It's Spring Break!  Do you think all the legislators are off doing Spring Breaky things?  Drinking too much Anchor Steam and fine California zinfadels?  Well, wherever they may be, I'm sure they are having a blast.  Let's head to the links.

• Jude Barry, fresh off the Garamendi for Guv campaign, says that Silicon Valley will be huge in the contest. He compares all the candidates to Silicon Valley companies.  Shockingly, Whitman is eBay.
• 3,100 immigrant workers in the construction industry won a major settlement against their employers for labor violations, including wage and hour concerns.  The settlement comes to $8.5 million dollars.
• The SacBee compares our three year-long drought to Australia’s Millennium Drought.  Their survival plan offers a hint for what can happen here.
• Gov. Schwarzenegger hired Laura Chick, LA City Controller, to watch the stimulus funds.  Chick is a great person and all, but don't we have somebody for this job in the first place?  You know, the state auditor.  I know Auditor Elaine Howie is all busy making up rules for the redistricting commission, but watching the money coming into the state is really the point of her gig. Plus, you know, the state already has an elected controller, John Chiang, who does this type of thing too.  Boy, does he know how to blow up the boxes, doesn't he?
• The Screen Actors Guild and the studios are apparently getting close to a deal.  There were a lot of concerns of another strike, so good news is very welcome in Hollywood.
• You probably heard about IBM pulling its offer for Sun, but don't count this deal out yet.  There's not a whole lot of other competition for Sun, but the fit with IBM makes a lot of sense.
• With the passing of Dick O'Neill, who lead the state party in the pre-Jerry Brown days, Bill Cavala looks back at the era before professionalization of the CDP. O'Neill brought new ideas, like direct mail, to the CDP while reaching out to new areas of the state.

It's Thursday, so that means, well, it's the day before Friday. So let's get to the links:

• Dave mentioned the PPIC poll this morning, which foretold doom for the special election props, but also in there was a question about marriage. The results were not particularly inspiring. Apparently, we are backsliding in support.  By a margin of 49-44, Californians now oppose marriage equality.
• One of the budget gimmicks the Legislature used to close the deficit (or well, slightly alleviate it is a better word I suppose) was the sale of surplus state property. John Myers has a look at the state auditor's report that signals we may not actually be able to get all that much money into the general fund from the property.
• Sen. Loni Hancock has introduced a bill to track ammunition magazines for assault rifiles. The technology is fairly new, so it wasn't included in the 1999 bill to ban assault rifles, but with the attention focused on loose ammunition due to the Oakland police shootings, now seems a good time to bring this up.  The bill needs to be passed quickly, and should draw broad support.
• Speaking of assault rifles, one of the leading opponents has been our very own Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Given the other things up for debate in Congress, it's not likely to get a lot of attention, but we certainly should be considering renewing the lapsed assault weapons ban.
• A $280 million check from the feds for water projects is creating a split between rural and urban economically depressed regions.  As it stands now, rural areas would be eligibile for grants, but urban areas would only be eligible for loans.  You can guess how that is going to play out. Legislation has already passed the Senate, but the Assembly wants to amend it to make urban areas eligible for the grants.  We should get an answer in the next week or two.
• How about a little Steve Poizner news for you? Check out his NotAnotherDimeCalifornia.Com. It's as wingnutty as you would expect with that name. It's a full-throated anti-tax scream, just to make sure the primary electorate really understands his street cred. And of course, a little nudge to the nativist base. Well, I'm glad that they are all running for the Republican Governor of California, because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that they are going to kill that job well and good with their primary performances to date.
• Appellate lawyer Tracy Emblem will challenge Brian Bilbray in CA-50.  My feeling is that CA-50 is a tease of a district where Democratic candidates always peter out at 45-46%, but Obama did beat McCain there, so theoretically a better candidate could yield results.  Emblem is focusing on, and this will floor you, health care, infrastructure and clean energy!  She also is calling for bankruptcy courts to be able to cram down loan modifications on the lenders.  Hopefully we’ll be able to bring you more from Tracy Emblem in the coming months.  The article announcing her candidacy is here and her website is here.
• Have I mentioned lately that Darrell Issa is a dick?  His latest move is to “regulate the first lady,” which has nothing to do with the public interest and everything to do with embarrassing the President.
• Maria Shriver was on Capitol Hill yesterday, pushing for increases in Alzheimer’s research.  The hearing was the result of a bipartisan study into the disease and the exorbitant cost of treating it currently.
• That Fran Pavley is back on greenhouse gas patrol working to reduce emissions should be a breath of fresh air, literally, for every Californian.  She’s currently digging into how the state will use the money likely to be gained by auctioning carbon credits under AB 32.

Here we go:

• A few days ago, Speaker Pelosi called some of the more extreme immigration raids un-American. It’s hard to argue with the statement from any logical perspective, but the comments brought the ire of the nativist crowd. It’s good to see her sticking by the remarks.

• Secretary of State Debra Bowen settled her lawsuit against ES&S, the voting machine company for a smidge over $3 million. The company sold a bunch of machines to counties that were not properly certified by the state, but represented that they were.  The bulk of the machines went to San Francisco.

• The Sacramento Bee is doing a project by project database tracking all stimulus funding in Sacramento and the surrounding area.  This is a huge undertaking for a newspaper, and I think the search engine needs to improve a bit, but generally this is a nice effort.

• LA has a huge backlog of untested rape kits. In theory, the DNA data acquired is supposed to be entered into a national database, but LA is years behind.

• George Skelton points out that school districts are mad about cuts to technical education after Sen. Steinberg said it was his top priority.

Once again, SoapBlox is having some problems.  I’ve just returned home from a trip to India, and I’m not sure if my jet-lagged brain is up to the task of fully dealing with the situation.  I honestly don’t know whether the long-term future of the site will be with SoapBlox or whether it will head in other directions.  I can only promise that in the coming days I will do my best to figure out a plan to provide some sort of stability.

That being said, there was some stuff going on today that is worth a mention.

• During our extended outage, D-Day wrote a post on his blog about the Yacht Party’s attempts (so far successful) to block the bills that would allow the state to obtain the full stimulus payments.

• Meg Whitman is going all out against props 1A-1C on the special election, the bills to implement the month-old budget “deal” that is already under water.  The so-called moderate’s opinion piece in the Bee is pretty much Yacht Party orthodoxy respun.  Taxes are always evil, yada, yada. Whitman is positioning to the right of Abel Maldanado, Arnold Schwarzenegger, heck, even Mike Villines.  That I might end up voting the same way as her on the spending cap, does nothing to diminish the fact that she is now attempting to win the CA GOP nomination by running for Governor of Alabama.  She’ll need to spend more than $150 million if this is her plan.

• Former Sen. Pres. Pro Tem. Don Perata testified in the case of the carjacking of his pimped-out 22 inch rimmed Dodge Charger.

• Palo Alto joins San Francisco in banning plastic bags from grocery stores. Chemical companies plan on suing the city.

• Asm. Diane Harkey’s (R-Dana Point) husband is being sued for fraud involving real estate lending.  The scandal threatens Harkey, as she has a considerable financial stake in the company.

Ok, there may be one or two things going on besides the budget:

• Your daily Meg Whitman update from Carla Marinucci: She’s named a finance team. Predicatably it’s loaded with CEOs.  Because, you know, CEOs are really popular these days.

• Home prices in Southern California have fallen to 2002 levels. Sales have picked up, but most of that is bargain hunting for foreclosures.  The median price for homes has fallen by close to 40% from a year ago in some counties. Home sales in Sacto have also increased, also for the same reasons.

• The Bee has a profile of new Minority Senate Leader Dennis “Zed” Hollingsworth

• There’s a new airline in LAX.

More news outside of the budget

• Despite a week’s worth of rain in Southern California, Los Angeles is still unsustainably dry, and the Department of Water and Power is contemplating water rationing for the first time in two decades.  Homes and businesses will be charged double for “excessive” water use.  I’m not sure this will work, as you don’t see the meter running in the shower.

• In response to the shooting of Oscar Grant, Asm. Ammiano and Sen. Yee have introduced legislation to create a civillian oversight body. AB 312 should create some accountability where there was no formal structure in the past.

• A very interesting article comparing Prop. 8 to the anti-housing discrimination law of the 1960s is in the Sac Bee.

• The CA Labor Fed is having an event tomorrow with Father Michael Kiernan, Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento,Dr. Chris Benner, Professor of Regional Economic Development, UC Davis, Dean Murakami, President of Los Rios College Federation of Teachers-AFT Local 2279, and Sacramento workers at the Matsui Courthouse, (501 I Street, Sacramento.) tomorrow at 11:00 a.m.  The event will highlight an upcoming report showing the benefits of increased unionization in the state.

• I just got an email from Bill Durston, announcing that he may not be running again for CA-03. That’s a disappointment, as Durston came quite close.  I think 2010 might be the year that we knock Dan Lungren out, let’s just hope we get a strong candidate.

• What Washington taketh away, Sacramento giveth? The stimulus package originally had a provision for film production in the US, but that was removed by the Senate. The Wall Street Journal peers into the budget for a review of the proposal here.

• The LA Times’ Steve Lopez takes a look at former LA planning commission member Jane Usher’s beef with the LA establishment.

• Blogger and econ professor at Berkeley Brad DeLong is calling on his chancellor to fire John Yoo.  It’s a great letter, go read it.

• Tourism is headed in the wrong direction. Estimates show it down by about 8% in 2009. It’s hardly shocking considering the economy and the increasing strength of the dollar, but it’s still more bad news for the state.

Other things happening around the state

• Who said Republicans never lifted a finger to save anybody from a burning car? Well, not me.  Asm. Curt Hagman(R-Chino HIlls) apparently saved two people from their burning car right outside of his apartment.

• The Meg Whitman for Governor campaign is getting a ton of attention from the media. And why not? She has so much experience lowering costs by outsourcing jobs and employing slave labor that she would certainly be able to build barbie dolls for our kids to hold while they aren’t attending public schools. As for fixing the state’s structural problems, well, I peg her chances somewhere between those of Gary Coleman and the Ask a Ninja guy. I take that back. Gary Coleman might be able to get us a payday loan, that’s probably better than Whitman could do.

There is a video on the SF Chronicle’s site. It’s almost funny how she tries to use the Arnold post-partisan rhetoric while at the same time trying to woo the crazy wingers that are in the GOP primary.  How exactly do you say that you would never vote to raise taxes at the same time that you are arguing that the legislators can’t see past their narrow ideological barriers.  The logic, or lack there of, of it all is just staggering.

• There could be another problem for Whitman: she’s not the typical GOP candidate, ie a white dude. The obstacles to her getting the GOP nomination are really quite staggering.  Honestly, if I were her, I would just say screw the GOP, I can win this without them.

• At least the stimulus will help out with the HSR plans.

• CapAlert’s story about how Chuck DeVore tried and failed to remove Mike Villines from power, based apparently on a email between the two Republicans leaked to the John and Ken show that forced DeVore’s hand, is really symptomatic of Yacht Party politics and how the game is played.  It’s really like a junior-high playground over there, not a political party.  

• The idea that filmmaker Roman Polanski is seeking to get his child sex charges dismissed based on a separate filmmaker’s documentary about the case folds life and art on their collective heads in interesting ways such that the whole story becomes a kind of Moebius Strip… UPDATED the judge denied the motion for dismissal but suggested that he only did it because of Polanski’s fugitive status, and that there is credible evidence to dismiss the case.

• The funny caption contests are usually fun, but I have to say I find the selection of Schwarzenegger’s Finance Director Mike Genest’s caption of a picture with DiFi and CIA chief Leon Panetta sort of offensive, and clearly a partisan stab at our junior senator.  The caption? “As long as you’ll be working on Intelligence, can you do something for Senator Boxer’s?”

• This really isn’t anything new, but I wanted to once again commend John Myers of KQED for his tremendous Twitter feed.I think Myers is, if not revolutionizing, certainly evolving the journalistic use of twitter to cover a news-worthy event.  Last night I was at Drinking Liberally, but I was able to quickly pull up my twitter feed, and there was the latest budget news, in 140 character bites. Twitter allows real-time publishing that even puts blogs to shame. He has poured an incredible amount of time into these tweets, basically supplementing his additional workload.  If you can, please think about supporting the nation’s most listened to public radio station, KQED. I just renewed my membership. Please note your support for John Myers in the “comments” section. I forgot when I renewed, but I want to make sure he gets the credit he so richly deserves.

How about some non-budget news?

• A conservative student got the Alliance Legal Defense Fund (the same folks who helped out on the legal case to protect Prop 22) to help him sue LA City College for the response from his teachers critical of his speech supporting Prop 8. Apparently several students, and then the teacher, got visibly angry over his public speaking assignment.

• Exactly why did LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa give the headline prayer at the annual prayer breakfast to Pastor Rick Warren this weekend?  And why were no other communities of faith but Christians represented?  Lisa Derrick at La Figa has more.

• The Meg Whitman for Governor campaign gets a somewhat agnostic review from the LA Times’ Michael Hiltzik.  He thinks the jury is out.  Well, I suppose an open mind is nice, but during the budget disaster her statement against any tax increases is simply out of touch with reality. She would be even worse of a failure than Arnold Schwarzenegger. In other words EPIC FAIL.

• Here’s a balanced report on Los Angeles’ Measure B, the solar power initiative, from Grist.  If I were an LA city voter I honestly don’t know how I’d vote on this – there are valid arguments on both sides.

• California is the leading producer of dairy products in the nation.  So, the collapse in milk prices is hitting the state pretty hard.  In the short term, a lot of farmers are turning to slaughtering their dairy cows for meat because they cannot afford the feed.

• Speaking of agriculture (or not), Teddy Partridge takes another look at the “Chile option” state break-up plan.

• Ok, this is budget related. Sorry. It looks like one of the items that got chopped was the UC Riverside medical school. The school needs a boost of cash to gets going, but will now have to look to other sources to get started.

• For a lot of reasons, the increased enrollment at Adult Schools is a really good thing. Unfortunately, it is clearly a symptom of the terrible economy, and it will put an additional strain on the budget.  The schools were originally intended as a sort of retiree FunEd, but have now become a great system providing GED classes and support, literacy training, and vocational training.

• Finally, I think this story just about sums up California these days: During this weekend’s budget lockdown, Lance Armstrong came to Sacramento to participate in the Tour de California.  And then, after the race, his bike was stolen from the truck.

Bonus: Marie Lakin at Ventura County Star’s Making Waves Blog has a good take on the budget disaster vis a vis Grover Norquist.