In January, I wrote in a diary that “a Category 5 fiscal hurricane about to hit California’s public schools.  The state deficit is close to $42 billion over the next 18 months. That exceeds what the state annually allocates from its general fund for K-12 public education.  Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting over $6 billion from education, constituting a more than 15% reduction in state aid to public schools.” See https://calitics.com/showDi…

The hurricane is now hitting our shores.  The billion-dollar budget cuts to education approved by the Governor and Legislature earlier this month are now impacting our public schools. Across California, thousands of teachers, support staff, administrators and other school employees will receive layoff notices.  

In San Leandro, where I live, cuts tentatively approved by the school board this week will substantially alter, for the worse, the educational experience of all students, particularly those in elementary school. Children in Kindergarten through Third Grade will no longer have the benefit of attending small classes as the class size reduction program is set to be eliminated. Art and PE teachers at the elementary schools are also at risk of being laid off. At the high school, the independent study program for students that do not excel in a traditional school setting will be sharply curtailed.

You can read the details at http://www.insidebayarea.com/d…

Too many cuts to our public schools have already occurred this decade. What’s occurring in San Lenadro is happening statewide.  You can’t cut state aid to education by over 10% and keep programs like class size reduction that are a drain on district’s general fund.  Despite funding from the state, class size reduction costs school districts far more to operate than if the K-3rd grade classes were expanded back to the same size (often 32 or 34 to 1) of 4th and 5th grade.

The Governor and Legislature have shortchanged the educational future of our children. California has the dubious honor of “leading” the nation in having the largest class sizes per teacher.  With the latest budget, our state will zoom further ahead of the rest of the nation in this category.

Done for the Facebook reference: I may not get to 25.

1. One bit of schadenfreude in this is that Doug McIntyre of KABC and the comment section of the OC Register are flipping out over the heretics who broke with dogma and voted for tax increases.  McIntyre was particularly incensed about a Sacramento Bee editorial lauding Dave Cogdill as a “hero.”  He’s not a hero, he’s an extortionist, but McIntyre was calling him a guy who “took money out of your pocket to give to someone else.”  Typical Yacht Party jihadism.

2. It’s very clear to me that this got wrapped up today before the Yacht Party’s meeting in Sacramento, just blocks from the Capitol, so the spectacle of the crazies on the lawn demanding that old people eat cat food and public schools use the weeds out back for lunches be averted.

3. Joan Buchanan voted for the budget and then voluntarily cut her pay 10% in the name of shared sacrifice.  It’s a stunt, but it will probably go down well back home.

4. One loser in all of this is Zed Hollingsworth.  He got nothing in this budget for his newly-minted Minority Leadership, including no re-negotiation, and the next major talks may not be until summer 2010, at which point a repeal of 2/3 may be a fait accompli.  Meanwhile he’s already embarrassed himself by scheduling a $1,000-a-person fundraiser with fat cat lobbyists just HOURS after being made leader, one that generated such bad press he had to cancel it.

5. The big winner in all of this, perhaps the only one?  Twitter.  In a cavernous Capitol with a dearth of political reporting, the microblogging site was practically the only way to get quality information in real time.  It cannot replace in-depth analysis for a mass audience, but it was great for opinion leaders.

6. Though I’ve knocked him in the past, kudos to John Burton for recognizing the real problem and seeking to boldly fix it.  From an e-mail:

If the last 48 hours has proven nothing else, we can no longer allow Republicans to hold the people of California hostage and therefore dictate to the Democratic majority the terms under which the budget is passed.

California should join the 47 other states who don’t require a supermajority to pass the budget.

If I am elected as the next Chair of the California Democratic Party, I will make majority vote budget a top priority.

7. The federal stimulus is really helping out to reduce the pain in this budget.  It does appear that as much as $10 billion dollars will flow to California in this fiscal year, which would “trigger” some jiggering to the cuts (which would be reduced by $950 million) and the tax hikes (reduced by $1.8 billion).  It’s an open question whether or not all of them can be spent right away because of the cash crunch, but we’ll have to see how the markets react.

8. This is a baseline overview of the deal.  The cuts are going to be really, really bad: 10% across the board for education, huge cuts for public transit operations, health care, etc.  The new revenues basically fill in the loss of revenue from massive unemployment.  Essentially, this is the same level of spending as a decade ago, adjusted for inflation and COLA, despite greater need and higher population.  Not pretty.

9. Capitol Weekly reports that the cuts could hit Republican-leaning areas harder:

But data from the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) suggests that cuts under the budget plan approved Thursda morning could likely hit many Republican areas hardest-while the tax burden is already falling more heavily on Democratic leaning counties.

According to the data distributed by Assembly Budget Committee chairwoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, the majority of the counties using the most in state services are generally represented by Republicans. When this data on 2007-2008 state spending is compared to registration data from the Secretary of State’s office, it shows that seven out of the top 10 counties receiving state expenditures, measured per capita, have Republican registration majorities. Of the top 10 counties that contributed the most per capita tax dollars in 2006, eight have Democratic registration majorities.

“I hate to put this in partisan terms, but it’s the wealthier counties who are paying that are represented by Democrats,” Evans said. “Everybody needs to take a step back and look at what the data actually says.”

Food for thought.

10. Wrapping the week up into a nice little bow, on the day the deal was secured, they found Lance Armstrong’s bike.

11. There’s a big TV/film production credit in here.  While as a member of the industry I’m mindful of runaway production, I reject the “race to the bottom” that constant credits to get crews to shoot in California presume.  It’s corporate welfare, essentially.

12. The “single sales factor apportionment,” which is the massive business tax cut, doesn’t kick in until FY2011, predictably and conveniently after Gov. Schwarzenegger is out of office and it will be someone else’s problem to make up the revenue!  It’s almost like somebody planned it that way!

13. Of the items on the May ballot, only privatizing the lottery would really kill this whole thing and send everybody back to the bargaining table.  That would be $5 billion in lost projected revenue for this fiscal year.  But it’s a NET LOSS OVER TIME, which is what makes the provision so completely absurd.  Also, I’m not convinced anyone wants to buy our lottery, as revenue has shriveled in the past year.

14. Arnold still has $600 million in line-item vetoes to make to bring this into balance.  Hands up if you think they will impact the poor, the elderly, the blind, and others with almost no voice in Sacramento!

15. Karen Bass is vowing “additional Legislative actions before the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.”  So get ready for more fun!

There is no 16-25.

I have to wholeheartedly agree with Robert’s take on how the Yacht Party putsch last night does nothing but highlight the need for fundamental reform and a return to democracy in California.  He did an admirable job going over the history and the menu of options, but I want to make the more emotional argument for a return to majority rule.  Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money did the best and most concise job of explaining why, despite the essential truth of the Republican Zombie Death Cult, it’s the process-based enabling that it the original sin.

Although Krugman is of course right to blame a “fanatical, irrational minority” for the current crisis in California, it can’t be emphasized enough that what really matters is the incredibly stupid institutional rules that empower this minority: namely, the idiotic super-majority for tax increases and an initiative system that both created that supermajority requirement and provides incentives to vote for every tax cut while mandating certain kinds of spending because the issues are isolated. Fortunately, the federal level (while it has too many veto points) is not quite at this level yet, and at least the stupid filibuster rule doesn’t apply to budgets.

It’s very easy to get people excited and motivated about a PERSON.  Not so much about a process.  And yet, as we all know, without the process, the villains in this melodrama would be sidelined.  And I believe that is a fact which serves both parties.

People on the left often obsess over whether the electorate can figure out who to blame in these crises.  The 2/3 requirement is a powerful enabler for that confusion.  Because the elected representatives of the majority party are not allowed to impose their will on how the state is to be run, they cannot be held to account.  Because the elected representatives of the minority party are in the minority party, they cannot be held to account.  Therefore we have a political cycle that mirrors the economic cycle that results from these bad policies.  The powerful stay powerful, the voiceless stay voiceless, people lose faith in the process, leading to more entrenched power and more voiceless, and so on.

Greg Lucas at California’s Capitol makes the moral case for a majority-vote budget along these lines, that it is the only way for true accountability in the system.

If the huckstering of the President’s Day Weekend demonstrated anything at all, it’s that the majority party should be able to pass the budget it considers best for California.

If its awful the governor, should he or she be of a different political party, can slice-and-dice it through the miracle of the veto process.

Should the governor be of the same political party and warmly endorse the spending plan well he or she can be thrown out by voters.

And, if the non-partisan commission created by Proposition 11 last November to draw new legislative boundaries does its job it will be possible to throw out members of the party that passed the budget as well.

I don’t agree about the panacea of redistricting – the available data shows virtually no link between gerrymandering and political polarization – but on balance Lucas is right.  It’s not a marketplace of ideas unless citizens can buy one idea or the other and make their decision based on the evidence.  Democracies work when ideas are allowed to stand strong or wither on the strength of results.  We do not have that here in California.

As to my point that this serves both parties?  Greg Lucas:

Just to sweeten the majority-vote budget pot a little, there’s a fairly hefty number of folks who work both in and around the Capitol who assert that whichever team wins the power to run roughshod over the minority party will be so scared of exclusive blame for any badness in the budget being exclusively their fault that they won’t do anything real drastic.

This is what they are scared of CURRENTLY.  There are lots of checks and balances in political systems.  There is no need for an artificial veto.  Democrats will still be timid to stick their necks out (they’re politicians), but at least they would have no excuses.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is irrelevant and a failure. Democrats are spineless jellyfish.  The Yacht Party is a collection of flat-earthers bent on destruction.  All well and good.  Yet all of these discrete groups are enabled by a political system that does violent disservice to the people of the state and the concept of democracy.  We must have a return to majority rule.  For the sake of accountability.

After the Yacht Party putsch, Darrell Steinberg called a vote on the $14.4 billion dollar tax package, and the new leader Dennis Hollingsworth said, “I honestly don’t know how the vote is going to turn out.”

Well, it didn’t turn out.  Cox, Ashburn, Cogdill and even Correa all abstain.  Maldonado votes no.  Not good.  Lois Wolk isn’t there because she’s sick, so this had no chance of working anyway.  We’re in uncharted waters now, unless the lockdown is theatrical and Cox will vote for a newly drafted bill in the morning.

UPDATE by Brian: Sen Wolk returned to vote aye on the budget, but it seems the Republicans didn’t change their abstain votes. It’s always worth giving the two Senators in question a call. Senator Abel Maldanado (R-Monterey County, 916-651-4015) & Senator Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks, 916-651-4001). While you’re at it, it might be worth giving Sen. Correa (D-OC, (916) 651-4034) a call as well as he abstained from one of the votes last night too.

I’ve been thinking about this one for a couple days, and the most recent Capitol Notes podcast just brought it up, as reflected in John Myers’ Twitter feed.  First, the equation:

2/3 of 39 = 26.

See, right now there are 39 State Senators.  Mark Ridley-Thomas’ seat is vacant until a special election.  Under 2/3 rules, a full Senate would need 27 votes to pass a budget or a tax increase.  The state Constitution requires 2/3 of “the membership” for passage, which is very consistent throughout the document.  Percentages of “the membership” is always the language.  Here’s an example:

(d) No bill except the budget bill may contain more than one item of appropriation, and that for one certain, expressed purpose. Appropriations from the General Fund of the State, except appropriations for the public schools, are void unless passed in each house by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two-thirds of the membership concurring.

And if “the membership” is defined as the current membership, then only 26 votes are necessary in the State Senate as currently composed.

So is it really the case that the legislature sat through marathon weekend sessions with still no resolution because everybody forgot to do the math?  Can that really be?

I think Steinberg might as well send the parts of the bill with 26 votes to the Assembly or to the Governor for signage, and if anyone pouts about it we can go to court.  The originalist interpretation is clearly that just 26 votes are needed.

Update by Robert: Unfortunately this may not be workable according to Article IV Section 2(a) of the Constitution:

The Senate has a membership of 40 Senators

I too liked the idea of pushing 26 votes, but the Constitution seems clear on defining “membership” as 40.

Update by Dave: Robert’s argument is compelling, but Anthony York’s article cites a law professor who says it’s not entirely clear.

Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution says the “Senate has a membership of 40 Senators…”

But if there is a vacancy, does that change the membership for legal purposes?

“It certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibilty that would be considered a valid interpretation of Article IV,” said Floyd Feeney, a law professor at U.C. Davis. “Courts make interpretations like that every day of the week.”

Feeney said he was not sure if there were other provisions in state law that might contradict, or supplement, the language in that section of the Constitution.

“Clearly, I’d want to do a lot more research before I sign an advice letter on something like that,” he said. “But there certainly would be an argument.”

Of course, getting this adjudicated would likely take longer than even this interminable process….

Midnight sessions. Seven month delays in passing a budget. Deep cuts in basic services. Regressive tax hikes. State employees out of work. School districts are deciding whether to lay off teachers or cut pay for everyone to save some jobs. People’s lives are being affected-real lives.

None of this matters. To Sacramento, it’s just collateral damage. The Legislature has for too long acted in anonymity from the safety of gerrymandered districts and the ability to put real controversial issues into Propositions instead of putting their name on a roll call.

This is the result. A majority that can’t govern. A minority that can block anything it wants despite having the support of a minority of voters.

We are literally a few steps away from sovereign default and absolute chaos in the state government. What will happen? Especially in areas like the 33rd assembly district where state workers are make up a large proportion of the buying power.

It’s time to act. We need to recall many, if not all, of the members of the Legislature and the Governor if order is not restored soon.

It’s clear that he doesn’t.  He probably thinks it will cost him his re-election in 2010.  That may or may not be, but certainly it’s his point of view.  There is no other reason why the vote was rescheduled.  And it’s certainly why Dem leaders are offering him incentives (someone less charitable might call it a bribe):

In what some might call an amazing coincidence, a measure to give Orange County an extra slice of the state budget pie was included in Saturday’s deficit-closing proposals, the fate of which rested heavily on the vote of an Orange County state senator.

The senator, Lou Correa of La Habra, was the only Democratic member of the upper house reported to be “noncommittal” on whether to support a $40 billion package of tax hikes, spending cuts and loans designed to close the gap in California’s budget.

Correa’s vote is vital because Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto said that for any Republicans to cast votes for the package – and three are needed to give it the 27-vote two-thirds majority it needs – all Democrats will have to vote aye. “I just don’t think it gets out if he (Correa) doesn’t go up on it,” Cogdill said earlier this week.

Capitol sources, who asked not to be named while commenting on private negotiations, said language had been inserted in the massive 33-bill package that would give Orange County $35 million in additional property tax revenues in the coming fiscal year; $35 million in the 2010-11 fiscal year, and up to $50 million annually after that.

Further delays mean he’s further away from saying yes to the whole thing.  And of course, this is another perverse outcome of the Yacht Party’s stranglehold on the budget process – Correa’s marginal seat shouldn’t really hold the key to whether or not this passes.

A day after Calitics called the roll of the Yacht Party on the budget deal to be voted upon tomorrow in the State Senate, Shane Goldmacher does the same and comes up with just three Republicans who haven’t signaled a no vote:

The field of potential Republican votes for the budget compromise in the Senate — widely viewed as the most challenging caucus to corral support — has narrowed so significantly that only three members have yet to throw cold water on the tentative deal.

That happens to be the bare minimum of Republican votes needed to pass the $40 billion-plus budget plan.

Those three are Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill, Sen. Dave Cox of Fair Oaks and Sen. Roy Ashburn of Bakersfield.

Neither Ashburn, Cox OR Cogdill said they would actually vote for the budget, by the way.  You can read all of the statements at the link.  It should be noted that normally, the Senate would need only two Republican votes to pass, but since Mark Ridley-Thomas’ seat is vacant (he was elected to the LA County Board of Supervisors in November) until the March special election, it takes three.

That basically means that full caucus unity is needed from the Democrats, and these three votes would have to come through, for the budget to pass.  And we know that Lou Correa is wavering.

And the outside pressure is on.  Opportunists like Steve Poizner are slamming the deal, and advocacy groups on both sides are urging a no vote.

GOP conservatives were incensed at the notion of a colleague supporting tax hikes, while labor and environmental groups were mad at what they consider Democratic concessions.

“If we’re going to win elections in 2010, we have to say that we’re the other party ? that we’re going to stop tax increases,” said Jon Fleischman, a conservative blogger and a vice chairman in the state Republican Party.

Jeanine Meyer Rodriguez, spokeswoman for the state council of Service Employees International Union, representing 750,000 workers statewide, was upset by spending restraints and billions in budget cuts in the proposal.

“We’re making it clear to all the legislators that if they vote for this, they’re not representing our members,” she said.

This morning’s Republican press release painted the budget as a necessary evil, so the skids are being greased for passage.  Still, with nobody owning the bill and lots of variables, it’s entirely possible that it goes down tomorrow.  Given some of the details, I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing.  But clearly, tomorrow should be… interesting.

When the cuts to the federal economic recovery bill in the Senate were made public, my back-of-the-envelope calculation was that $5-$8 billion dollars in aid to California would be lost.  The San Jose Mercury News did the math and came up with similar numbers.

The $838 billion Senate bill would create about 400,000 jobs in the state by funding infrastructure projects, from schools to roads to broadband. But that’s 51,000 to 63,000 fewer jobs for the state than the $820 billion House bill, according to the Center for American Progress. The Senate plan puts a heavier emphasis than the House bill on stimulating the economy through tax cuts, in addition to direct government spending.

Funds for reimbursing state Medicaid costs are about the same in each bill, but the funding formula in the House bill favors states with higher unemployment. California would receive $11 billion in the House bill and $9.6 billion in the Senate measure. The House bill also has funds to help those who are recently unemployed receive health coverage. “On health, the House bill is significantly better for California,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer advocacy group.

The Senate cut in half the House’s $79 billion fund to help states pay for education and other services. If the Senate version prevails, California would receive about $4 billion instead of the $7.9 billion in the House bill. In addition, the Senate eliminated $14 billion in funds the House allocated to modernize schools, which drew sharp criticism from Rep. George Miller, a Concord Democrat who chairs the Education and Labor Committee. He said the Senate version would cost 315,000 construction and other jobs nationwide.

“With more Americans losing their jobs by the day, we must make every effort to bring that figure up,” Miller said.

The Chronicle has a similar article.

The latest from the negotiating table is that only $5 billion of the $40 billion cut from the Fiscal Stabilization Fund will be restored in conference.  So that’s about $3 billion less, overall, for California from that fund, as well as the cuts to Medicare funding of about $2 billion.  The school repair funding will be restored to about $6 billion from $16 billion, which means that California probably loses $1 billion there.

So overall, we’re probably $5-$6 billion short from where we were with the House bill.  Which will make it that much more difficult to cut a budget deal.  In addition, if the formula for getting federal funds is in the form of block grants with a state match, California won’t be able to access any of them until the cash crunch is solved.

Yesterday I noted the insanity of the Big Five process, which subverts representative democracy and good government.

The Big Five process is absurd.  There are ways to decrease the influence of special interests, the biggest being full public financing of all elections.  The best practice is NOT to hide from them so that the legislative process is like a team of burglars trying to rob a jewelry store without being detected.  And the less people involved in any negotiation, the more possibility for eventual corruption through backroom dealing.

Others have piled on.  Greg Lucas has penned an open letter to the budget negotiators, all five of them.

Do none of you find it troubling that the decisions you are making regarding the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars are largely made in private and then announced deus ex machina to us, the public, whose money it is you are allocating.

Seems like there should be some public hearings on what’s happening to the public’s money. There used to be hearings like that. Of course, there used to be conference committees and compromise too […]

Better choices might be found if  some testimony were taken from the 1 million or so aged, blind and disabled poor who not only will not receive a cost of living increase this year but will see their checks rolled back to 2008 levels in order to save $177 million this year and $500 million the next […]

Sure, it’s a representative government and you’re supposed to represent us but most of you were around last year when a record for tardiness was set for passing an alleged budget that was both irresponsible and out of balance in 15, maybe 16, seconds. So, with respect, looks like you can use some help.

Finally, while the Legislature is not subject to the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act – a drafting error, no doubt – at a minimum some sunlight should be shone on the most important public policy act the state takes: putting together its annual spending plan.

And Jean Ross at the California Budget Project laments what she dubs the cone of silence.

Secrecy in budget negotiations is nothing new. However, the level of secrecy around budget negotiations that reached a new high last summer has been far surpassed by the lack of information in the current negotiations. While rumors fly daily – often several times a day – as to when a vote on a budget deal may occur, these rumors are neither confirmed nor denied by those truly in the know.

The one safe bet seems to be that there will be no public hearings and no opportunity for public input on major decisions that will shape California for years, if not decades, to come. The taxes and spending cuts that are likely to be included will no doubt be drawn from some combination of the Governor’s proposals and plans supported by Legislative Democrats in late 2008.  However, there are increasing signs that additional measures, such as a “hard” spending cap and sizeable tax cuts for the state’s largest corporations, may also be part of the package. The cone of silence has been particularly airtight with respect to “add ons” such as these. No details have been made available to rank and file lawmakers or the public that would enable a critical assessment of the impact they might have on current and future budgets.

This is just not a way to run a government that purports to be a democracy and not an oligrachy.  It’s our money.  Open the doors.