Well, and the ball is officially in the Governor (Once and Future) Jerry Brown’s court.  In a brief, one sentence ruling, the California Supreme Court (well, actually some appellate justices sitting in for the Supreme Court), left the stay from the lower court in place.

“The petition for writ of mandate and request for immediate relief from stay are denied.” (Document here

So, Governor Schwarzenegger will now have to see how Jerry Brown feels about this particular gimmick. It is worth pointing out that Brown refused to defend these sales, take of that what you will.

Oh, the heady days of 2003; there was a perfect storm brewing that Gray Davis could do nothing to stop. Darrell Issa was busy tossing around his car security cash around in order to be elected governor in the recall election.  Of course, that never happened, as Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped in to the race, and the rest is history.  But what is the CW on that?

Well, if there is a source of Sacramento CW, certainly George Skelton is your man.  And today, he declares that the recall was folly:

One thing should now be evident as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger packs up his office: It was a mistake to recall Gray Davis.

Davis didn’t deserve it. He had just been reelected the year before. He would have been out of office in three years anyway.

Schwarzenegger wasn’t an improvement except for, briefly, providing entertainment. He didn’t make the state’s money mess any better. In fact, it has gotten worse. (LA Times)

Of course, seeing where he is now in the polls, and the position the state is in right now, this takes no great source of conventional wisdom.  During the last seven years, Arnold made some pretty important moves.  But, ultimately, he was a failure because he didn’t understand the system, and his only attempts to change it were at the margin where it is safe and cuddly.

He billed himself as a reformer, and the only reforms he could get through were do-nothing reforms like redistricting and Top 2.  He billed himself as somebody who could sweep away the debt and deficit, but really, he was in no position to do either.  And he never even seriously tried to work for real change on the budget system.  He was content to further aggrandize the Big 5 system, making the system even more closed than it was in the past.

Gray Davis got rolled, but as we learned from Prop 8, the voters of this state can make mistakes.  Some they learn quickly, and others it takes a few years.  It seems with the Mistakinator, it took about 6 years.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been pressing pretty hard for the sale (and subsequent lease-back) of state buildings.  He thinks it nets us $1.2 Bn in short term dollars, and that’s true.  But long term? Well, the other side is a business, so they understand that it is a long-term win for the corporate interests financing this little ploy.  So, needless to say, Schwarzenegger was miffed when the California Court of Appeal, Sixth Appellate District blocked the sale from going forward.

Well, the administration has now filed an appeal, and clearly they are worried that Governor Elect Brown will not be nearly as interested in this gimmick:

Schwarzenegger’s attorneys, in a legal brief filed Monday, asked the high court to step in “because time is of the essence and the transaction must close by year end or probably be lost forever.”

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The state Legislature approved the sale in 2009, and Schwarzenegger has vigorously pursued it since.

“For those who say that California is ungovernable, this litigation should serve as Exhibit A,” Schwarzenegger’s lawyers wrote. “This court must act now to prevent this abuse of the legal process by those who put their own petty grievances above the will of the people and the needs of this state.” (LA Times)

If the Supreme Court does not remove the stay from the appellate court, the sale will have to be ultimately concluded by the Brown administration. Brown has previously declined to defend the actions in court, so he’s obviously not a big fan of the plan.  As to whether he wants to dig out another $1.3 billion of debt, well that’s a good question.  However, Brown now seems inclined to stare headlong into the abyss of the budget, and completing this sale seems pretty much the opposite of that.

Expect a ruling from the CA Supreme Court very soon.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s veto of almost a billion of spending, primarily for the neediest Californians couldn’t have come at a worse time.  To recap, now is a good time to allow the needy to starve, the sick to suffer, and the elderly to go unassisted, but a bad time to increase taxes a single penny on the wealthiest Californians. Sen. Steinberg has indicated that he will attempt to reverse the cuts under a new governor, but that is still a ways away.

Anyway, some legislators and child care activists held a press conference in the East Bay yesterday, and managed to get a few members of the press there. It is still pretty big news that over a quarter of a billion for working parents on CalWORKS was cut, at least for non-insiders.

Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s team has moved on.  Any discussion of that news is just rehashing battles already fought. That the cuts are about to take effect, and the devestation about to be wreaked on families across the state, well, pay no mind to that.  It just isn’t news.  Reporters spilling ink on the subject are basically historians wasting their time…or so says Aaron McLear, the governor’s spokesman.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear this afternoon questioned why, despite today’s news conference and the veto’s impending effects, I’m bothering to report about a veto that happened weeks ago – “We’re having a presser tomorrow to overturn Prohibition. Hope you can make it.” – and referred questions to state Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer.

(Asked if he really wanted to be so cavalier about a veto that will impact so many families, McLear responded by e-mail, “Sounds like you’re writing from a particular point of view – interesting reporting. Just making sure u know this story is weeks old.”) (InsideBayArea)

I suppose when you are walking through Brentwood, admiring the scenery, you don’t really see the people suffering from the cuts.  But they are real, and their stories worth telling.  That the Governor’s staff is that heartless should be no surprise at this point, though.

While it isn’t likely that the Legislature will be able to come up with the 2/3, Steinberg is hoping to wait out Gov. Schwarzenegger:

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg  will try to reverse Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s line-item budget vetoes when the next legislative session begins in December, according to his spokeswoman, Alicia Trost. …

Steinberg’s strategy does not rely on overriding the line-item vetoes, which would take a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. Instead, it seems that Steinberg intends to ask Democrats to reauthorize spending for the programs slashed by the governor.

It’s unclear to what extent Steinberg’s plan relies upon passage of Proposition 25, which would reduce the state’s budget requirement of a supermajority vote to a majority vote. Even without passage of Proposition 25, lawmakers could appropriate funds for education on a majority vote – including the $256 million in child care funds that Schwarzenegger vetoed.(SacBee)

Schwarzenegger went behind the back of the Legislature and blue penciled cuts that he knew the Democrats could not abide.  Now we need to ensure that Brown wins, but one hopes that he would be amenable to these programs.

After the budget deal was done, Arnold reached for his blue pencil.  The blue pencil was not kind to California, and for some it meant the difference between getting back on their feet, and struggling to survive…or worse.

The list of whom the $1b in cuts attacks reads like a who’s who of the most vulnerable Californians.  Foster children, the disabled, AIDS patients, struggling working families, you name it, Arnold attacked.

Schwarzenegger sliced $962 million from the spending plan sent to him by the Legislature 100 days after the start of the fiscal year July 1.

In most cases, the governor explained his line-item vetoes with boilerplate language saying the cuts were necessary to “help bring ongoing expenditures in line with existing resources and to build a prudent reserve.” In some cases Schwarzenegger pointed out that alternative funding might be available to blunt the effect of his reductions, or suggested that California will seek federal money to offset the loss of state dollars.

But those explanations did not satisfy the governor’s many critics, some of whom felt betrayed by his actions.

Sarah Jimenez, communications director for the County Welfare Directors Association, released a statement from the group calling Schwarzenegger a “hypocrite.” She noted that just last week, the governor signed Assembly Bill 12, a bill extending services to youth in foster care until age 21, and spoke about his commitment to children.(Healthy Cal)

While Schwarzenegger points out that many of these cuts may be offset by other sources of revenue, many will not. CalWORKS has now been cut to a hollow shell of its former self.  It was once a model for the type of welfare reform that the neoliberals, Clinton and many Republicans, said they could support.  Now that the Right has moved far to the right of their 1980s counterparts, that is completely out of fashion.  That it was successful at both stabilizing families and getting members of the community back into the work force seems to be secondary at this point.

Foster children will continue to be left for the most part to fend for themselves as they age out of the system, and AIDS patients have to hope that pharma wants to continue to get the federal match.  It’s government by hope and prayer, not a productive system for sustainable government.

In an ideal world, labor wouldn’t have to spend their negotiations on the subject of givebacks of gains they have made in the past. But, this is far from an ideal world, and labor has been up against the wall to do just that.  However, for far too long the Governor has declined to negotiate in good faith, instead unilaterally declaring furlough days and otherwise attacking state workers.

But, of course, there is that first way. You know, where labor and the administration work cooperatively towards a shared goal of a functioning state government.  And while this isn’t necessarily the vision of a functioning government that we would like to see, at least there was some cooperation:

The contract includes a one-day-a-month “personal leave program” that amounts to a 5% pay cut for the union’s 95,000 members in the first year. It also lowers the pension levels for future employees and requires current workers to contribute an additional 3% toward their retirement.

Union workers would be exempt from furloughs or being paid minimum wage during any future budget impasses.

“This was a hard-fought negotiation but we proved that collective bargaining works,” SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker said in a prepared statement. “We reached an agreement that helps the state maintain services, during this unprecedented fiscal crisis, while providing stability for our members.” (LA Times)

The deal lasts for three years, and will clear up one of the bigger remaining sticking points for the budget approval process.

Governor Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman aren’t really seen around town too often.  Whitman can’t seem to get far enough from Arnold, and with his record, who would blame her.  Yet, as Meg Whitman attempts to make California into Texas, Governor Schwarzenegger is lashing out at the terrible Texas two, Valero and Tesoro, who have been funding Prop 23’s effort to kill California’s regulation of greenhouse gas pollution.

Schwarzenegger, speaking before several hundred people at the Commonwealth Club in Santa Clara, said the proponents of Prop. 23 are attempting to subvert the democratic process using scare tactics. He likened the campaign to a shell game hiding what he said was the real purpose: “self-serving greed.”

“They are creating a shell argument that they are doing this to protect jobs,” the governor said. “Does anybody really believe they are doing this out of the goodness of their black oil hearts – spending millions and millions of dollars to save jobs?”

Schwarzenegger said AB32, which he signed into law in 2006, will create jobs by allowing California to establish a “green economy” featuring solar energy, hydrogen power, bio-energy and a renewable electricity standard that will provide “the seed money for the world’s energy revolution.”

The only job losses or costs, he said, would be in polluting industries like Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp., both of which have refineries in California that climate experts say are sources of greenhouse gas emissions.(SacBee)

The tone of Schwarzenegger’s attacks were as surprising as anything else, so it is worth watching the Olbermann clip up top to here the audio of the speech.  He puts the lie to the notion that Prop 23 is going to “save a million jobs.”

It is striking that Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has attempted to throw the state off the cliff through his shock doctrine budget techniques.  But even for him, this is a bridge too far.

The Governor is off to China, and he’s left his trusty puppet lieutenant in charge of the place.  And look, he even gets to play like he’s important, getting to sign bills and everything!

Maldonado, who is battling San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in the November election for lieutenant governor, is making arrangements to hold a bill signing ceremony in front of Bell City Hall on Monday, according to an e-mail to that city from one of his staffers. A spokeswoman confirmed Maldonado may sign AB 900, which would refund property taxes overcharged by the city of Bell.

“Should the bill be sent to the governor’s office, the people of Bell deserve to have their money returned to them,” said Erin Shaw, a spokeswoman for Maldonado. “The lieutenant governor will be in Los Angeles on Monday and it makes sense for our staff to put our logistics in place should he be needed to expedite the state’s business.”

Having been appointed lieutenant governor by Schwarzenegger, who is seen as his mentor, it appears Maldonado is getting some assistance from the governor to grab the media spotlight, according to the e-mail, which talks of the governor’s office supplying some of the equipment for the ceremony. (LA Times)

I guess St. Abel is now completely buried the hatchet with the Governor over their little dispute about whether he really loved him or not.  In theory, it isn’t really all that common for Lt. Governors to actually sign legislation, mostly because they are frequently of differing parties in California. But, in this case, St. Abel has so much experience being Arnold’s sock puppet, there really isn’t anything new going on here.  When you see Abel, you might as well see Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And the people of California just loooooove Arnold Schwarzenegger these days, right?

Hey look at that, a better than expected August bought us some time to avoid IOUs:

The Democratic controller said the state took in 3.9 percent more revenues in August than the Department of Finance projected it would. Chiang said the August cash totals were sufficient to ward off an IOU threat for now. He previously said IOUs might be necessary by mid-September at the latest.(SacBee)

Not sure what that will do to get the budget in place any sooner, but as for right now, with Arnold in Asia, a deal still seems a long way off.  It just might be that we don’t have anything until the election is decided.  In case this election needed to become more important, well, there you have it.