The establishment in Sacramento has manned the barricades, battened down the hatches and gone on the offensive to prove their own worth.  They sent their best man in the media, George Skelton, out to prove that no, despite your lying eyes, the California Legislature had a real banner year.  After all, they managed to bring suffering to the lives of hundreds of thousands of state residents with consensus and bipartisan elan!

The current Legislature, regardless of Duvall and despite ideological polarization, has had a better year than it’s getting credit for.

Its main accomplishment was keeping the state afloat amid a flood of red ink, created primarily by the toughest economic times since the Great Depression. OK, so it did use some bailing wire and chewing gum! The bills got paid, even if briefly with IOUs.

With great difficulty and pain — at least for Democrats — the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger slashed programs by roughly $30 billion. They also struck a major blow against “auto-pilot” spending by permanently eliminating all automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments, except for K-12 schools. And they summoned enough courage to temporarily increase taxes by $12.5 billion.

In the end, they found a way to restore health insurance for 660,000 low-income kids.

The tax increases hit the more vulnerable elements of society disproportionately, of course.  They actually found that way to restore children’s health insurance by lowering industry taxes and increasing the co-pay and deductible burden on the low-income families themselves, while reducing the covered care.  And anyone who adds cutting $30 billion in programs and eliminating COLA as an accomplishment is a bit of a social deviant.  But there are probably no lengths to which Skelton will go to defend the palace walls from the rabble who think, based on the evidence, that the system is horribly broken.

Steve Maviglio wisely steers clear of the more horrific achievements of this year’s Legislature, and offers a slightly more defensible outlook of the ’09 Legislative session.  Still, there’s a lot unsaid:

Looking back, getting the measures on the May ballot was a significant early success that required 2/3 votes. And toward the end of the session, in addition to the renewable energy bill, Speaker Bass pushed through measures on childrens health and domestic violence that won broad bipartisan support. (The Speaker also got a standing ovation, and she appears to have strengthened her support in Caucus. Compare that to the ouster of the two Republican leaders).

Okay, so the grand water deal didn’t get done. Big deal. Nothing like that has been done for a generation. Perhaps Senate President pro Tem Steinberg set the bar too high when he said he’d get it done. In any case, all parties agree that they got close and can pick up the pieces and get it finished in short order.

So for all those crying for major reforms, put it all into perspective. Sure, improvements could be made, and things could have been better, but this is not reason for drastic action. Far from it.

Of course, the renewable bill is veto bait, as are many of the other major bills pending the Governor’s signature.  And the domestic violence bill didn’t pass the Senate, so, um, that doesn’t count.  The prison bill offered decent parole reforms but stopped well short of a real solution.  Everyone keeps saying the water bill will happen but the two sides remain far apart, and the fact that they’ll have to go into overtime to reconcile it kind of proves the point, no?

But Maviglio tips his hand with the line “this is not reason for drastic action.”  Of course he would say that.  He’s profited well from the status quo.  Anything that messes with it could hurt him professionally, and what’s more, could stop the endless blaming of outside factors to account for stunning failure.

There is no shame in stating that this was a failed legislative session.  Just about everyone in California would agree with you, particularly the ones who are suffering the most from the destruction of social insurance caused by the most heartless cuts.  Simply put, the Great Recession dominated legislative activity, and the conservative veto from various 2/3 requirements restricts the Legislature from fulfilling the expressed will of the people through their votes (NOTE: This does not only come into play with the budget; late last Friday Republicans blocked over 20 bills that required 2/3 votes for one reason or another, probably because they knew they could get away with it).  That’s not something to explain away, it’s actually something to fight, every single day until the problem is rectified.

Skelton and Maviglio may want to tell themselves all is well, but the public knows better, and they’re going to demand major structural change.  Those who think that the Legislature can still be a force for good in the state can get aboard and provide the best ideas to break the supermajority gridlock and get the state moving again.  Or they can defend their narrow interests.  Their defense will fail, and it would be a shame not to see them on the right side of history.

SB14, which would set a first-in-the-nation standard that utilities must receive 33% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, passed the Legislature late last night.

“Increased development of renewable energy in California has tremendous potential as an economic development tool. These are clean, green jobs that belong in California. SB 14 sets a clear target with a real deadline, and then makes it as easy as possible to bring renewable energy on line.

In light of the state’s ambitious new carbon emission targets, SB 14 will give energy agencies the flexibility they need in order to meet those goals. Current law “caps” the amount of renewable energy that the Public Utilities Commission may order utilities to buy or build at 20 percent. This bill would remove this cap and require utilities to acquire 33 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2020.”

This would make California’s renewable energy standard one of the most aggressive in the world.  The Governor, feted in magazines and national media as an environmental leader, has vocally backed the 33% standard in the past.  But power plant generators have pressured Schwarzenegger to veto the bill.  And according to the LA Times, he will.

The Senate did manage to pass the energy bill, which would raise to 33% the amount of energy the utilities must get from renewable sources. Final approval by the Assembly of some minor amendments was expected.

However, a high-ranking administration official said late Friday that the governor may not sign the bill, SB 14 by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), because of provisions limiting the amount of energy that could come from outside California. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the bills were not yet on the governor’s desk.

That would really be the icing on the cake to the worst Governorship in California history.  The one issue on which he staked his legacy, and he is likely to veto the bill most likely to drive the lowering of greenhouse gas emissions, mainly because it would keep too many jobs in the state.  Adding a renewable energy standard and mandating a majority of that energy be generated in state, is probably the only bill passed this year that looks to expand the local economy.  And because of that, Schwarzenegger will veto it.

And the same magazines will put him on the cover with the slogan “The Greenenator” and talk up his environmental credentials.

Notes from yet another long session in the Legislature:

The Senate could wait no longer for the Assembly to get their act together, so they passed a reduced prison package along the Assembly’s lines, one that falls $200 million short of projections and does not have a sentencing commission.  The Governor has announced he’ll sign the bill.  It’s marginally worthwhile for the parole reforms, but really nowhere near what’s needed.  And so the federal judges will in all likelihood order a mass release, and because little is being done to address root causes, the cost of prisons and the population as a whole are both still likely to increase.  The cowards in the Assembly who think they have designs on higher office after this travesty should know that this vote will have importance, but not in the way they think.

The bill to waive CEQA requirements (California Environmental Quality Act) to put a football stadium in Southern California – without an NFL team, mind you – did not get by Darrell Steinberg, despite lots of energy and effort from special interests.  He’s giving the various parties more time to negotiate a settlement.  Sports stadiums are among the biggest corporate welfare projects we have in America.

The much-ballyhooed water deal has been scuttled, as Karen Bass announced she did not have the votes to move it.  The Speaker may ask for a special session on water, and the Governor would probably move that as well.  The middle-of-the-night rush obviously didn’t work, so some transparency would be preferable.

Still waiting on the renewable energy standard bill, which would put California in the vanguard of the nation in terms of its portfolio (33% by 2020).

A few end-of-the-session tidbits for you:

• CapAlert reports that Karen Bass will try again to get some of the more spineless members of her caucus to support a prison reform bill better than the scaled-back effort it already passed.  Bass talked about adding the “alternative custody” provisions into the bill, which would get it to the proper level of cuts, but not the sentencing commission, which still looks dead, sadly.

• One bill we know to be dead is SB88, which would have forced localities to get permission from the state before going into bankruptcy.  This was a union-backed bill to protect their local contracts, but city governments balked.  Sen. Mark DeSaulnier says he’ll try to broker a compromise for next year.  Those bankruptcies are probably right down the pike, so he’d better hurry.

• The bill that the Governor arrogantly vetoed earlier in the week, in a hissy fit because he wasn’t getting his way on water or prisons, was a bill to initiate a Vietnam Veteran’s memorial day.  It was authored by Republican Assemblyman Paul Cook, and he’s whipping support to undergo the first legislative veto override in Sacramento in about 30 years, which is truly a sad legacy.  Only in California could securing an override on an uncontroversial bill be something that could end a political career, as Cook acknowledged today.  An override would be at least a sign of life in the Legislature.

UPDATE: And that’s going to fizzle, because the Yacht Party in the Senate won’t go along with an override.  What point is there having the law on the books?  Paul Cook is going to us a gut-and-amend to put the same bill up tonight, anyway.

• A lot of rumbling about the water bill, which is being written completely in secrecy, and without the input of politicians who represent the Sacramento Delta.  Bass hinted at a bond issue to finance whatever comes out of conference, which would cost $600 $800 million in debt service annually without any consequent gains in revenue to pay for it.

UPDATE: The Fresno Bee has more.  The bond issue seems to be the sticking point.

Could be another long night…

UPDATE: Here’s some actual good news.  SB13, the bill to fund $16.3 million for domestic violence shelters by shifting some budget accounts, passed the Assembly on a bipartisan vote of 63-1.  I wrote yesterday about how the loss of this funding was simply devastating and indeed, a death warrant, to domestic violence victims across the state.  It moves to the Senate for concurrence.

There’s lots of significant news in the Legislature’s last week regarding various bills, and it’s extremely difficult to keep up with it all, probably by design.  I should point out that, while the legislative calendar has an end date, there’s no actual reason for some of the forced bottlenecks that result in hundreds of bills being passed at the last minute.  It creates a shroud of secrecy in which special interests rule, and saps the public trust.  A Democratic leadership actually interested in positioning government as somewhat decent would remove these forced bottlenecks from the internal legislative rules and allow bills to be approved on a rolling basis.  That said, this is the system we have now, and here’s a bunch of news about various bills:

• A new bill would exempt non-General Fund workers from furloughs.  This would reverse one of the dumbest provisions in the budget bill, the practice of forcing furloughs on workers not paid by state government, saving almost no money and depriving people of needed services.  Of course, the Governor will probably veto this one, because he hates admitting how wrong he is.

• Democrats on that vaunted water committee have decided against floating a bond to pay for any restoration or overhaul of the Delta.  This means Republicans won’t vote for it, and very little will come of this very important committee thrown together at the last minute.  Some conference committee reports are here, but a deal looks remote, as it would need votes from some of the empty chairs in the Yacht Party.

• One bill that has cleared both chambers would set up “Education Finance Districts”, “in which three or more contiguous school districts can band together to try to increase local taxes.”  This is a small step to make it easier for districts to pass parcel taxes to fund schools, but at this point every little bit helps.  The 2/3 rule for approving such taxes would remain.

• With all the talk of health care reform, it’s notable that an anti-rescission bill has once again passed the legislature.  The bill would also simplify insurance forms.  Last session, Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.  There’s something you don’t hear much about from the Democratic leadership – Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have banned insurance companies from dropping patients after they get sick.  He sided with the forces of insurer-assisted suicide.  This is your modern Yacht Party on this issue:

“Any of those who have read the various exposés in the Los Angeles Times and others . . . is aware that health insurers have admitted and acknowledged they engaged in a form of post-claims underwriting,” said Sen. Mark Wyland (R-Escondido). “It is unethical and, considering what some of these people have endured, it really borders on the immoral.”

However, Wyland said he would not vote for the bill because the Department of Insurance has proposed new rules to solve the problem, and he wants to see how they work.

Hey, give ’em a chance to see if the immorality stops!  If not, we can think it over.

• The Legislature may extend a homebuyer’s tax credit passed in a previous budget agreement that was nothing but a bailout for developers.  It only credited new construction, and was structured only to benefit high-income households who could afford new construction.  By the way, sales of new units have fell since this was enacted, so it’s not even meeting its intended purpose.  But it’s a giveaway to a special interest, so off the money may go, even though we cannot afford it at this time.

• A bill to ban bisphenol A (BPA) from children’s products was delayed after the Assembly couldn’t muster 41 votes.  The debate in the Assembly last night was pretty fierce.

• Cities and counties reacted angrily to a proposed bill to slow local government bankruptcies until vetted by the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission.  On the merits this looks to be a bill that would install more control on locals from Sacramento, although there are arguments on both sides.  But mainly it’s about the fate of union contracts in local bankruptcies, I don’t think either side would deny that.

• A roundup of other bills passed yesterday can be found here.

Despite the assumed end to the prison crisis, there’s still no bill to clarify the $1.2 billion dollars in savings assumed from cuts in the July budget.  The Assembly passed a bill that fell $200 million dollars short and had almost no prison reform in it (some parole reform, but no prison reform), and the Senate has yet to take that bill up.  After word yesterday that the Senate would do so, Darrell Steinberg backed away from it, seeking to give more time to the Assembly to add more reform and more cuts into the bill.  Because the bill only requires a majority vote, it takes effect 90 days after passage.  Which means that every day with no bill costs the state $3.3 million dollars.  This is the consequence of so-called fiscal conservatives in the Yacht Party, as well as their higher-office-seeking bretheren in the Assembly Democratic caucus, wanting to look tough on crime.  As the State Worker notes, this delay is taking a daily hit on the savings gained from furloughs:

Here’s one way that furloughed state workers could look at this: The CDCR budget impasse is whittling away at savings from furloughs. If you take that $3.3 million and multiply it by the 70 days from July 1 through today, you realize the state has burned through $231 million.

A single furlough day cuts about $61 million from the state’s payroll, although not all of that savings is in the general fund. (The rounded math: $2.2 billion divided by 36 furlough days in the fiscal year.) If you narrow it down to just salaries that the administration defines as being in the general fund, one furlough day equals about $35 million. (Double check our rounded numbers: $1.3 billion divided by the 36 furlough days.)

In other words, this budget-stalemate-in-miniature has squandered the equivalent of about four furlough days for everyone or nearly seven furlough days if you look only at general fund employees.

Other states have used smart on crime policies to reduce spending without any loss in public safety.  They are taking new looks at non-violent offenders, relaxing draconian sentencing policies, targeting parole resources to those who need supervision and concurrently lowering recidivism rates through rehabilitation.  Right now, California has the exact wrong set of policies on prisons.

In fact, California is nationally known “for having the most dysfunctional sentencing and parole system” in the country, according to Stanford University professor Joan Petersilia, a criminologist who has spent years working with state officials trying to implement reforms.

“We’re too harsh and too lenient. Simultaneously,” Petersilia said.

Our mix of tough laws and fixed terms doesn’t give prison officials the flexibility to push low-risk offenders toward rehabilitation and keep dangerous criminals behind bars.

But reform efforts haven’t gained public traction because we’re too busy trying to keep people behind bars — with Jessica’s Law, Megan’s Law, the three-strikes law — to take a hard look at whether locking up more people actually makes us safer.

“The public doesn’t understand how illogical the whole system has become,” Petersilia said. “We think that somehow we’ve created something that is able to call out the most dangerous people, send them to prison and keep them in for a very long time.

“And the public is willing to pay whatever it takes to get that type of crime policy.”

I disagree with the last sentence.  The public is willing to be frightened into initiatives that do nothing for public safety and just spend money needlessly, because they’ve seen no leadership on the other side for an alternative conception of how to protect the public sensibly and best manage our cirminal justice system.  Nobody has argued in public for a more intelligent system for so long, that the public willingness to believe in its possibility has atrophied.  We can keep the lock-em-up policies or we can look to a better future.  Either way, we’re blowing $3 million a day while some Assembly Democrats go on a desperate search for their spines.

George Skelton writes about some of the accomplishments on deck in the next week in the Legislature.  Beyond the renewable energy standard, which would be a solid accomplishment, and water, which really is kind of an unknown, Skelton looks at the prison “reform” bill, where he is both right and wrong.

The goal is threefold: to reform a system that has the worst-in-the-nation recidivism rate — 70% — for inmates released from prison. To begin substantially reducing the overcrowded prison population before federal courts do, as they’ve threatened. And to save the $1.2-billion already slashed from the prison budget on paper, but not in reality.

There apparently will be no compromising with Republicans. They’re having no part of it, playing the law-and-order card as they have for decades — advocating long lockups but opposing any tax increases to pay for the bulging prisons […]

One thing that’s needed, he and other reformers contend, is more education, drug rehab and job training for inmates. Another is a better parole system. A scaled-down bill passed by the Assembly on Monday seeks to encourage the former and achieve the latter […]

Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) are trying to restore much of the Senate version, which also included an independent commission to update California’s sentencing structure. But their problem is Assembly Democrats. Some are scared of being portrayed as a crime softie by a future campaign opponent. Steinberg took a shot at them Tuesday.

“It’s time to say, ‘Come on,’ ” the Senate leader told reporters. “We have a law-and-order Republican governor who is willing to sign a comprehensive package with absolutely essential reforms that protects public safety. It’s time to get real […]

Steinberg and Bass may coax more votes from the skittish Democrats.

But if they can’t, the good-time incentives and parole improvements alone would be worth passing. They’d mark substantial progress toward prison reform.

As I’ve said, the current bill is not a prison reform bill, but a parole reform bill.  The education, treatment and job training encouraged is immediately undercut by the Governor’s slashing of those programs as part of the deal.  And the lack of an independent sentencing commission means that we’re likely to see both increased sentencing laws and increases in the prison population continue, and we’ll all be back here in 10-15 years.

That said, parole reform IS a key element.  Changing the situation where 2/3 of the convicts returned to prison get sentences for technical parole violations is urgently needed.  The Phillip Garrido case is an example of how increased case monitoring on the most serious offenders could have benefits for public safety.  But it does not totally stand in for full reform.  The sentencing commission goes hand-in-hand with fixing parole.

Sentencing commission: In other states, a sentencing commission looks at who is being sent to prison and for how long, and what sentences work best to lower reoffense rates. Sentences are based on the severity of the crime and the offender’s prior record. Instead of a system driven by relatively low-level property and drug offenses, prison sentences are focused primarily on violent and career offenders. The result in other states is that fewer offenders go to state prison, but the offenders who do go to prison are serving longer. For lesser crimes, offenders go to county jail.

Skelton only touches on who’s really to blame for our intransigence on prison reform – those allegedly fiscally responsible Republicans who refuse to bear the costs of their policy desires.  They’ve joined the appeal of the federal judge order to reduce the population by 44,000 on the grounds that their beautiful minds tell them there’s no problem in the system:

State Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster) said the judges had ignored the state’s recent “huge investment” in spending on inmate healthcare, as well as statistics showing that California spends more on healthcare per prisoner, and has a lower mortality rate among them, than many other states.

“We believe there is constitutional care today,” he said. “We believe there always has been.”

If you want the long form of this lie, read Tom Harman.  Either way, it’s just not true.  Inmates have died, around one a week, before a federal receiver was instituted.  Republicans fought the implementation of investing in prison health care, and the continued presence of infirm prisoners based on draconian sentencing laws like three strikes can account for the increased costs.  Republicans typically call for increased rehabilitation and treatment for offenders while cutting the funding.  It’s a shell game.

However, we are well beyond that at this point.  We have a bill that needs only a majority vote.  And Assembly Democrats are petrified of justifying votes they had no problem with as recently as 2007.  By the way, opponents can go back to those votes too, and make the same mailers.  You either can act like you have the courage of your convictions, or not.  Ultimately, the people will pay the price.

The Assembly’s passage of a prison “reform” bill is not the end of the line for the legislation, as the Senate simply won’t accept it in this form.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the reaction in the Senate to the Assembly’s low calorie prison bill was muted. Senate Democrats certainly wouldn’t have come out and said the plan stinks. But there’s no official timetable on a reconciliation vote in the upper house, either.

The official response from Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg came in a written statement: “The Assembly took a good first step today but it’s not a complete package. In the coming weeks, I look forward to working with (Assembly) Speaker Karen Bass and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on further reforms that will strengthen our criminal justice system.”

The key phrase in that statement: “In the coming weeks.” This one’s not going to go away anytime soon.

The main reason is that the Assembly bill costs $233 million more to the overall budget than the Senate’s, and that money simply does not exist.  It’ll eventually come out of the hides of other programs if allowed to let stand.  And the Assembly Republicans and Democrats who help up the bill can then explain why it was necessary to keep terminally ill blind people in jail at the expense of children’s health care or some other social program.

Steinberg expanded on his dissent from the Assembly bill today, calling the legislature’s inability to pass the reforms based on cuts they already passed in July an example of the legislature’s “culture of failure”.  I’ve been saying that for weeks.

Meanwhile, I’m hearing a lot of reactionaries taking the example of Phillip Garrido, the kidnapper of Jaycee Lee Dugard, and the fact that he only served 10 1/2 years of a 50-year kidnapping sentence in the 1970s, to argue for more stringent parole and prison laws in California.  This is the typical Willie Horton-ing of any sane discourse on prison policy.  Garrido was convicted of a FEDERAL crime, not a state crime.    And that federal parole policy was abolished by 1987.  It bears no application to this debate whatsoever, particularly since, under this policy, violent criminals would not be subject to release and would face more stringent parole supervision, as resources would be allocated to those who require it.  The failure of parole officers to discover Garrido’s deviance demands EXACTLY the kind of parole reform in both the Assembly and Senate bill, so officers have smaller caseloads and can focus on the most dangerous cases instead of returning nonviolent offenders to prison for technical violations.

Meanwhile, the Governor, even while promoting a real reform plan, wants to get a stay from federal judges on implementing the required reduction of 44,000 to the prison population, which even the Senate bill doesn’t do.  He plans to file an appeal with the US Supreme Court as well, and if the three-judge panel doesn’t grant the stay, he’ll ask the Supremes to do so.

Sacramento politicians are still in between the “denial” and “bargaining” stage in reacting to their immoral and unconstitutional handling of the prison crisis.

We’ve heard this one before, but the Assembly will apparently vote on a prison “reform” package today, one that does not meet the $1.2 billion in cuts to the overall prison budget the Assembly supported in July, and which excises the sentencing commission that would actually get to the root cause of the overcrowding crisis by reining in 30 years of expanded sentences from the Legislature.  This makes manly tough guy Alberto Torrico very proud, but the Senate may not go along with it, if this SacBee report is any indication:

If the Assembly approves the plan as expected Monday, Steinberg will withhold concurrence in the Senate until several prison-related issues are settled.

“We’re going to wait for a package that includes reform and gets to the budget number that we need,” Steinberg said.

Steinberg wants the Assembly to act on creating a commission to overhaul sentencing guidelines and for the lower house to adopt an alternative custody program that could release, with electronic monitoring, some nonviolent offenders who are aged or infirm, or whose sentences expire in less than a year.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supports the Senate-passed plan, which contains both the sentencing commission and the alternative custody proposals.

The Assembly plan is a parole reform plan.  That’s worthwhile and needed, but it’s not a long-range plan that will prevent the Legislature or a federal court from having to make the same decisions about early release 10 years down the road.  It’s also not a short-range plan, as it cuts $220 million less from the budget than is required and leaves that hole to be dealt with later – with cuts to what?  Education?  Health care?  Maybe the Assembly can explain where they would cut in order to keep the terminally ill or blind people with one leg locked up and on the public dole.

It’s a sad commentary that the Department of Corrections is more committed to advancing reform than the State Assembly.

Last Thursday, the CDCR announced it would close the largest youth prison in California, diverting young offenders to local facilities. This is one of the real reforms our coalition has called for to improve public safety and end wasteful prison spending. As part of the People’s Budget Fix, we have proposed keeping young offenders at the local level, closing all six of the costly and ineffective youth prisons, and diverting half of the budget currently spent on these prisons to local programs. If fully implemented, this reform would save $200 million a year.

Closing the largest youth prison is an excellent start which will save $30-40 million by the CDCR’s estimate. But we’ll need to do more if we’re going to come up with $1.2 billion in savings. The need for action could not be more urgent: we must find those savings in the Corrections’ budget to avoid more draconian cuts to education, health care and other public safety programs like domestic violence shelters and drug treatment programs.

Moreover, most Californians agree we need to cut wasteful prison spending. Polls show that most Californians think we should cut the Corrections budget and we should protect funding for education. Most Californians also agree that prison should be reserved for violent offenders, not people who commit petty offenses.

Yet, the Assembly cannot agree on what seems like common sense to the rest of us: people who commit low-level crimes like petty theft and simple drug possession should be punished on the local level, not in prison cells at a cost of nearly $50,000 per person per year. It shocks the conscience that Assembly Members were willing to vote for billions of dollars of cuts to education-the most important program to average Californians-but are afraid to cut wasteful prison spending by even a fraction of that.

Interestingly enough, Noreen Evans, the Chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, wrote an impassioned piece arguing in favor of the Senate’s prison package.  As part of the Assembly leadership, she’s likely to fall in line today.  But she recognizes that the political considerations driving this debate are pretty outrageous.  It’s hard to argue with Dan Walters’ assessment that this episode shows how nobody in the legislature, on either side of the aisle, has earned much of a right to object to the howls and disapprobation from throughout the state.  The Senate could lead the way, at least on this issue, and force the Assembly wobblers, terrified of their own voters, to knuckle under.

Stay tuned.