The day before she was announced as John McCain’s vice presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin called on Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto a landmark bill that would levy fees on cargo containers at state ports to raise money for pollution mitigation standards. The air around California ports, especially LA-Long Beach, is among the worst in the nation with major negative health impacts on nearby residents. But Palin doesn’t care:

“Enactment of Senate Bill 974 will have negative impacts on both Alaska and California,” Palin wrote. “For Alaskans, a very large percentage of goods [90% or more] shipped to Alaska arrive as marine cargo in a container.”

Palin said many Alaskan communities lack road access and depend entirely on goods shipped by container, something that has significantly increased in cost in recent years. Many of those containers pass through the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports before arriving in Alaska, and Palin argues that the fee will add even more to the cost of goods shipped to her state.

“This tax makes the situation worse,” Palin wrote. “Similarly, the tax may harm California by driving port business away from its ports.”

The letter concludes by requesting that “due consideration be given to our state and that you not sign Senate Bill 974.”

State Sen. Alan Lowenthal, author of SB 974, had a devastating response to Palin’s interference:

On Thursday, with the Palin letter hitting the Internet, Lowenthal invited the Alaskan governor to travel to the Southern California ports to see first-hand why the fee is needed.

“We are losing about 3,400 Californians each year because of pollution,” Lowenthal said. “No matter what Gov. Palin would like to see happen, the impact is killing Californians. I don’t think Gov. Palin truly understands the impacts going on here.”

Two mothers who live near the port of LA-Long Beach would probably like Palin to understand what some of those impacts are:

Oti Nungaray

RUMBLE, RUMBLE. That’s the hum of my community, so close to the nation’s largest port complex. The air tickles your throat, but my daughter and I are not laughing. We’ve been living in Long Beach for ten years. The doctor first diagnosed her with asthma when she was six. It’s been traumatizing to watch my child suffer. Through my involvement with the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma, I’ve learned about managing my child’s asthma, including controlling triggers inside the home. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to control the environment outside, when you live next to the largest fixed source of air pollution in greater Los Angeles. I believe there are solutions to these problems. I don’t believe industry’s claim that reducing pollution will hurt our economy. These companies make a lot of money while I spend money on medicine and miss work and my daughter misses school.

Adriana Hernandez

I LIVE NEAR I-710: a parking lot of nearly 50,000 cargo trucks daily. Next door is Wilmington, an area pockmarked with refineries. We get hit with pollution from all sides. My youngest son was born with a closed trachea and his left vocal cord paralyzed; he still takes speech classes. He also suffered from severe asthma attacks. I had to medicate him and connect him to a breathing machine, feeling desperate that my child couldn’t breathe.

This is what Palin, for whom motherhood is such a central part of her message and appeal, is enabling with her effort to squelch California’s clean air laws – Palin is supporting pollution that is hurting working families.

Her interference in California’s lawmaking process is bad enough, but it’s a harbinger of what we can expect from a McCain-Palin Administration. As we saw with the EPA waiver the federal government has the power to preempt California clean air rules, and Palin is signaling that if she and McCain win they will likely use that power to undermine our efforts to provide healthy lives for our families.

California may not have the same role to play in the election that swing states like Nevada and Ohio do, but we can help Americans understand exactly what they’ll be getting from McCain-Palin – more of the same attacks on our health, our environmental laws, and our states rights.

I will be guest hosting the first hour of the KRXA 540 AM morning show here in Monterey this morning at 8. KRXA is our locally-owned progressive talk station, which usually runs syndicated programming like Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann but has a local show in the morning, as well as local programming at night and on weekends. You can listen live via the website and I’ll be on from 8-9. They don’t currently post archived shows.

I’m going to have John Laird on as my guest the first 1/2 hour to discuss the budget. I have a list of questions but if you all want me to ask anything specific, let me know.

The second 1/2 hour will be a bit more free-flowing, with discussion of state and local political issues. I have a feeling total recall will come up. Maybe Palin’s fundraiser, maybe Abramoff Republicans.

This should be fun. Especially if I don’t push the wrong buttons. Feel free to critique my performance in the comments.

Cue the Total Recall jokes:

SACRAMENTO – California’s prison guard union decided officially late Monday to attempt to recall Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from office.

After getting a big media ride from a small news item appearing in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, the 31,000-member strong California Correctional Peace Officers Association confirmed that they will attempt to knock the Golden State’s celebrity governor from office.

“Despite the mystique that the governor’s political machine has drummed up about being this big bad union, the reality is quite different,” CCPOA spokesman Lance Corcoran told PolitickerCA.com. “We are a union that has gone without a contract for two years. The governor’s actions toward us have been unconscionable.”

I’ll believe it when I see the signature gatherers out and about. But this is a significant move. Arnold has been a failure as governor, a fact brutally revealed to the public this year. Arnold is directly responsible for the current budget shortfall . Other failures include his refusal to sign legislation, his illegal and immoral demand to slash worker pay to starvation levels, and his unwillingness to provide the necessary budget leadership – including campaigning against Republican hostage-takers in their districts. This all suggests that the recall will have legs if the CCPOA is serious about it.

The 2003 recall of Gray Davis began early that year when a group of Republican gadflies, including Ted Costa and Howard Kaloogian, took out recall petitions. Only when convicted arrested car thief Darrell Issa poured $1.6 million of his money into the recall did it take off.

Recalls are inherently unpredictable things. This one could fizzle, as countless other recalls have – or it could go viral and, with a cash infusion, reshape the state’s politics as happened five years ago.

Personally I am going to wait and see before taking sides. And I want to see answers to specific questions, like those Meteor Blades asked:

could a recall truly succeed against the governor? And, if it didn’t, would it damage him or help him should he decide to take on Senator Boxer. The answers to those questions would cement my support or opposition.

My own questions are “will this help us fix the budget in 2009 and 2010?” and “is this the best way for Democrats to approach winning the governor’s office, including ensuring that it’s a progressive Dem that we put in that office?”

The moment we see paid signature gatherers roaming the streets and strip malls of the state, we will need to begin seriously discussing how we will answer those questions.  

Maybe George Skelton took my post last week to heart, or maybe the self-evident truth smacked him upside the head, but in today’s column Skelton calls for eliminating the 2/3 rule:

It’s a good bet that 51% of the Legislature would have voted for a budget by now — maybe even had one in place for the July 1 start of the new fiscal year. But 67% is required.

Only two other states have such a monstrous hurdle. And both are better positioned to deal with it because, unlike California, their legislatures are lopsidedly dominated by one party….

State Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), a hero of fiscal conservatives, long has favored allowing a majority budget vote.

“The two-thirds vote for the budget has not contained spending, and it blurs accountability,” McClintock says. “If anything, in past years, it has prompted additional spending as votes for the budget are cobbled together.”

The rub is that while McClintock is willing to support a majority vote for a budget he is not willing to support majority vote for taxes. That is the one that really matters. If we had a majority rule for the budget but 2/3 for taxes, it would do nothing to change the current budget standoff as Republicans would still use their numbers to block a tax increase and therefore block a budget.

The column has some good quotes from Steinberg and Bass, who are showing welcome interest in fixing the odious 2/3 rule:

Both incoming Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) say they’ll consider developing a 2010 ballot initiative to permit majority-vote budgets.

“I’m telling you, I’m very serious about it,” Steinberg says. “We can’t keep doing this. This is ridiculous. It’s unproductive.”

Bass figures there would be plenty of financial support for a ballot campaign from labor unions, healthcare providers and others who rely on public funds and are frustrated by incessantly tardy budgets.

“This budget crisis we’re in is a perfect example of why we need to be like 47 other states,” Bass says. “I’m not sure what we have in common with Arkansas and Rhode Island. . . .

“We would have had a budget by the constitutional deadline, June 15.”

Both Bass and Steinberg need to move on a fix for the 2/3 rule. But since that won’t happen until 2010, we need a solution to THIS budget crisis – a solution which will require voters to hold Republicans accountable for their hostage tactics.

Lest we let Skelton off easy today, he still shows he believes in the Media’s First Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of Republicans:

Don’t blame Republicans either. They’re being asked by the governor to break their pledges — however misguided they were — not to raise taxes. Moreover, most are philosophically opposed to taxing people more — particularly during a recession — and are sticking to their principles. That’s supposed to be an admirable trait.

Nonsense. The 2/3 rule isn’t a problem unless one party makes it a problem. The Republicans are using the 2/3 rule as a weapon to destroy this state and make its residents suffer. Don’t let them get away with it.

That’s what the Correctional Officers are considering, according to Matier and Ross:

Well-placed Sacramento sources tell us the state’s politically powerful and well-financed prison guards union has lawyers drawing up language for a recall initiative.

Word is, the union will decide within the next couple of weeks whether to hit the streets with petitions….

Asked about the recall rumor, union spokesman Lance Corcoran said, “I can’t comment other than to say we are taking a very hard look at it.”

I’m not surprised this is being considered – given that Arnold’s governorship has been a complete failure, and that he still has over two years left in office, it makes sense that someone would try to replace failed leadership with something better.

On the merits alone Arnold deserves to be recalled. His failures as governor have caused the state worse pain than anything Gray Davis did. Arnold’s tax cuts and borrowing to pay for core services have broken our budget. He was nearly AWOL on the budget this year, and when he did get involved, it was to petulantly refuse to sign any new bills, breaking government even further. He wanted to make state workers suffer instead of doing the hard but necessary work of pushing Republicans to agree to a budget.

But a recall is a political act and has political consequences and it’s on those grounds that we need to assess it. A recall vote would likely take place sometime in 2009, with the next gubernatorial race taking place just one year later. That would entail a lot of campaigning and perhaps not so much governing.

A recall, as we saw in 2003, is unpredictable and even more personality-driven than normal. It also lacks a party primary, which is especially important for the Democrats. Given the number of big names showing interest in the 2010 nomination, a primary is the best way to not only choose from those candidates but to provide a referendum on the future of California Democrats – whether we’ll embrace a progressive future or remain mired in a corporatist past.

The recall by contrast doesn’t offer that opportunity. Because of the open field Dems would have to unite early around one candidate, who might not be the best Dem around. Democrats might well be better off waiting until 2010.

It’s also not clear whether a recall alone would accomplish significant change. The 2003 recall clearly didn’t solve California’s problems – instead it brought into sharper view the real issue – the 2/3 rule and Republican exploitation of it for their far-right purposes. Getting rid of Arnold has its value, but it wouldn’t necessarily make the 2009 or 2010 budget cycles any easier.

None of that is to say it’s a bad idea to pursue a recall of Arnold. But neither does it deserve our knee-jerk support. I’d be more interested in constructing a coalition to fix our state government and help California weather the worsening economic crisis, through fundamental structural reforms. That needs to be our focus, and we should consider an Arnold recall if it will get us closer to those goals.

After what was described in the Sac Bee as “hard lobbying” from the governor’s office, the California Taxpayers Association has endorsed Arnold’s plan to balance the budget with a temporary sales tax increase that becomes a reckless and nonsensical sales tax cut – below the current level – in 2011.

The 82-year-old association is a nonprofit representing all taxpayers, but some of California’s largest corporations dominate its sizable board of directors, which voted 28-19 on Friday to back the proposal…

“As an association representing taxpayers, we have not arrived at our position lightly,” CTA President Teresa Casazza said in a statement. “Given the current circumstances, however, we can support a temporary sales tax increase as long as it is accompanied by meaningful budget reform, an economic stimulus plan and a future reduction in the sales tax rate that will make the change a net tax reduction over time.”

A long-term reduction in the tax is only a good idea if it is replaced with another source of revenue – a restored Vehicle License Fee, higher taxes on the wealthy, closure of corporate tax loopholes. Otherwise it’s yet another measure designed to ensure our budget and therefore our government are broken and unable to properly deliver the core services Californians need.

Arnold is clearly hoping this will give Republicans cover to vote for his plan and end the budget crisis. But the Republicans are still in thrall to the most extreme members of the right wing, and continue to reject this plan:

“It doesn’t change our position at all,” Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines of Clovis said of the Cal-Tax endorsement. “I mean, Cal-Tax, I’m not exactly sure what the organization is supposed to do, but if it looks like a tax and it sounds like a tax, it is a tax, regardless of what Cal-Tax or anybody else calls it.”

Villines and Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said Schwarzenegger’s office lobbied Cal-Tax’s corporate board members hard over several weeks to get the endorsement.

“We think it’s unfortunate, and we don’t think it really changes a thing because the votes are not there in the Legislature, quite frankly,” Coupal said. “We’ll see. It’s disappointing that Cal-Tax folded under the pressure, but the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association will never do so.”

Cal-Tax may have 82 years of experience, but it’s the Howard Jarvis Association that calls the shots in the California Republican Party. And they won’t be happy until the state’s public schools are closed or its health care centers go out business.

Only a voter revolt against the Republican legislators who put the Howard Jarvis Association ahead of everyone else in this state will bring this hostage crisis to an end.

I’m sitting here at the San José Convention Center at the annual SEIU-UHW West leadership conference, with thousands of members gathered to plan for their union’s future. UHW has a lot of momentum, is engaged in a lot of organizing work to unionize more workplaces, and are among the leading progressive groups in the state at a time when we desperately need such allies.

And they’re facing the threat of losing their elected leadership to the SEIU International, which is attempting to place UHW under trusteeship. The International accuses UHW of financial improprieties involving an “educational fund” segmented for a possible health care ballot initiative. UHW leaders and many outside observers believe the charges are groundless. The next move is a hearing on September 22-23 UPDATE: Yesterday Stern announced the hearing has been moved to September 26-27.

These developments dominate the meeting, but the rank and file members I’ve talked to seem resolute in their desire to defend union democracy. A group of allied reformers from other SEIU locals, SMART, have a significant presence here, a reflection of the intense battles going on within the broader SEIU movement regarding union democracy.

Whatever the outcome, there is a strong commitment to democracy among the 2,000 members here – democracy in the workplace, democracy in their union, democracy in their nation. Despite the internal politics that is an extremely positive sign. The labor movement has been at the forefront of social democratic politics in this country for over 100 years. When labor is strong, progressive politics are strong. Which makes the SEIU’s efforts to trustee UHW all the more disappointing, as we need unions to be laser-focused on this election and on the policy battles that will begin as soon as the dust settles in November.

Several Democratic politicians have already spoken at the convention, and more will be here tomorrow. Steve Westly spoke on behalf of the Obama campaign, exhorting members to sign up to help canvass for the campaign, particularly in Nevada and New Mexico. Kamala Harris and Jerry Brown are speaking tomorrow. I’ll have more coverage of their remarks at that time.

I will be on KRXA 540 AM this morning at 8 to discuss this and other California politics topics

I’m a bit surprised these stories hadn’t started circulating earlier – last year we saw them in early August – but the state media are finally getting around to describing the consequences of the state budget impasse that the Republicans have created. The San Francisco Chronicle looks at the Cal Grants that students need to pay for basic educational expenses and that are being held up because of the hostage crisis:

“This hits me in a very big way,” said Nova Robb, a 31-year-old single mother and full-time student at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill. “I have a week to decide if I’m going to drop all my classes.”

If she is forced to drop out after that, she said, she will get a mark on her transcript that she believes will hurt her chances for transferring to a four-year college….

Diablo Valley College is an example of what many of the state’s community colleges face. The Pleasant Hill campus is operating out of its reserves and cannot help its approximately 450 Cal Grant recipients who normally would get the grant checks on Sept. 16, said Brenda Jerez, director of financial aid programs and services at the college. She said the story is the same for 500 other Cal Grant students at the two other campuses in the Contra Costa Community College District.

“They are impacting the students’ lives and ability to persist in the schools. This is unacceptable,” she said. “For the students, it means perhaps some of them will have to withdraw. It is money for books, supplies, transportation.”

The Cal Grant program, as the article rightly explains, is essential to the community college system in particular. It provides just enough money for these lower-income students to pay for books, transportation, and the other costs of college. If they don’t get these funds soon, they won’t be able to sustain their place in class this term. And as numerous studies have shown, the key to completing a college degree is continuity, especially at the community college level – if you have to take a semester off, the likelihood of finishing drops.

The LA Times also joins the chorus with an article about struggling care providers:

Fallout from the state’s longest budget standoff on record is rippling through California, with scores of healthcare providers on the brink of bankruptcy, schools and community colleges scaling back offerings and contractors struggling to hang on.

If there is no spending plan by the end of the month, the state will owe $12 billion to government service providers who by law cannot be paid in the absence of a budget. Many in the Capitol predict the stalemate could easily last that long, and service providers up and down the state are warning that they will go under if it does.

“It is crazy what they are doing,” said Betty Ann Honda, operations manager at Care Van Inc. in Glendale, which every week transports 200 patients with severe kidney problems to dialysis appointments. “They are putting people in a position of having to deny patients services they need to live.”

There’s not much more I can say that’s more compelling than Honda’s devastating statement, except perhaps to add that it’s not “they” who are causing these problems – “they” are “Republicans” who refuse to agree to necessary tax increases and are holding people like her patients hostage to their far-right agenda.

George Skelton, who we’ve been rather critical of at this site of late, is in full scale panic mode over these problems and thinks the solution is another “get out of town budget” that won’t solve anything:

Now 66 days into the fiscal year without passing a spending plan — a record — it’s perhaps time for the Legislature to produce another irresponsible budget that relies on borrowing and accounting gimmicks, one that digs the state deeper into its hole.

Yes, I’m serious.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently told me he’d veto such a “get out of town” budget. “I am very adamant about not creating more debt.” That was commendable. But for many, the situation is becoming more dire by the day.

But this is precisely what we did last summer, and it accomplished exactly nothing. The real problem is Republican intransigence, something the high Broderist Skelton is slowly beginning to realize, and slowly beginning to admit:

But Republicans won’t talk taxes — at least not enough of them to pass a budget when an inane two-thirds majority vote is required. That means at least two Republicans in the Senate and six in the Assembly. The Senate seems doable; the Assembly practically impossible.

If Skelton really wants this budget impasse to end, he needs to direct his fire strictly and powerfully at those who are now responsible for this delay: Republicans. Particularly those in the Assembly. They are putting ideology before their jobs, zealotry before the people of California. Skelton should join the growing chorus of Californians who are fed up with Republican obstructionism and demand that the Republicans get their act together and support the necessary tax increases that will finally stabilize this budget situation.

The primary reason Republicans continue to hold the state hostage and deny us a budget is they are afraid that if they vote for a necessary tax increase, they will face a primary challenge from within their party, either for their current seat or for another office in the future. All such a challenger would have to do is say “Joe Blow voted for a tax increase” and the challenger, flush with money from the Club for Growth, the Howard Jarvis Association, and the other usual suspects will take out the incumbent.

The only way to challenge that calculus is to suggest that these Republicans will face a greater backlash from voters than from other wingnuts. California voters, especially those in districts represented by Republicans, hold the most leverage in the current budget stalemate. And as the Conta Costa Times notes (h/t to Donald Lathbury), voters are starting to use that leverage as California turns on the Republicans:

Republican and Democratic members of the “Al-Costa Budget Coalition” — self-described as a group of more than 40 schools and nonprofits serving the elderly, people with disabilities, families with health problems and other residents of Contra Costa County and the Tri-Valley area — met this morning with Assemblyman Guy Houston, R-Livermore, to urge a resolution to the state budget impasse….

Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District board member Bill Morrison: “I’m a fiscally conservative Republican, but I cannot see any way out of this big hole we are in without some reasonable tax increases.”…

Mt. Diablo Education Association President Mike Noce: “Assemblymember Houston has to represent his constitutents, and polls show that the majority of the people in this district support new revenues.”

Houston is running for Contra Costa County Supervisor, a run that is being jeopardized by his participation in the Republicans’ hostage crisis. CoCo voters are certainly going to think twice about entrusting their local government services to such a reckless individual. Correction: Houston already LOST that race in the June election, and isn’t running for any other office. Which of course makes his adherence to the GOP hostage plan even more ridiculous.

California is ripe for this sort of thing across the state, especially in red districts. Voters in Fresno, south Orange County, and the exurbs all want good schools, hospitals, and roads. They understand that tax increases are necessary not just to balance the budget, but to maintain the middle-class, keep families afloat, and keep our economy alive. And they’re no longer going to take this destruction of their state lying down.

Republican extremism has finally separated them not just from reality, but from their voters. Protests are the necessary first wave. Democrats need to be out in front and actively building support and backing candidates in these red districts, like Gary Pritchard.

Lathbury’s parting shot is worth quoting:

If this thing has to be settled by the voters of California, expect Houston, along with Republican Assemblymember Greg Aghazarian, who’s running to replace outgoing Democratic Senator Mike Machado, and possibly Senator Tom McClintock, who’s running to replace disgraced Rep. John Doolittle, to be among the first casualties. Grover Norquist might not give two hoots about schools and health care, but many Republicans in our state are far less ideological. Indeed, the better question is, ‘How much longer will they remain Republicans?’

More like this, please:

While other cities are hoping for federal aid to help them address the problem, Lancaster is using city funds to buy, renovate and sell vacant homes. The need is clear….

So far, Lancaster’s Redevelopment Agency has agreed to spend more than $4.1 million to acquire and refurbish 41 homes. The city took ownership of the first six properties beginning in May….

Lancaster’s program mainly targets depressed neighborhoods. The city is paying between $80,000 and $110,000 for the properties and will accept bids from contractors to renovate them. Proposed repairs would include environment-friendly features such as drought-tolerant landscaping and tankless water heaters. When sold, the city hopes to recoup the price paid for each home, including the cost of renovation. But Brubaker said the goal is to keep the selling price reasonable for a family of four whose income does not exceed about $71,800 — California’s average salary for qualifying for subsidized housing.

This is precisely what governments need to be doing right now. The right-wing effort to use government to stimulate homeownership has been a catastrophic failure, leaving the global economy in ruins, millions of families bankrupt and without a home, and California facing a very uncertain future.

Lancaster’s model is more along the lines of what should have been tried all along, and what is now a priceless opportunity. The foreclosure crisis has left cities like Lancaster with a huge glut of empty houses while everyone else struggles with still-high housing costs, as homelessness rises. It’s a small move to rectify a massive misallocation of capital and resources, but the bubble’s collapse provides opportunities for affordable housing that should be seized.

It’s good that Lancaster is also promoting sustainable renovation, something that is often overlooked in the foreclosure crisis – too many cities simply want to recreate a failed 20th century model of car-dependent, resource-wasting suburbia. And Lancaster’s move isn’t a long-term solution nor a sign that suburbia is still viable – we do still need to redefine the California Dream by promoting greater urban densities. But that doesn’t preclude governments from using the foreclosure crisis to create truly affordable opportunities for Americans to own homes.

The details matter, and the public has to be engaged to ensure that cities don’t use this as a way to give away refurbished properties to developers or speculators. Still, it’s good to see some California cities getting smart about how to deal with this crisis.