I’ll admit I’m a little incredulous, but Media News has Sen. Abel Maldonado as the Governor’s pick to replace John Garamendi as Lt. Governor.

The choices seem endless as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ponders his pick to fill the now-vacant lieutenant governor’s job. But the path that many expect the governor to take invariably leads back to one person: Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria.

Several sources close to the administration said privately that Maldonado is the likely choice for two reasons: He has bailed out the governor with a number of critical votes – on budgets and taxes, for which the governor may feel some debt – and would sail through the Democratic-controlled Legislature for confirmation.

“Schwarzenegger has settled on Maldonado. I’m hearing it’s him,” one person close to the administration said, asking not to be identified. (CoCo Times 11/6/09)

The relationship between Maldonado and Arnold really is a complicated one.  Arnold didn’t endorse Abel back in his statewide primary for Controller, which he eventually lost to Asm. Keith Richman. However, a day after the primary, Abel attacked Arnold for not doing enough for him, saying “When he needs Latinos, Latinos are always there for him … when Latinos need him, the answer’s been no.”.  And then a day later he apologized.  It was all very dramatic.

But since that time, Maldo has done everything he can to get back in the Governor’s good graces.  Going so far as to basically being his bad cop on negotiations to get the Top-2 primary system that will end up being a waste of Democratic resources.

And from a standpoint of getting this through, it seems to have less enemies throwing roadblocks.  In the senate you will have the 4 LG candidates opposed, but whether they can muster the votes to block confirmation is an open question. It seems the only way to get a Republican LG, and for the Dems it gives them a shot at Maldo’s senate district. Can anybody say Sen. John Laird?

If Arnold is really serious about this, I think he just keeps Bob Hertzberg as Plan B or perhaps just leaves the office empty.

Reaction to the water deal that was approved over the last few days, first by the Senate and then by the Assembly, has been trickling in. If you care to listen to an hour-long program, I recommend the KQED Forum program embedded here.

There was some question as to what the federal response to the measure would be. And, well, apparently Sec. of the Interior Ken Salazar is on board:

Thanks to the California legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger, Californians now have the opportunity to choose a more secure and sustainable water future.  This landmark package is a critical step toward bringing California’s water infrastructure into the 21st century while restoring California’s Bay Delta, on which millions of Californians depend for clean drinking water and their livelihoods.  I applaud the leadership, courage, and vision of everyone who helped bring this desperately-needed legislation across the finish line.  We will continue to need all hands on deck – at the federal, state, and local levels – in the coming months as we face the possibility of a fourth year of drought and sobering water realities.

And as for DiFi, who has long been close to the Westlands Water District, well, her reaction wasn’t such a mystery.

It should be clear to all of us that the current water infrastructure is inadequate to support California’s growing population and businesses that depend on clean water. This includes people in our cities, the high-tech sector, fisheries, tourism, and of course, our State’s multibillion-dollar agricultural sector. So, this package is really critical to all Californians.

I urge all Californians to support the bond issue. It must be said once more that California has a water infrastructure built for a population of 16 million people. Today, our population is rapidly approaching the 40 million mark. So, the modernization and improvement of our State’s water infrastructure is long overdue.

Meanwhile, on the other side of this, you have a growing crowd of organized labor, including the United Farmworkers Union, the California Teachers Association, and the SEIU State Council. They all have slightly different concerns, but at the heart of it is the financing. They are concerned that the debt service will start devouring the budget, and at an estimated 10% of the budget, that is a reasonable concern.

As others have noted, this package opens the door wide open for a peripheral canal.  Whether you think that is a good thing appears to depend on your perspective, with the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District (SRCSD) pounding on this issue.

There’s a long time between now and November 2010, but we will be hearing a lot about this bond by the time we go to the polls.

(You can find Poizner’s remarks here. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Willie Brown has been known to bring in big names, and it is really hard to say no when he asks you to come speak at one of his events, or any event really.  So, as you may have guessed, everybody was at his “Breakfast Club” this morning. Arnold, all the candidates, and, well, everybody except the reclusive Meg Whitman. You’ll have to forgive my camera work.

The speeches went as you would expect them.  Poizner, Campbell, and Brown all gave speeches. All of which I missed, however, I did get reports from a solid (Democratic) source, who called Tom Campbell the best of the bunch.  Jerry Brown’s speech was just a standard stump speech, and according to Carla Marinucci, Brown has no inclination to announce his candidacy anytime soon.  And Poizner, well, he was Poizner.  

Check out the full wrap over the flip.

Poizner apparently lectured the crowd, especially any educators in the group, about how principals ignored him when he cold-called schools wanting to teach.  Let’s rewind to get the background on this.  Poizner knew he wanted to get himself elected to something after he made a bunch of money in the business world. So, he started calling principals of many local peninsula schools. Shockingly, nobody called the crazy guy back who wanted to volunteer at the schools. Note to Poizner: You know how many pedophiles would have tried that game if we just opened up the doors to anybody with a halfway decent education? And just to show off how brilliant he truly is, he went ahead and listed off his accomplishments, and was shocked that a principal would find him unqualified for his own classroom. Because, in the Republican world, being successful in business makes you qualified for Everything!

I stood in at an impromptu press avail for Poizner with Carla Marinucci, and got a bit more information. He tweaked Whitman for not showing up at debates, and trying to wait until March. But the important, and kind of crazy part, was that Poizner said that he wants a clear mandate, and wants voters to buy into his (kind of scary) plans for the state. He doesn’t want the votes of those who don’t follow his plan for the state.  Kind of bold there.

Now, to Campbell, he delivered a speech saying that he was going to deliver “25 Whoppers” ie things that politicians say that have no real meaning. On the left and the right. From my source, I got some doozies like “You can lower taxes to raise revenue,” a direct shout out to Poizner’s “economic plan.”  And “Everything would be better if we ran the state like a business” was pointed toward Whitman, who has advocated that relentlessly.  Campbell pointed to the Legislature and said, how does that fit into a corporate structure?

Campbell is good, and if he can find some way to get through that Republican primary, he could be a very tough opponent for any Democrat, Jerry Brown or otherwise.  Of course, the fact that Campbell isn’t loaded in a race with two super-rich candidates is a major problem to his viability in the race. I actually think that his rhetoric could throw the race into a scrum even if he only runs as an independent.  But, again, money is the huge problem for Campbell. He just can’t raise enough to be really competitive.

And then Arnold struts on the stage, welcoming some elected officials saying how he loves the job. And four minutes into the speech he busts out with this line:

I’ve been hear four minutes, and nobody has screamed to kiss my gay ass yet. So I love this crowd.

Of course, this is a reference to Tom Ammiano’s remark at the SF DCCC gala event. However, I was unable to catch this part of the video, so you’ll have to do with his listing of reasons why he loves California. Sorry for the crazy camera work.

However, there was some substance to the speech. he discuss the stimulus package, of which he is a big fan. With $18.5 Billion already received, and the state expecting $50 bn. total, it is obviously a big deal. And to those who say it isn’t worth it, Arnold says to go ask the teachers who weren’t laid off whether it was worth it.  He also pitched California’s HSR, real HSR, not that 120 mph stuff they want to do on the East Coast. Arnold wants to get most, if not all, of the federal stimulus for HSR.

On water, Arnold outlined the problem, with most of the water coming from NorCal, and most of the users coming from SoCal. He clearly wants the Peripheral Canal. He framed it as part of Pat Brown’s infrastructural plan of the 1960s, and it was just one part that never got built.  Good idea, but those who have followed will remember that it was more than just funding that was blocking the construction of the peripheral canal. He wants the bond package to pass with both Rep and Dem support, and it will likely be around $10 bn.

He then goes on to praise ever possible aspect of Arne Duncan, Obama’s education secretary, for the “race to the top” scheme. He had always wanted to create the link between achievement and teacher pay, and this is how he is getting it done, by hanging federal cash over the heads of the CTA. He is also excited at the opportunity for greater public school choice, and to allow students from any area enroll in any school. Of course, this is hugely problematic for the neighborhood school concept and having schools in the bad parts of town across the state. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the motivated parents will move their kids to the good schools, while those who aren’t so caring let their kids sit in the bad schools. Making the good schools better, and the bad schools worse.  It’s a recipe to leave a whole group of children behind. But as I wrote in my notes: Arnold Hearts Duncan.

Arnold can’t pass up any opportunity to rail against the tax system, but he only lightly suggested the Parsky plan. It is clear that that particular plan is dead in the water, Arnold really wants to get some changes in before 2010 elections roll around. Whether these changes will be good for the state is an open question.

The Southern California water agencies are generally big cheerleaders for the water plan. They see it as a step towards getting water diversion around the delta, and around the fish pulverizing pumps.

But there are some tiny cracks in the unified front, namely over water conservation.

Ron Sullivan, board chairman of the Eastern Municipal Water District, one of Metropolitan’s member agencies, said there are worries about how the conservation rules would apply in the hot, arid Inland area.

Yet it seems unlikely the dispute would derail the legislation, which marks the most concerted attempt in decades to address the state’s contentious water politics. A likelier pitfall is opposition by some liberals and conservatives to the idea of additional borrowing by the state. (P-E 10/30/09)

In the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively minor issue. There are plenty of ways to fix this, but it does highlight one of the many rifts in the state over water, this one being the ol’ inland vs. coastal.  These water agencies are mostly serving urban users, so there aren’t the big differences for growing produce.

However, just between urban users there are some substantial water use differences between cool and hot climates. Humans will need a bit of extra water just to get by in the hotter temperatures, but where this really comes into play is landscaping.  It takes a lot more water to grow those lush green lawns when it’s 103 degrees.

Given that blue fescue doesn’t really grow wild in California, ecologically the best solution would be to regulate landscaping water separately. But upgrading our infrastructure to get to that point seems like more of a 30 year plan.

Or another solution would be to encourage the use of greywater to alleviate much of the use of fresh water for landscaping. Far too much water that could be used to water grass goes down the drain behind washing machines and the like.

Meanwhile, in terms of getting the water deal done, well, toss Sen. Steinberg another snack he’d rather not have on his plate.

This is one of the more outrageous quotes that you’ll see from our Governator:

“They are going absolutely crazy,” Schwarzenegger said of judges. “So we have to have a very serious conversation with the federal government, because they have to let us run the state.”

“Whenever they agree with me, they’re right, very simple,” Schwarzenegger said wryly when told they sometimes rule in his favor. “When they don’t agree with me, they’re wrong and they’re interfering with our governing of the state.” (SacBee)

I’m not sure what to say about this. The judges are doing their job, enforcing the law.  Arnold would like to be above the law, or at least all-powerful against the law.  Messed up as our Constitution may be, it does not yet grant the Governor dictatorial powers.

It must be frustrating when you are used to simply blasting your opponents with a ray-gun, but the judiciary is there for a reason.

We can get a portion of the way to meeting our future water needs with a bit more storage. But, quite simply, we can’t build our way out of the water crisis. No matter how much we build, we will not create additional rain or mitigate the effects that climate change will have upon the state.

So, conservation is where the rubber meets the road. Consider this:

New dams would produce up to 1 million acre-feet of water annually, compared with up to 3.1 million acre-feet freed up each year by new water efficiency programs, according to the delta task force, which cited state Department of Water Resources statistics. (Fresno Bee 10/21/09)

The question then is how we create some of the efficiencies to actually conserve the water. Some conservations are fairly straightforward. For example, many cities do not yet have water meters, installing them will rapidly reduce water usage as people get an idea of how much they are using and start paying for excessive use.

The bigger question is where these conservation gains will come from, and how do hold users accountable.  There are a number of questions to look at, and this Fresno Bee article does a pretty good job taking a look at some of the bigger issues.

One issue that seems to always pop up is the question of coastal vs non-coastal. In the current negotiations, Republicans are arguing that coastal cities aren’t required to do enough for conservation. Much of that is because many coastal cities have already put in some pretty effective conservation measures. Under the current proposal, the targets for each city are generally a 20% reduction, but cities that have already made reductions have to do less.

The biggest question is enforcement.  Republicans want to give the least possible teeth to this measure by assuring that their could not be any legal ramifications of failing to meet the requirements, which Democrats already say isn’t in the bill.  However, it isn’t at all clear that without the possibility of legal challenges there will be enough teeth to actually enforce with only some grants as a carrot for compliance.  In other words, the bill is all carrot, and no stick.  If you meet the targets, you get some extra grants, if you miss them, you don’t. But the water still gets pumped either way.

If this water package is going to last for more than 5 or 10 years, it is going to need to be able to require very strict water efficiency. However, the key is getting beyond short-term political gain to do what’s best for the state. Whether that happens appears to be up to the Legislative Republicans…again.

I can’t wait for my award from the Chamber of Commerce for all of my hard work, or perhaps from the Yes on Prop 8 Krew.  Because, clearly today is bizarro day if this report from the Capitol Weekly is true (and I have no doubt that it is):

The National Park Trust said it planned to honor Schwarzenegger on Oct. 29 with its 2009 Bruce F. Vento Public Service Award “for his leadership and innovation in the protection of public lands in California and for his life-long commitment to children’s health and to connecting them with the outdoors.”

*** *** ***

“When Schwarzenegger pulled the plug, instead of parks being completely closed, there were a lot of partial closures,” said Elizabeth Goldstein of the State Parks Foundation. “Half the restrooms in the state closed, and camps and trails. There were very severe cutbacks in services. We think this is going to affect the public a lot. Obviously, they won’t find completely closed gates 365 days a year, but the parks are far less maintained, and health and safety issues are getting taken care of less quickly.” (CapWeekly 10/20/09)

This is insane.  As Elizabeth Goldstein points out, he protected parks only insofar as he had to. If the governor would have really protected the parks, he wouldn’t have slashed additional funding with his blue pencil, and he wouldn’t have left the closure list hanging over the heads of the system for three months.

I have a lot of respect for the National Park Trust, but it’s like they just sent out invitations for awards to whatever megastar celebrity governor that they could get, and ended up with Arnold.  

With “protectors” like this, who needs enemies?

Late last week we learned that California’s unemployment rate dropped 0.1% in September, from 12.3% to 12.2%. That stat obscures far more than it reveals, including the fact that the 12.3% rate for August was an upward revision of the earlier reported number.

More significantly, the stat is not an accurate reflection of the job market in California. We actually lost 39,000 jobs in September. The only reason the rate appears to have dropped is that a significant number of the long-term unemployed have stopped looking for work and are no longer counted as “unemployed.

Nearly 1/3 of those lost jobs came from the public sector, as Steven Levy explained:

The state’s job losses were especially pronounced in construction, which lost 14,100 jobs over the month, and government, which lost 12,700.

Cutbacks in government employment, which includes public schools, are partly to blame for the state’s lackluster performance this month, said Stephen Levy of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy.

“We are disproportionately hit in the government sector because our state and local governments are having worse budget shortfalls than in other states,” he said. (LA Times, 10/17/09)

As Atrios said, that’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Government needs to be the employer of last resort, especially in a state that has the highest unemployment levels in 60 years. When 12,700 government employees lose their jobs, that translates into less consumer spending, which in turn means pressure to lay off more workers, all of which results in less tax revenue for the state, which merely exacerbates the vicious circle.

Yet Arnold Schwarzenegger simply doesn’t care about the unemployment crisis. Instead of working to create private sector jobs through the preservation and expansion of public sector jobs, Arnold has engaged in a right-wing shock doctrine attack on the basic services of the state, an attack that was never going to succeed before the recession hit.

Once upon a time conservative Republicans claimed job creation was their #1 task, and that we had to give corporations whatever they wanted to create jobs – tax cuts, regulation cuts, etc. California did so – and as a result we have a far larger recession and unemployment numbers than we’ve ever had when Big Government supposedly ruled our political economy.

Today, you’ll hear nary a peep out of the Republican Party about jobs. Sure, the Cal Chamber will publish its list of “job killer” bills, but that’s only the public excuse to give Arnold the reason he needs to veto bills he’d have vetoed anyway. Instead you have a party that simply does not care about unemployment and the jobless. Instead, to hear Chuck DeVore tell it, the unemployed should just leave California.

California Republicans see unemployment as an unalloyed good, something to be embraced as a tool to destroy what remains of the New Deal and create a working class utterly dependent upon and unable to resist corporate power. California’s economic policy has become nothing short of kleptocracy, justified by a constant media drumbeat demanding greater spending cuts, apparently for their own sake.

It is up to Democrats and progressives, then, to make the case to California that jobs matter, that jobs are what this state desperately needs, and that Republicans have not just given up on providing jobs, but are actively cheerleading  unemployment and attacking the jobless.

Of course, we don’t need jobs for their own sake. We need quality jobs, jobs that pay a living wage, jobs that are sustainable and not dependent on the latest asset bubble Ponzi scheme. And just as we learned in the 1930s, we need government to step in and provide them – instead of actively destroying them.

A couple of weeks ago, Dave wrote about Moby’s work to prevent murder and domestic violence in support of a bill by Senator Leland Yee.  Moby’s concert tomorrow at the Warfield in San Francisco will benefit domestic violence shelters.

This week, Senator Yee has made some progress on his front. His bill to earmark money from the crime victims fund for domestic violence shelters has gotten one step closer to reality.

The emergency bill authorized the transfer of $16.3 million to domestic violence shelters. While it doesn’t sound like much, it will likely be enough to keep many of them running through the year.

“Governor Schwarzenegger has put women and children at risk; he will now have a second chance to do the right thing,” said Yee.  “Each passing day only results in the closing of more domestic violence shelters and victims facing homelessness or returning to their abuser.”

“In order to keep the remaining domestic violence shelters open, it is absolutely vital that the Governor immediately sign this bill into law,” said Yee.  “Failure to do so will only result in increased health care, law enforcement and other costs to the state. But more critically, it puts victims of domestic violence and their children in grave danger.”

Schwarzenegger has said that he’s not inclined to sign the bill as the fund is heading towards depletion, but Arnold isn’t known as a man who gets himself dead set on anything.  We’ll see if he takes the initiative to help prevent some very serious crimes.