Some links that I’ve picked up along the way:

• Assemblymember and former Banking Committee Chair Ted Lieu had a good piece yesterday on the foreclosure crisis and how continuing a laissez-faire attitude toward a deregulated lending industry is a recipe for even more disaster.  AB 1830 is the vehicle to crack down on irresponsible lenders and ban risky loans.

• Steve Wiegand writes about the circuitous route the Governor has taken this year, first toward fiscal austerity, then toward revenue enhancement, and everywhere in between.  Schwarzenegger is completely squeezed, knowing his legacy and reputation is on the  line and at his wit’s end over how to bridge the chasm between Republican intransigence and a way forward for California.

• The California Labor Fed has released its endorsements for legislative races.  Not a lot of surprises here, nor a lot of variance from the CDP endorsements, although Carole Migden and Bob Blumenfield didn’t see their endorsements vacated on the convention floor.  The Labor Fed can endorse multiple candidates in one race, which allows them to wiggle out of some of the more contested primaries (in AD-14 they actually had a TRIPLE endorsement).  The Labor Fed does bring member education, and in some cases money and volunteers, so it’s not a little thing.

• Wired’s Autopia looks at LA’s future in mobility.  In a word, I would call the report frustrating.  It’s basically going to take forever until the city truly has the transit system it deserves; right now, just 7% of the city uses mass transit.

• Mayor Villaraigosa takes a strong stand against ICE raids.

“I am concerned that ICE enforcement actions are creating an impression that this region is somehow less hospitable to these critical businesses than other regions,” Villaraigosa wrote in a March 27 letter to Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security […]

In his letter, Villaraigosa said ICE has targeted “established, responsible employers” in industries that have a “significant reliance on workforces that include undocumented immigrants.”

“In these industries, including most areas of manufacturing, even the most scrupulous and responsible employers have no choice but to rely on workers whose documentation, while facially valid, may raise questions about their lawful presence,” he wrote. He said ICE should spend its limited resources targeting employers who exploit wage and hour laws.

“At a time when we are facing an economic downturn and gang violence at epidemic levels, the federal government should focus its resources on deporting criminal gang members rather than targeting legitimate businesses,” said Matt Szabo, the mayor’s spokesman.

In general I agree with worksite rules enforcement, but the issue does seem to be out of proportion and balance.  It’s selective.

• This is a really interesting and refreshingly honest article by Brad Plumer on the SEIU/UHW situation.

This is really shocking to the conscience (via SadlyNo)

I don’t think we have a full appreciation of what’s really happening in these exurbs.  This is a crime.

By the way, the most lucid explanation I’ve seen about how this housing crisis happened is in this Web comic, of all places.  Basically the investment banks tried to put together a pyramid scheme, knowing that it was fated to fail but hoping that they were more clever than everyone and nobody would find out, and the housing market would hold out at the historically anomalous levels it was headed in 2004-2005.  I remember being told in 2005 when I was looking for a house that “nobody gets a fixed mortgage anymore.”  That was the mentality from the banks, the lenders, the investors.  The goal was to shovel more and more people into mortgages, no matter their credit history.  Everybody benefited; government, industry, financial institutions.  There was no check on this forward motion, the regulation that was needed.  Unregulated capitalism will always step in the “Shitpile” this way.  And the banks and the lawmakers will all get bailed out, at the expense of these people in the Hoovervilles Bushvilles.

Looks like that Dec. 5 deadline for voting on a health care proposal has been extended, after the power play of scheduling it on the day of the Republican Assembly retreat was justified by the Speaker’s office by saying “Deadlines are deadlines.”  Until they aren’t.

And now, there’s talk of a third special session, this one on the subprime mortgage crisis.  I guess the inaction on the first two was not sufficient; we need a third.  And I appreciate efforts to stop predatory lending, though I’m not sure how this would make a dent in what is a national credit lending problem.

I’m still not sure we have a housing “crisis” or just a housing market downturn, but I am pretty sure that nothing the Assembly is going to do in a special session this year is going to affect it one way or the other. Well, they are probably capable of making it worse. But I don’t think they can or will do anything to increase the value of my home, and while I’d love the help, I don’t particularly think they should try.

I’m not as dismissive as Dan Weintraub; this is most definitely a crisis.  But I’m not really sure what the Assembly can do.  The bills they have proposed would only apply to new loans.  That’s important, but they would not do a whole lot for those facing foreclosure.  And anyway, those entering into new loans would have to be deaf, dumb and blind to agree to some no-money-down ARM at this point.  And this bit from the press conference is flat-out embarrassing:

In an illustration of the complexity of the crisis, though, one of the homeowners presented at the press conference as a victim said the house he lost was actually one of two that he owned.

While many owners have lost homes they occupied, others were investors who saw the real estate run-up of the past decade as an investment opportunity.

Sacramento resident Carlos Villegas said he was forced into foreclosure when monthly payments on the house he bought in 2005 shot up from $2,200 to $3,550.

“They gave me three days to move,” he said. “I feel frustrated with the system.

In response to questions from reporters, Villegas said after the foreclosure, he moved back to a smaller house he had purchased 10 years earlier, which he had been renting out.

Of all the people with foreclosure problems, you found a guy with another house?!?

The credit mess is a national problem, and state solutions are nice, but they’re not going to work.  Perhaps driving down the costs of healthcare through a new reform would be the BEST way to help those struggling with home payments.

UPDATE: CPR has a summary of Democratic legislative proposals, and I have to say that the steps to address the current crisis are fairly weak tea.  Some of these, like foreclosure consultant reform, are already illegal; others, like facilitating reporting on workout agreements and increasing talk between homeowners and creditors, should have been initiated months ago.  The only substantive policy I see here is shoveling $10 million dollars to credit counselors.  The federal plan being worked out by the Treasury Department, to freeze teaser rates for some mortgages, would do a hell of a lot more good.