, as were my fellow Courage Campaign staff members.

Unfortunately, this tragedy is not a first for the BART police force, which has been accused in the past of using excessive and unnecessary force in two other shooting deaths. In this case, however, multiple cell phone videos have been released revealing the shocking events that ended Oscar Grant’s life.

One way we can bring justice to Oscar Grant and heal the community is to make sure his horrifying death produces long-overdue change — change that may prevent a tragedy like this from happening again.

Unlike most police departments around the country, BART police are not subject to a civilian oversight board. For years, Bay Area citizens have called for BART to create one — like the boards that have improved accountability and police conduct in so many other communities.

But BART has refused.

Never again. Last night, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and Senator Leland Yee promised to introduce legislation requiring BART to create a civilian oversight board. While this is a significant step in the right direction, we must ensure that the legislature passes a strong bill.

Will you join the Courage Campaign and our friends at Color of Change by signing on to our letter thanking Ammiano and Yee for their legislation — and demanding that the leglislature pass a bill with the strongest civilian oversight possible?

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

The officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant must be held accountable. But that alone will not ensure this never happens to any other BART rider again.

Public accountability is the foundation of justice. At a time when public trust in the BART police is at rock bottom, a citizen oversight board would provide the community vigilance that BART is currently evading — and that has allowed BART’s past impunity to fester.

As Tom Ammiano and Leland Yee point out, “unlike the San Francisco Police Commission, BART lacks any real means for the public to air their grievances regarding police conduct or for an independent body that can propose corrective actions.”

Never again. Please sign our letter to Assemblymember Ammiano and Senator Yee supporting their call for a BART police civilian oversight board and demanding that the bill provide the strongest citizen oversight possible. With your support, we can ensure that Sacramento legislators, the BART board and the BART police department understand our community’s demand for justice in the memory of Oscar Grant:

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

We grieve with Oscar Grant’s family. And, along with our friends at Color of Change, we stand with the community in determination that his death will bring real change — the kind of fundamental reform that will prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.

Thank you,

Eden James

Managing Director

One side effect of Leon Panetta’s nomination to head the CIA is a growing lament from some quarters about the impact on reform in California. Panetta was the co-chair and leading public voice of California Forward, a centrist group dominated by business interests (there are two labor people on the board) and promoting Broderist attempts to fix California’s problems that, by and large, avoided the core issues.

Joe Mathews of the excellent Blockbuster Democracy blog lamented that “losing Panetta is not good news. He can’t be easily replaced.” And as David Dayen mentioned this morning, in today’s LA Times George Skelton pours on the love:

Unfortunately, Panetta’s crusade as a reformer of California’s dysfunctional government had only just begun. And his departure will leave a large void very difficult to fill, if not impossible….

[California Forward]’s early and outspoken support for Prop. 11 was particularly important because Panetta is a Democrat. Most of the Democratic establishment opposed the reform, fighting to keep the party’s gerrymandering power in the California Legislature that it almost always controls.

As we tried to explain many times here, Prop 11 was a solution in search of a problem. Legislatively-drawn districts weren’t the reason for the state’s budget crisis, since most Californians have chosen to self-segregate by party. Nor does Prop 11 deal with the Republican extremism that is inherent to their movement. Funny how none of these “reformers” ever seem to call out Republicans who bear the primary responsibility for the budget crisis.

Panetta’s other proposals follow this model, and espouse a centrism that veers at times into neo-Hooverism, a bipartisanship that in practice means implementing a Republican agenda. It’s precisely the opposite of what California needs at this time. As Skelton described it back in June Panetta’s plans included:

* Requiring new or expanded programs — whether created by the Legislature or ballot initiative — to contain a specific funding source. That could be either new taxes or money gleaned from another program that is eliminated.

* Regularly examining spending programs to determine whether they should be revised, reduced or rubbed out.

Skelton also mentions California Forward’s support of open primaries, which courts have persistently ruled as unconstitutional and seem designed to weaken Democrats’ ability to block Republican shock doctrines, not provide better reforms for the state.

What California really needs is loosened term limits, an end to the 2/3rds rule, and new tax revenues that solve the structural revenue shortfall. The centrist reforms Panetta championed won’t get us where we need to go.

None of this is to say Leon Panetta is a bad guy – although I’ve not met him, I have known many people affiliated with his Panetta Institute of Public Policy at CSUMB who attest to his devotion to good government. I don’t doubt that he was genuinely trying to improve the state. But his proposals were wide of the mark and were designed to satisfy a centrist ideology, not to make this state work again.

I hope Panetta is a success at the CIA – god knows that place needs reform. But his departure from the California reform movement may not be a disaster. Instead it may enable more fundamental changes, that get at the true problems we face, to get a wider audience.

Earlier today Brian wrote about Bill Bagley’s take on the problems with California government – which were of the typical “oh gee why isn’t there more bipartisanship?” sort. Bagley offered some specific points, but his commentary is part of a familiar refrain in this state that assumes the Legislature, the parties, and ideologues are all to blame, regardless of party.

This is simply not true, and those promoting that line of argument are doing the public a disservice by misinforming Californians about what is really going on.

Democratic legislators cannot be credibly described as unflinching ideologues who refuse to cut a deal. This statement was sent by Speaker Karen Bass yesterday before Arnold announced his budget veto. See if you can find the inflexible hard-left ideology that makes compromise impossible:

Additional changes will include:

*Even greater authority to enter into so-called “public-private-partnerships” and “design-build” arrangements for state construction projects;

*More modifications to environmental laws to speed up road construction;

*A tax incentive to keep film production in California;

*A moratorium on home foreclosures;

*Some additional budget cuts and modifications to the revenue package so that the package contains more in expenditure reductions than new revenues.

In contrast to these compromise moves – many of which were bitter pills for Democrats to swallow – Republicans spent the day joining the Howard Jarvis Association in suing to block the Dems’ budget deal.

Bagley and those who embrace his “can’t we all just get along” arguments are letting Republicans off the hook for their obstructionist tactics. New Democratic assemblymembers such as Nancy Skinner and Bill Monning have tried to reach out to their Republican colleagues, wanting to build the rapport Bagley says is missing. They were rejected in those outreach efforts.

Why? Because today’s Republican Party is fundamentally different from that Bagley remembers, and not just because of structural reasons. Term limits plays a role in enabling Republicans to become more conservative, but that ideological shift away from the kind of Republicans who would cut a deal for the good of the state, like Pete Wilson, and toward ideologues like Mike Villines mirrors a national trend.

Since the early 1990s the Republican Party around the country has become dominated by the far right, especially financially. You can’t win a Republican primary unless you swear fealty to Grover Norquist and his anti-tax agenda. If a Republican votes for a tax increase they’ll get challenged in their next primary. You can’t wine, dine, or jawbone away that reality.

When Bill Bagley and other Californians argue that the problem is a lack of bipartisanship, they wind up hiding this reality from the public. The budget crisis would have been resolved long ago if Republicans were willing to negotiate in good faith. Every time we ignore that fact, we let them get away with it, since the public gets outraged at “the legislature” or “the bums in Sacramento” rather than at the people actually responsible – the Yacht Party.

Unfortunately the “let’s ignore Republican obstruction” movement continues apace. It led to Prop 11’s passage, an unnecessary “reform” that will do nothing to change that internal dynamic within the Republican Party.

The new holy grail is open primaries. The US Supreme Court threw out California’s earlier open primary, so the only way to achieve this is through a “top two” system. Which as Washington State discovered this year, merely produces two candidates from the same party for most legislative seats. That will do nothing to change the hard-right ideology within the Yacht Party.

Bill Bagley, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, and other reform groups that mislead the public into thinking everyone’s at fault are merely letting the Republicans get away with the destruction of the state. If they really wanted better government, they would speak the truth – that California voters need to ask why a party that claims to follow Ronald Reagan won’t embrace a tax increase as the Gipper himself did in 1967.

Until we confront the Elephant in the room, California will continue to head toward a cliff.