This is the Press Release today from the Green Party of California. I put the enter release below the fold.  

News Advisory

THE GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA        www.cagreens.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Contact:  Cres Vellucci, press secretary, 916.996-9170 [email protected]

 Susan King, spokesperson, 415.823-5524 [email protected]

Continue voter revolt: kick the rascals out, urges

state Green Party after ballot propositions crushed

Tuesday; Green candidates would better serve the people

SACRAMENTO – Although the state’s voters made it clear they did not like

the status quo when they voted down five ballot measures Tuesday during the

Special Election, they need to take the next step, urged the Green Party of

California today.

“Voters used the ballot box to say they are disgusted with the Legislature

and the Governor. Now they need to vote them out of office en mass and

replace them with candidates that represent the people,” said Joe Feller, a

Solano County Council member.

The Green Party has fielded those candidates – voter friendly candidates –

for years, Feller said, noting that the Green Party also opposed the ballot

measures, calling them a “rotten deal.”

“Pundits say voters are ‘angry and frustrated.’ The only real way for them

to really make their wishes known is to replace those in power, and that

means the Democrats as well as the Republicans,” said Los Angeles Green

Alex Walker.

Greens said the answer to the state’s budget woes is cutting waste, but not

workers’ jobs.

“The super wealthy do not pay their fair share, and haven’t for a long

time. They pay a lower tax rate that the average Californian. Cutting

salaries of workers who can barely pay their bills makes no sense. Those

who reside in mansions should be made to pay their fair share,” said Lisa

Green, a Green Party candidate for Assembly in the 53rd District.

Greens also have suggested Prop. 13 be amended so that the while

residential owners maintain their tax protection, business property should

be reassessed to raise billions.

But, primarily, the state Green Party urged voters to continue their

mini-revolt and replace the Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature

with alternative party candidates from the Green Party who would act first

to protect the rights of the voters, not special interests.

I want to call attention to that which my co-blogger at California Dreaming, Alex Walker, has written concerning the manner in which both George Will and Paul Krugman have misconstrued the California Budget Crisis.  Both managed to get it wrong.

With all due respect. Will and Krugman are both wrong. It says something about just how pernicious is this notion is that every political question that exists, has existed, or ever will exist anywhere in the universe boils down to a struggle between so-called conservative Republicans vs. so-called liberal Democrats.

Most Calitics readers are from the Progressive side of the Democrtic Party and thus have a position that is about the same as we do in the Green Party. Alex wrote:

Barack Obama, the popular elected new Democratic president says:

   …those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government…

Alas, the California Democratic Party does not know the meaning of these words.

 I would soften this a bit and limit this criticism to the leadership of the California Democratic Party, i.e. Bass and Sternberg.  

Alex wrote:

Barack Obama, the popular elected new Democratic president says:

   …those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government…

Alas, the California Democratic Party does not know the meaning of these words.

 I would soften this a bit and limit this criticism to the leadership of the California Democratic Party, i.e. Bass and Sternberg.

I don’t seen what is going to change this in the State Legislature.  Pressure gets applied and all fall in line.  

I just got an email from Brian that asks “What does tomorrow mean?”  Most of it is good and for following the election, Calitics is as good as any place and better than most.

Unfortunately, the answer to Brian’s question is… more of the same.  

I have been reading or viewing a lot about the California Latino Water Coalition and their March for Water.  The name itself triggered by BS filter. It is like all of those names of groups that seem to back the propositions on our ballots and who always track back to some highly financed special interest… even proponents of controversial projects.

Environmental activist Lloyd G. Carter brings up a good point… that this is just another Agribusiness attempt to empond (sic) all of the water that they can for irrigation and that the Coalition is not really about farm workers or the UFW would be joining in.  Well worth the read if you think this is a real issue.  

I don’t often use one blog to hype another.  Tonight, I will make an exception.  I posted a longer item at California Greening today that considers just what is failing to happen regarding water in this state.  While, as you might guess, I see the current legislature incapable to taking the action necessary to fix our problems and really see this as an opportunity for Greens, or at least Green ideas on ecology.

The whole post is below the fold.  

California’s water systems are broken. In some cases, it is the physical system such as the long delayed upgrade and seismic retrofit of the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct or the many miles of threatened levees in the Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta. But mostly, it is the bureaucratic process by which water is governed, metered out, charged for and frequently fought over.

California’s Little Hoover Commission has previously issued reports on water. The most recent, in January 2009 was Clearer Structure, Cleaner Water: Improving Performance and Outcomes at the State Water Boards. It’s conclusions start with the recognition that California has an outdated system for dealing with a raft of threats to clean water, a crumbling infrastructure and a growing demand. Their solution involved a total re-structuring of the system of State and Regional Water Control Boards making them appointed by and responsible to the Governor.

Following that, the Commission has taken on the challenge to change the total governance of water in California beginning with a new hearing that was held April 23, 2009 in Sacramento. At that hearing, Phil Issenberg, Chairman of the Delta Vision Foundation, testified that the sum total of documented water rights in California is 8.4 times the average water flow through the Delta.

Even if the State Legislature were willing to undertake the task of reforming water governance, no matter what they decide to do, someone will challenge it in court. California’s bureaucracies have some 200 different agencies and boards involved in the process of managing our water resources.

Much of the power over water use is devolved into a long list of local water districts, each with it’s own set of directors and regulations. As far as I know, there are only four greens on any of these water district boards in the State of California. If there is any office that may be attainable, and which might have a long lasting effect on life in California, it is that of Director of a Water District.

The Green Party of the United States recently passed a resolution (#380) that outlines a new process of dealing with water issues. While Resolution authorizes action by the EcoAction Committee, GPUS, this will not happen without Greens everywhere becoming involved. We must all become active participants in solving California’s problems.

We have seen that the California State Legislature is incapable of coming to any hard decision regarding anything of importance. If they can not enact a budget on time, how will they be able to deal with the restructuring of priorities between Central Valley Agriculture and Southern California urban users.

The problems associated with water, it’s management and it’s governance in California cry our for Green solutions. California needs the active involvement of Greens who will take bioregional approaches to the management of water sheds, who will involve the public in the decision making rather than relying on entrenched bureaucracies and special interests to determine our future.

Join the GPCA and the GPUS EcoAction Committee in creating fundamental change. EcoAction is setting up The Green Party Water Works, a public blog where we will focus attention on bioregional solutions and water governance.

That is one place to start. Another is to contact local Green Party councils and to tell them that you are willing to help protect California’s future. It is clear that neither major political party is going to do that.

Wes Rolley – CoChair: EcoAction Committee Green Party US

With the special election coming up shortly and the Green Party holding it’s General Assembly on May 16,17 in Venice, CA, they also just completed polling County locals for a state wide position on initiatives 1A-1F.  General opinion was No to all, though some counties found reason to want to endorse 1B… in case 1A passes.

Trying to arrange for someone to do live posts (twitter = @GPCA or facebook) from Venice as I won’t be able to make it myself.  

I haven’t posted much lately.  Frankly I’ve been very involved in two things.  One is working to build a nationwide Green Party organization to help local communities and candidates deal with water issues.  That may be important in California some day.

The other is more general and that is what most of this post is about.  I have been surprised by what the Obama administration is NOT doing on climate change. I think that I finally have it figured out and it is not good news.  Details on the jump.  

In a week when some attention was given to 350.org’s efforts to protest a coal fired power plant furnishing electricity to the Capitol building, the Governor of NY was meeting with energy folks to set aside the emissions cap / trade requirements for yet another coal fired power plant. That, in itself, makes me wonder just how vulnerable AB 32 is.

The question here is similar to the moral hazard argument about bailouts, only this time the economists have another name for it. Time Inconsistent Policy.  It is just a fancy word for caving in.

I got really upset, because things were to not making sense.  For example, Joseph Romm at Climate Progress is a physicist with experience working in the Dept of Energy.  He seems to have it right. He is also a Sr. Fellow at the Center for American Progress, which seems to be Obama’s favorite think tank.

I was very surprised when I found that Climate Progress, with it’s message that Coal in NEVER Clean, does not represent CAP’s policy.  In fact, it is being set by a couple of lawyers, Ken Berlin and Robert Sussman.  Berlin’s experience is in helping corporations respond to environmental regulation.

I won’t repeat it all since I already blogged it at California Greening.

We are all going to have to watch the AB 32 implementation very, very closely or we will end up like New York.  

I have just begun reading James K. Galbraith’s 2008 book, the Predator State.  While he was writing mostly about the administration and policies of George W. Bush, what we seen now in California seems to me to be the death throes of a movement that has lost all pretense of relevance and is only holding on to the myths of a past era. The liturgy still demands that they chant “no new taxes” but no one is even reading their lips any more.  

It makes sense to ask what the conservative economics, and by implication conservative politicians, have to say about any of our current concerns, as Galbraith did.  

Do they have an alternative to our oil addiction, to imperial commitment, to global warming? No.  Did they have a program of recovery for the city of New Orleans? No. Is there a realistic conservative plan for health care? No. There is merely opposition to everyone else’s ideas. Predator State p. 8

 In giving lip service to the power of the market to guide us, they replaced oversight and regulation with winks and nods, instead of even experienced technocrats, they gave us cronies and lobbyists as regulators all under the guidance of California Republican Christopher Cox. We see the same playing out in the rhetoric of a Chuck Devore who is clearly using the current budget crisis for his own political advantage, hoping to secure a place on the ballot of a failing party.

The world of free market excess that coalesced behind Reagan and Thatcher was an experiment that failed.  It has been abandoned by policy makers at all levels and is no longer given more liturgical reference by policy makers at any level. Stripped of political power around the world, led in Congress by a John Boehner who seems to be such good fodder for comedy that he attracted Dan Akroyd back to SNL, they cling to those last few enclaves in which they can have any influence.  Unfortunately, the only place where that seems true in in Sacramento.

From my own conversations with my State Senator, it feels as if Maldonado is un-Abel  to give up on the idea of a political career… it beats farming… and knows that he as to have a big list of victories to show Republicans if he has any hope of winning a primary battle for statewide office. I believe that his tendency would have been to settle this long ago but that he has not the courage to lay his political career on the line for the sake of anybody, or in this case, for the preservation of a functioning state government.

So, we are left with a true predator state, and a predatory Republican Party, cornered and lashing out with the only weapon left, the ability to vote NO.  Such predators are dangerous as they could do much damage before they die.