Election Exacerbated Issues in the Capitol

by Brian Leubitz

In 2002, California reelected Gray Davis to a second term. His future was looking bright, and was considered a possible candidate for president in 2004. But, that all changed very quickly in 2003 as the Enron-manufactured electricity crisis combined with a few budget issues to create havoc in Sacramento.  Soon after the second inauguration, a recall petition gathered steam and then took off when (the farce that is) Darrell Issa dumped a bunch of money into the recall efforts.  

Issa was hoping for the spot himself, but he eventually gave way well before the election. The election itself was a mess and made the state the butt of jokes around the world. The list of candidates included a pornography star, a former MLB Commissioner, Gary Coleman, Arianna Huffington, and a slew of randoms that would never typically make the general  election ballot.

And of course one of those randoms that would never make the general election ballot was the man who became our governor for seven years. Arnold Schwarzenegger, though something of a celebrity Republican, would have severe difficulties getting through a Republican primary in California. While we have a progressive tilt overall, the GOP is just as crazy as any other state.

The immediate impact was clearly in the wrong direction for California, and brought us a slew of reactionary policies.  However, the Governator eventually realized that even he had limits with his beating at the 2005 special election.  At that point, it was easy to think that Arnold was a blip, and that perhaps the net result could be a more progressive governor in 2006. Alas, Phil Angelides was not that governor, nor even that candidate. Schwarzenegger won, but left himself in an increasingly difficult situation with his rhetoric, killing the chance to make any big substantive reform:

Although Schwarzenegger won reelection in 2006, by then the chance was probably gone. Indeed, it may have been gone from the first day, when he canceled the vehicle license fee increase Davis had approved, and thus enlarged the state’s gaping budget deficit by $6 billion by the time he left office.

And in talking like anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist about “starving the monster” of government, and about how spending alone, not revenue, was the problem, he backed himself even further into a political corner. Neither could be solved without addressing the other. As for the rest of his governorship, it was mostly showmanship and glitz.(Peter Schrag @LAT)

Schrag points to the non-partian reforms (redistricting, top-2, etc) and Gov. Jerry Brown’s election in 2010 with his “restrained approach” as the reason for our bounceback from the crisis. And perhaps that is true, but that debate will linger on to let history decide. But what is clearly true is that the 2003 recall was nothing but a temporary blip that brought us the Governator, but left us with very little real reform.

Law will go into effect in 2015

by Brian Leubitz

Well, it took many years, and Gil Cedillo wasn’t the one to pass it, but drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants is going to happen in California.

Two decades after California barred illegal immigrants from obtaining driver’s licenses, Gov. Jerry Brown Thursday signed legislation that restores the privilege, ending a policy battle that liberal Democrats had been fighting — and losing — for years. (Oakland tribune)

In the end, this bill makes Californians safer. It makes all Californians who use the roads safer, as there aren’t a big group of drivers without licenses. And it makes people feel more human:

State to begin enrollment in “Obamacare” plans for 2014

by Brian Leubitz

House Republicans look like they are willing to shut the government down to put the brakes on ObamaCare, but that won’t actually change Covered California’s plan to open up shop tomorrow.

Indeed, Covered California – the state’s version of the federal health care law – is preparing to begin enrolling customers in its health insurance exchange on Tuesday. Parts of the government would close on the same day if lawmakers in Washington don’t act on legislation to extend discretionary spending. …

California, one of 14 states rolling out its own marketplace, will mark opening day with a series of events in Sacramento, Fresno, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. The federal government will oversee the launch in the remaining states.(SacBee)

In fact, if you want to see how much, roughly, your health insurance will cost under the new law, it is already available. Just head over to CoveredCA.com and click on “Shop and Compare” to get a few quotes for ACA-eligible plans.

If you have employer insurance, this won’t really change much for you. However, for those of us with individual plans, the new exchange will open up new options.

Bill requires overtime pay for home care workers

by Brian Leubitz

While overtime pay has been required for decades in most industries, domestic workers have always been exempted. While the logic is far from clear, home health care workers, nannies and other home care workers were simply left out of the arrangement. AB 241 changes that:

“Domestic workers are primarily women of color, many of them immigrants, and their work has not been respected in the past,” said Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), the bill’s author. “Now they will be entitled to overtime, like just about every other California working person.”(LA Times)

Now, that is not to say that AB 241 goes as far as Asm. Ammiano wanted to go with his domestic workers bill. Last year’s AB 889, which was vetoed by the governor (veto message here), would have guaranteed meal breaks and other rights.  However, this bill does commission a study to review the totality of working conditions for domestic workers to be completed by 2017 and that could provide the data for further protections.

All that being said, overtime is a great first step for domestic workers, and groups like Mujeres Unidas y Activas celebrated the victory yesterday at the signing.

MUA is so proud of this victory and the role we have played in this work over the past 8 years.  We know that the work truly just begins now – the work of educating workers about their rights and employers about their responsibilities, the work of building the base of organized worker to reach the thousands and hundreds of thousands in California, the work of sharing the story and model of our organizing campaign with our sisters across the country who are just starting this journey, the work of winning even more rights and protections for domestic workers, and the work of changing our culture to respect and recognize the work that makes all other work possible.

Brown moves state away from DC-centric reformers

by Brian Leubitz

Not only is Jerry Brown standing up to Arne Duncan on testing, but he’s also something of a pioneer in tweaking the school funding formulas.  Sure, our per pupil spending is still shockingly low, but with our recovery, we have a little more money to shift around. It’s how that shifting is going to work that has brought the state into the disagreement with so-called education reformers.

As I noted in a post last week, California and Washington have taken distinctly different approaches to achievement gaps that increasingly are most closely associated with economic inequality. Rather than focusing on firing “bad” teachers and closing schools, California has moved to direct more resources to low-income districts and increase local decision-making, with sanctions a last resort after support and technical assistance have failed. …

In March, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, headed by Brown’s appointee Linda Darling-Hammond, pushed back against the federal predilection to ensure teacher quality by de-emphasizing preparation standards in favor of a holy grail of downstream effectiveness measures. The Commission voted to ramp up pre-service training requirements for interns teaching English learners and in-service supervision requirements for all interns, particularly those teaching ELs. And Washington’s darlings, Teach for America and the charter school lobby, suffered a rare loss when the credentialing commission determined “innovation” can’t excuse putting teachers who know little or nothing about teaching English as a second language in front of English learners.(EdSource)

I had a few friends that went through the TeachForAmerica program, and I know it was an extremely beneficial experience for them. However, it is far from clear that the same can be said to be true for the students. Test results don’t really bear it out, and simple common sense should dictate that enthusiasm alone won’t replace the years of training that helps to make good teachers for our students.

Moreover, the Governor has been one of the bigger supporters of reforming our testing system, as shown through that recent fight with Sec. Duncan over testing and the new Common Core Curriculum. NCLB has been something of a disaster for our long term competitiveness. It made many of our students good test takers and really solid at learning how to jump through hoops. But “fill in the bubbles” testing gives us a very two-dimensional description of our students. Gov. Brown has been focused on testing that covers more ground and emphasizes the skills that the students need.

These tests are a little more difficult to develop, and in the best case scenario aren’t delivered as often. That, of course, doesn’t make the education reformers all that happy. But it is in the best interests of our students and our teachers. While some would argue that “America’s Greatest Eduation Governor 2013” is too close to CTA, it is clear that he is working with the teachers for the benefit of our students. We need to keep good teachers in the classroom, and encourage below average teachers to become better. The Governor is working with CTA to do that, a laudable goal from any perspective.

The whole EdSource article is worth a read, but if nothing else, this is a solid takeaway:

Is it too much to hope that Washington will begin taking notice and start moving toward the anti-poverty educational policies being pursued in the state where one in eight public school students attend school? Or perhaps the best we can hope for is that continued partisan gridlock in D.C. will continue to create opportunities for California to go its own way.(EdSource)

Not only should California be allowed to develop our own reforms, other states should work to emulate our programs where they prove to be successful. Gov. Brown deserves a lot of credit for his continued strong education record.

Court is putting finger on the scales toward a settlement

by Brian Leubitz

The Court has been pretty upfront with their displeasure with the progress on prison population reduction. But perhaps they are also less than thrilled with the simple private prisons option and see a ray of light with the proposals that the Senate Democrats brought to the issue.  Either way, the Court granted the state four weeks, moving the date back from the end of the year until Jan 27, 2014. (PDF of the order). Here’s the important part for that delay:

The December 31, 2013 deadline shall be extended until January 27, 2014, without prejudice to the parties’ filing a joint request for a further extension or the Court so ordering. During the meet-and-confer process and until further order of the Court, defendants shall not enter into any contracts or other arrangements to lease additional capacity in out-of-state facilities or otherwise increase the number of inmates who are housed in out-of-state facilities.

Now, four weeks, you are thinking? Well, the judges have a plan for those four weeks. As mentioned in that last paragraph (actually the third of three paragraphs in the order), the state and the plaintiffs in the case were ordered to a negotiation process overseen by First District Court of Appeal Justice Peter Siggins. Justice Siggins will then notify the Three Judge Panel on Oct 21 whether there is hope for a settlement. Specifically, he was tasked with looking at a number of options to reducing populations, which apparently the Court finds preferable to the leasing additional capacity.

The meet-and-confer process shall explore how defendants can comply with this Court’s June 20, 2013 Order, including means and dates by which such compliance can be expedited or accomplished and how this Court can ensure a durable solution to the prison crowding problem.  The discussions shall specifically include: (a) three strikers; (b) juveniles; (c) the elderly and the medically infirm; (d) Immigration and Customs Enforcement prisoners; (e) the implementation of the Low Risk List; and (f) any other means, including relocation within the state, that are included in defendants’ May 2, 2013 List.  Justice Siggins and the parties may also discuss any necessary or desirable extension of the December 31, 2013 deadline beyond that provided for in the final paragraph of this order, as well as any other matters they deem appropriate.

These criteria are remarkably similar to a letter written by the ACLU to the Governor on how we could release prisoners without leasing additional capacity. So clearly the court is looking for an option beyond the Governor’s plan, and appreciates the dialog that the Legislature had with the Senate’s plan. Of course, at the heart of the Senate Democrats plan was a three year delay brought about by a settlement with the plaintiffs.

This is a lot of reading of tea leaves out of a three paragraph order. But if some progress can be made over the next four weeks, maybe we can spend a little more time reforming the heart of the troubling system as the Senate Democrats hoped to do.

Three Judge Panel Grants 4 Week Delay