The message from the panel of judges to Sacramento yesterday was, you broke it, you bought it:

Reporting from Sacramento – A panel of federal judges, accusing California officials of obstruction, on Thursday denied the state’s request to delay an order to produce a plan for reducing its prison population by 40,000 inmates.

Aides to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said they would take their request to the U.S. Supreme Court today.

The judges issued their order on Aug. 4 in two long-running lawsuits by inmates. The state asked for a delay pending its appeal of the order to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was filed separately Thursday.

In rejecting the state’s motion for the delay only two days after it was filed, the judges said they had been “more than patient with the state and its officials” and harshly criticized them for “conflicting representations” in court that have caused the cases to drag on.

It’s getting comical at this point.  Thelton Henderson initially found California’s prison system to violate individual rights in 2005.  Over those four years, state officials have resisted, bargained, shouted, and appealed their way into oblivion, trying all along to do as little as possible about the clear crisis.  The judges are asking for a plan that essentially mirrors the Senate’s version of prison reform working through the legislative process right now.  For all the protests about “wasting taxpayer dollars” to come up with a workable plan, the judges are essentially asking for a copy of what’s already being done.

The state doesn’t want to give them one, because they now it’s insufficient to conform with the clear guidelines on reducing the inmate population.  And they’d rather appeal and appeal and be forced to respect Constitutional rights than do it themselves.  With the taxpayer money and effort spent to studiously ignore this problem, we could have already solved it.

There’s been quite a bit of confusion about whether or not the Governor was able to make line-item cuts in this budget.  After all, it was a revision, not a budget agreement where spending appropriations are made.  In those cases the Governor can make cuts, but this was a revision consisting of a series of cuts and fund shifts, and it’s unclear whether the Governor can make additional cuts on top of cuts in a budget revision.

Craig Cornett, the Budget Director in the office of Darrell Steinberg, has sent out a letter to interested parties, which I’ve reproduced below.  Cornett reiterates the argument that the revision do not constitute appropriations, and should not be subject to the line-item veto.  This is particularly true with any appropriation reductions that passed with a simply majority vote, since a budget vote must have a 2/3 majority.  Cornett offers the remedy here, but he confines it to the courts.

Should the Controller implement these vetoes, we suspect that some party that will be injured by the vetoes will file a lawsuit.  Given the sweep of the reductions, this could come from any of a number of potential plaintiffs, such as children who will no longer have health insurance because of the reductions to Healthy Families Programs, battered women’s shelters that will be threatened with closure because of elimination of funding for the Domestic Violence Program, AIDS prevention and treatment programs that will no longer receive state support because of the elimination of Office of AIDS funding, or counties that will see cuts to their Child Welfare Services or Medi-Cal administration funding.

What Cornett leaves out of this analysis is the ability for the Legislature to override the Governor’s blue pencil edits.  Obviously that is off the menu, as far as we know.

I don’t think it would surprise anyone to see Schwarzenegger break the law to balance the budget – so many provisions in this budget violate the law that it can be seen as a stimulus package for the legal system.

When the Governor signed ABx4 1-the bill that revised the 2009-10 Budget Act-and accompanying trailer bills this morning, he line-item vetoed about $500 million in General Fund expenditures in order to ensure that the state has a reserve for 2009-10.

Budget staff from both the Senate and Assembly worked closely with Legislative Counsel in construction of ABx4 1 and, based on that work, and follow-up conversations, we think that these vetoes-especially those of health and human services programs-are outside the Governor’s Constitutional authority, for a couple of reasons.

First, reductions to amounts in the various budget schedules do not actually constitute appropriations and, thus, are not subject to line item veto.  This argument is bolstered by Counsel’s long-held view that, unlike new or increased items of appropriation, the Legislature may reduce General Fund items of appropriation with a simple majority vote, and any General Fund action that takes place with a simple majority vote is not, by definition, an appropriation, and therefore not subject to line-item veto.

Second, most of the budget revisions for the health and human services departments were not even included in the scheduled items, but instead were placed in Sections of 568 to 575 of ABx4 1.  These sections of the bill added new Control Sections 17.50 to 18.50 to the 2009-10 Budget Act that reduced the various appropriations for HHS departments in a descriptive manner, thus making it even clearer that they do not constitute appropriations.  These control sections include departments that were specifically included in the Governor’s line-item vetoes-Aging, Health Care Services, Public Health, MRMIB, Mental Health, Developmental Services, and Social Services.

Should the Controller implement these vetoes, we suspect that some party that will be injured by the vetoes will file a lawsuit.  Given the sweep of the reductions, this could come from any of a number of potential plaintiffs, such as children who will no longer have health insurance because of the reductions to Healthy Families Programs, battered women’s shelters that will be threatened with closure because of elimination of funding for the Domestic Violence Program, AIDS prevention and treatment programs that will no longer receive state support because of the elimination of Office of AIDS funding, or counties that will see cuts to their Child Welfare Services or Medi-Cal administration funding.

There is actually another major hearing going on in the state today, in Sacramento Superior Court.  Various plaintiffs are suing to change the title and summary on two of the ballot measures in the May 19 special election, on the grounds that they were fraudulent and misleading.  And there’s already been one victory today.

The May 19 ballot measure to temporarily take money from a 2004 mental health initiative has a new overview that will be presented to voters, after a settlement to a legal challenge was reached this morning.

The challenge to Proposition 1E’s ballot title and summary, and its ballot label, was centered on charges by opponents that the Legislature wrote a “false and misleading” overview, in order to make Prop 1E’s redirection of some $450 million in mental health funds more palatable.

The new summary makes it more clear that earmarked mental health funds will be taken away from the voter-approved Prop. 63 and used to balance the state budget.  Earlier, the weasel words “provides temporary flexibility” were used.

The other dispute is over Prop. 1A, the state spending cap.  John Myers is Twittering from the courtroom, and the plaintiffs are making the same clear and obvious points about the legislature’s treachery in this matter that George Skelton made this morning.  The title makes no reference to the spending cap OR the extension of tax increases that was part of the deal, and the summary only alludes to the taxes near the end of the description as part of the fiscal analysis.  The summary uses words and phrases like “rainy day fund” and “overspending” and “reform” in ways clearly designed to persuade the voter.  Defense lawyers claim that the fleeting reference to revenue in the fiscal analysis is all that is needed, and anyway voters “already understand all the underlying budget issues” so there’s no need for any changes.

As I’ve said, this now is starting to look more like a cover-up, which is very bad for a legislature and a Governor who aren’t seen by the voters as trustworthy, and in at least the Governor’s case, for good reason.  If the aftermath of the ruling is a court order that the legislature deliberately wrote the title and summary in a way to obscure the truth about what Prop. 1A would do, there’s your fodder for commercials for the next 2 months.  And it’s a potentially fatal blow.

We’re awaiting a decision…

UPDATE: So here’s the answer – the judge would like some of the more misleading language removed, but isn’t inclined to add in big bold letters “THIS MEANS YOUR TAXES ARE GOING UP.”  This obviously can be exploited by whatever campaign coalesces around the No side – the “hidden tax,” et al. – but it won’t be on the ballot beyond the bit in the fiscal analysis.  We’ll see what the final language will read.

At this point the judiciary is pretty much the only government entity in this state I have a modicum of belief in; they aren’t hamstrung by ridiculous rules that make it impossible to function, so they can simply follow the law.  State agencies, when properly run, also can exhibit some independence.  Lately, there have been several cases ruled in favor of reformers at the expense of malign protectors of the health care status quo.

After a series of investigations from the California Department of Public Health, 18 hospitals have been fined for substandard care.

Violations included an improperly inserted catheter, a ventilator that was not turned on and surgical tools left inside patients after operations […]

The hospitals were fined $25,000 for each violation – the latest of dozens of penalties the state has issued in recent years to more than 40 hospitals.

“The number of penalties will decrease and the quality of care will dramatically improve as hospitals take action to improve,” said Kathleen Billingsley, director of the health department’s Center for Healthcare Quality. “The entire intent of these fines is to improve the overall quality of care in California.”

As care is improved, so must access for treatment.  The proposed cuts to Medi-Cal by the governor would have decimated the ability for the poor to find a doctor.  The cuts never made it through district court.

A federal judge has ordered a temporary halt in the state’s 10 percent reduction in Medi-Cal reimbursement rates, improving access to care for 6.5 million low-income patients but throwing a new wrench in already difficult budget negotiations.

The U.S. District Court decision forces the state to reimburse most Medi-Cal providers at rates prior to the 10 percent cut, which lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made effective July 1 as a cost-cutting measure to help resolve a $15.2 billion budget shortfall this year.

The move increases reimbursement rates the state pays to doctors, dentists, pharmacists, adult day-care centers and other providers who serve Medi-Cal patients. It excludes some hospitals who do not contract with the state and do not provide emergency care.

This just shows the fallacy of a cuts-only budget, which runs into all kinds of voter mandates and constitutional demands.  The good news here is that reimbursement rates will be sustained, albeit at a level low enough that half of the state’s doctors will still probably reject Medi-Cal patients.  The Democratic budget would also have rescinded the Medi-Cal rate cuts.

In a separate decision in the State Supreme Court, the justices ruled that doctors cannot deny care to gays and lesbians based on moral objections.

Justice Joyce Kennard wrote that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have neither a free speech right nor a religious exemption from the state’s law, which “imposes on business establishments certain antidiscrimination obligations.”

In the lawsuit that led to the ruling, Guadalupe Benitez, 36, of Oceanside said that the doctors treated her with fertility drugs and instructed her how to inseminate herself at home but told her their beliefs prevented them from inseminating her. One of the doctors referred her to another fertility specialist without moral objections, and Benitez has since given birth to three children.

Nevertheless, Benitez in 2001 sued the Vista-based North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group. She and her lawyers successfully argued that a state law prohibiting businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation applies to doctors.

Of course, we cannot rely on the courts to shape public policy.  But they set the boundaries – the lines that lawmakers cannot cross.  And those boundaries are leading to increased access and improved care.

People are probably going to fixate on the hard numbers in this latest poll on marriage equality from the LA Times, showing the constitutional amendment passing by 54-35.  However, there are a few additional items to consider.

• We all know that initiatives need to be well ahead to start before the advertising ramps up and the No side chips away at the lead.  This poll would traditionally signal an initiative in the danger zone.  However, the initial polls for Prop. 22 in 2000 were at 58%, and it rose to 61% by election day.  Opinions may be fairly hardened on this one.

• In the internals, however, there is much good news for marriage equality advocates.  

More than half of Californians said gay relationships were not morally wrong, that they would not degrade heterosexual marriages and that all that mattered was that a relationship be loving and committed, regardless of gender.

That’s really, really good news.  54% say same-sex relationships are not morally wrong, and 59% say that “as long as the two love each other, it doesn’t matter” what gender the two people are.  It suggests that the only hurdle is the terminology of “gay marriage,” based on lingering tradition.  I think that can be cleared to a degree.

• There’s more confirmation that this is generational.

Overall, the proportion of Californians who back either gay marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples has remained fairly constant over the years. But the generational schism is pronounced. Those under 45 were less likely to favor a constitutional amendment than their elders and were more supportive of the court’s decision to overturn the state’s current ban on gay marriage. They also disagreed more strongly than their elders with the notion that gay relationships threatened traditional marriage.

Considering that the likely Presidential nominee is poised to bring Americans under 45 to the polls in record numbers, it’s certainly better to be on the side that appeals to them.

• If Arnold’s opposition to the measure is publicized, which is likely, that does seem to change minds:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has vetoed two bills sanctioning gay marriage, has said that he respects the court’s decision and that he will not support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Californians were split on his stance, with 45% agreeing and 46% disagreeing.

I think this is a pretty good place to be considering the circumstances.  The marriage equality movement has powerful advocates and the weight of justice and fairness on their side.  It’s whether enough people have gotten used to the concept by November.  I think the poll shows that’s very possible.