It’s all out war between Abel Maldonado and his (?) Republican Party. In an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent, he accuses the GOP of wanting the state to collapse. (h/t CalBuzz):

“It was ‘Abel – let it go into bankruptcy, let it go off a cliff, we need to prove a point, that it’s the majority’s fault,'” he said in an interview, to be published Thursday in the Santa Barbara Independent.

This is nothing we haven’t heard before. We’ve known that the GOP saw possibilities in a collapse of the state government. A chance to break labor once and for all, a chance to freeze government in its tracks, a boon for conservative backwardness.

Yet with Abel, you never know what he’s playing at. He’s always looking at what’s next, using the situation to get what’s best for him.  And I’m skeptical that his statements are anything but self-serving.  Especially his remarks on the no-tax pledge:

He said his vote on the budget allowed him to wrangle reforms that do not carry personal benefit for him but “are about California.” He also expressed regret that in the past he signed a “no new taxes” pledge, saying that Republican orthodoxy on the issue “is an irrational position.”

“I regret signing” the pledge, he said. “I regret not having a couple of words added – ‘unless there’s an emergency.’ We have a fiscal emergency in our state. People want ideas and solutions, not political positions.”

These statements make him seem eminently reasonable.  Not exactly sounding out a fair and reasonable tax policy, but somebody who you think you could work with. Yet, somehow, he only came to understand the depth of the emergency after extracting what he wanted out of the situation? He could only get himself to throw the state a lifeline when he could get his ridiculous open primary initiative? His statements are extremely disingenuous at best.

Yet, despite all that, it’s hard to see how Maldonado proceeds in his political career.  Perhaps he could have switched parties earlier in the session.  I assure you, Democrats will not have him now, and as he points out, the Republicans hate him. He was thrashed at the state convention, people directly yelled to his face.  Even if his open primary measure passes, he has no base, and winning without party support would still be hard, if not impossible.

But I’m not sure if his fate in the Republican Party would be any better even had he stuck with the caucus. The party is so out of touch with the majority of the state, and the riff with Maldo clearly shows that.  I say this not as a partisan Democrat, but as a political observer, the statewide Republican Party is risking traveling the path of irrelevance already walked by the Massachusetts Republican Party. I suppose I should suppress that smile, huh?

While I was at Camp Courage in Fresno all weekend (much more on that transformative event later today) I missed out on some of the stories happening in state politics, including this gem from Willie Brown’s Sunday column in the San Francisco Chronicle where he explains one reason for Maldonado’s pursuit of an open primary:

State Sen. Abel Maldonado, the deciding vote in the big state budget morass, came to see me last week with a very interesting story about his fellow Republicans.

I was telling him what a good name he has, because no one can figure out if it is Spanish, Italian or Portuguese.

He proceeded to tell me that when he was running for state controller in 2006, he commissioned a poll to gauge the feelings of Republican voters in Orange County.

The poll came back showing him losing to the Democrat by almost 2-1.

“This is impossible,” Maldonado said. “Orange County is loaded with Republicans.”

They did the poll again and the results were the same – the Democrat won.

So Maldonado ran a little test. He had the pollster go back and give voters the same information as before – his age, that he’s a rancher and the like – but this time, he said, tell them the candidate’s name is Smith.

The result: Smith came out ahead.

So he ran another poll, a Republican named Garcia vs. a Democrat named Smith.

Smith won again, even among Republicans.

At that point, Maldonado said, “We’re not spending another nickel – there ain’t no way that anyone with a Spanish name is going to win anything in a Republican primary in this state.”

He was right, in his case at least – he lost the primary to Tony Strickland.

I wish I could say I’m surprised by this, but of course I’m not. As someone with deep familiarity with Orange County Republicans this story rings all too true to my experiences. They just don’t like Latinos. For many OC Republicans, their anti-immigrant sentiment is thinly veiled racism. In public it may be about “the law” but at block parties or conversations with neighbors at the mailbox or even the dinner table, it’s really about fear of a brown planet.

“Did you hear that some Mexicans bought a place on the next street over?” “Yeah, there go our property values.” [I’ve heard variations on this conversation several times in the last 20 years in Tustin.] “Do you remember when Santa Ana was full of English speakers?” “Yeah, now it’s full of Spanish billboards. It’s like Tijuana!” [Another frequently overheard conversation, one that neatly ignores the continuous presence of Spanish-speakers in that city dating to at least the 1860s.]

Racism against Spanish speakers and those with Spanish-sounding surnames in Orange County remains endemic. And so it’s quite understandable that Maldonado would discover these kind of poll results.

Of course it’s worth noting that “Orange County” is a diverse place and that there are large swaths of the county where this hasn’t been a problem, as Loretta Sanchez can attest (though her 1996 and 1998 campaigns against Bob Dornan unfortunately brought out a lot of racism and attacks on her Mexican last name, with the irony here being that Dornan told me at the time she merely used her maiden name “Sanchez” instead of “Brixey”, her then-married name, to win votes!).

Still, this is indicative of the problems that Maldonado has as a slightly less conservative Latino Republican in a state where conditions of membership in the Zombie Death Cult appear to still include not having Latino heritage.

Not to mention the obvious point that this is further evidence that Maldonado was merely seeking personal gain through the budget standoff and is further evidence of why the 2/3rds rule must go…

I’m reading the accounts of delusional maniacs from across the state with not a little bit of bemusement.  The lack of economic thought is matched only by the lack of recognition that Republicans got far more out of this budget than they deserved to get, thanks to the anti-democratic 2/3 requirement.  Here’s a sample of this Algonquin Roundtable:

“The Republicans should have stood their ground,” fumed 70-year-old Tony Dragonetti. “Abel Maldonado is sick, and so are the other Republicans who voted for this. They give the you-owe-me crowd everything they need, but the poor slob who is working day after day paying taxes gets nothing.” […]

“I think they could have held out. There are a lot more cuts they could have made,” said Steve Pyle, 61, who said he was so unhappy with the country’s direction that he seriously was considering moving to Australia. “They could start by getting rid of all the illegal immigrants and the teachers unions.” […]

“I don’t believe everything would have stopped if this budget wasn’t passed,” Sanders said. “I support what the Republicans did.”

Local GOP activist Adele Harrison predicted new taxes would push the state and country into a depression […]

Terry Carter, 65, just smiled behind the counter and kept pouring coffee. The boisterous regulars have helped keep him in business for 22 years. As for his own opinions, he keeps those to himself.

“Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is listen,” he said.

Well, that depends on who you’re listening to.  For example, listening to talk radio is most definitely NOT the smartest thing you can do.  I’ve been tuning in to a lot of this down in Southern California, and the ignorance abounds.  A typical commenter is a well-off suburbanite bitching about $700 bucks in new taxes for their $126,000 salary (that was an actual conversation).  Roger Niello, one of the Yacht Party’s own who voted for the budget, got hammered on a Sacramento station.

John in Sacramento warned, “You’re going to bankrupt the state with taxes.”

And Dave in Cameron Park told Niello he was “outraged that you, as a Republican, caved in and voted with Democrats.” […]

“You should have let (California) fall off a cliff,” John from Sacramento told him. “Then, we pick up the pieces and put this state together, the way it used to be.” (emphasis mine)

This is the suicide cult politics played by the GOP.  And it features a lot of righteous anger and talk of censure and recalls and primary challenges.  There’s even some Ventura County Supervisor and anti-tax nut who’s mulling a run for Governor as the conservative alternative.

But I’m not sure it’s such a force anymore.  The John and Ken show ended Thursday with the two musing that “somebody should do something about this” and asking listeners to find each other to fight against the turncoats.  In other words, they’re not going to lead it.  Ultimately, these are lazy people shouting at the end of the bar.  Independents have turned dramatically against them, and the leader of the party won’t show up at their convention.  I don’t know that they’re entirely coordinated, after years of mismanagement and an almost broke state party apparatus, to even pull off the enforcer role.  If someone like Anthony Adams survives a primary challenge, that would be a powerful signal that the Yacht Party is all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

In fact, in maybe the most pathetic rallying speech I’ve ever heard in my lifetime, neo-Hooverist South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford argued for losing now, losing tomorrow, losing forevah!

“We are at the incredible gut check point for what happens next in American civilization,” Sanford said in the introductory address for the state party’s three-day Sacramento convention […]

“Would you be willing to lose? Would you be willing to support folks who may likely lose,” Sanford told the gathering at the Capitol Hyatt. He went on to say that it was paramount for party members to support the GOP “at a time when it may look like a losing cause” because their efforts will be “pushing the ball forward in the larger conservative movement.”

California Republicans: Willing To Lose.

I find myself debating this quite often in the aftermath of the budget.  At first, I really thought Abel took this one hands down. After all, he held this thing up for days upon end just to get himself a few perks.  But I’ve decided to make a case by using one example for each of them, as I seek to answer this eternal question.

The Case for Maldo:

But there is no better example of the case for Abel winning this particular award than the $1 million for the controller’s office that Robert just described.

Not only does it not save us all that much money, but actually ends up costing us over $5mill over the next 6 years. It seems that the move itself was a cost-cutting measure.  The Controller’s current space is in some pricey real estate area, and they will now be forced to stay there. The million bucks was simply intended to provide furniture for the new, cheaper office space.  Now the state will be stuck paying for both offices as there is no where for the controller’s employees to sit at the new place.

Let’s be clear here, Maldo didn’t object to the other $128 million in annual state spending for furniture.  No, he objected to this money because it was politically advantageous. How cute.

The case for Arnold:

Oh, the case for Arnold, there are simply such a selection of events to choose.  But, let’s go with today’s press conference.  I can forgive the fact that he stood up there and essentially just read this memo, numbering included. The memo also include a stupid slideshow of a four legged stool to illustrate his point that the plan needed all four legs of the stool to stand. If I send him a picture of a three legged stool that stands perfectly well, do we get to pull one of these “legs” off of this stupid plan? If so, it would be a tough call between 3 of the four legs, “economic stimulus” aka attacking workers’ rights, “government effeciency” aka attacking environmental protections, or spending reductions.  Tough call.  Governor, I await your response on that.

And then Arnold flat-out ignores a question about 2/3 to instead answer a question about open primaries. It was clear that the open primary was Arnold’s plan all along. His response to one question about how he chose to work with Abel went something like this:

He came to me and he was very passionate open primaries and that’s something I support, so I thought we could work together.

Ummm, right, with the way he talked about open primaries, it was clear that this is what they were focusing on all along.  This was no last minute surprise in the Horseshoe, it was his favorite dream come true.  

I think what we have to do is create open primaries, you saw what happened on the floor. You have to bring people to the center. We have legislators so far out to the left and to the right. It’s very hard to get them together. You need redistricting reform that has passed, and you need to have open primaries. We need to change the system itself that creates this kind of situation where people get tied down and draw a line in the sand. All of these things are not good for people of CA, we want to create a system where the legislator work together to solve the problems.

Not only is there no evidence that open primaries empower moderates, see Vitter, David, but it also saps resources that could go to competitive races.  For example in the 2008 cycle there would have been 9 additional competitive races if the open primary were in place. And guess what, they were all between two Democrats.  Would a second race between Loni Hancock and Wilma Chan really have created more moderate legislators?  It’s doubtful at best.

Yet he ignores the one (and only) reform that would have completely prevented this bullshit: ending the 2/3 supermajority requirements for taxes and budgets.

So, who is the winner?  Tough call, but I go with Arnold for now.

Abel Maldonado and his toady Brandon Gesicki have been all over the news pushing the frame that Controller John Chiang is wasting a million dollars on office furniture:

The same day the governor vetoed the Democrats’ budget proposal, the Controller’s office requested $924,500,000 worth of new office furniture from this fiscal year! How is that acceptable? Here is an elected official who is in the press every day talking about cutting services, stopping checks to welfare recipients and issuing IOUs to hardworking Californians. But at the exact same time, he is requesting new office furniture. This disgusting and disingenuous behavior has to end.

This is, quite frankly, bullshit. The money was approved by then-Controller Steve Westly, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the State Legislature in December 2006 not for “furniture” but to bring the C Street office complex up to code. From a presentation the Controller’s office sent out today:

• The current workstations were out of compliance with ADA, OSHA and SAM requirements.

• Current stations were 10-20 years old (80% were 20+ years old and replacement parts are no longer

manufactured).

• DGS confirms that there was not (and is not) enough used modular furniture available.

•In 2005, wires melted and smoked in one bank of cubicles, causing evacuation of the building, raising health and safety concerns.

So the office remodel isn’t being done for vanity, but to reduce a hazard AND the risk that the state of California will face lawsuits that will rack up legal bills. And the whole plan actually saves Californians money:

Bottom Line: $3,982,000 savings from purchasing efficiencies

$1,500,000 savings from less expensive rent, in future years

How did Maldonado vote when this funding came up in summer 2007?

August 21, 2007, Senate approves C Street BCP contained in SB 77 (Budget Act for FY 07/08) [vote was] 27-12, Maldonado votes “aye”

Abel Maldonado is a dishonest and self-interested politician who only wants to cut budget deals that advance his career – even when they cost the state $5.5 million.

Well, the deal is done, Abel (and Arnold) gets his open primary measure. But, honestly, it’s hard to remember a speech so rife with hypocrisy as Maldo’s final speech on the floor this morning, even from a body that is itself riddled with hypocrisy. Some thoughts and a recap of the speech over the flip.

He begins with some material ripped off from the Democrats.  He talks about how children need this budget, how the college students need this budget, yada yada.  All good points, but where was he for the last few weeks?

He moves on to rage against the Republicans, saying that “never thought I would have to defend the people of California from my party, which refuses to see the truth and would rather see the state crumble than address the reality of a fiscal crisis.” Or something like that. Maldo proceeds to gets misty over a picture of Gov. Reagan and thinks of the good ol’ days.

Does he think that we haven’t noticed his votes over the last few weeks? Does he think the open primary will really help the children? Or was it the $1 million he took from the Controller’s office for furniture that really saved the kiddos?  Won’t he think of the children?

He dreams of a “Chamber of Pragmatists” in the Senate. Yeah, maybe we can have 40 little Abels running around the Senate.  Except that Abel acknowledges that there will be dire “political consequences” for his vote:  

This might be the end for me. But this vote ensures that it is not the end for the State of California.

What a joke.  If Maldonado gets recalled, his actions of the last few days will ensure that few actually lift a finger to save him. Maybe Don Perata will go knock on doors for him, in between conversations with his attorneys, I mean.

Even if this open primary measure passes, it won’t go into effect until the 2014 statewide races. If Senator Maldonado really thought that the open primary would help him win any future race, well he is sorely mistaken.  Will he be able to pull himself into a “top two”? Perhaps, but even that seems doubtful.  This is a man that used the state’s crisis to try to grab whatever he could get. A man that knew what was right for the state, but held out for some cheap political points.

Certainly it took a fair amount of courage to vote for this budget, and I grant him that.  But nobody should laud him as a hero.  He decries the dumping of Dave Cogdill, but with his stalling tactics, he helped ensure that Cogdill would be dumped.  He left Cogdill and Ashburn floating in the wind for his own gain. Honestly, I’m not sure which is worse, a man that refuses to see reasonable policy and stands on principle, or a man that acknowledges the correctness of that policy only after being bought off.

No, I’ll give it to Abel on his closing remarks.  His political career is over.

And good riddance.

Programming note: Robert will be on KRXA 540 AM at 8 to discuss this deal

AB 3xxx, the tax package, has now passed the Senate with 27 votes. The final votes are now going through. The deal is now done. On a related note, Maldo is the biggest hypocrite since, well, ever.  Some notes from his speech on the floor in a few minutes. See also ccleague’s twitter feed, as Scott Lay and co. are tweeting like crazy to join John Myers excellent tweets.

The final tax package is different from what it was a few days ago. It changes the income tax surcharge on upper incomes and cuts the gas tax. Sigh, i really thought we had a chance to get a twofer that would increase revenues but also help the environment.

The big drama of the night, unsurprisingly, surrounded the first measure of the night, the open primaries amendment.  Dems resisted this, with the bill initially failing by receiving only 24 votes. Steinberg was able to cajole Sens. Hancock, Romero, and Corbett back into the fold for this POS.  Sen. Padilla also stood up and said that he was supporting this only so far as putting it on the ballot.  Folks there will be much work to do between now and May 19. Defeating the spending cap should be the progressive’s first priority, but this ridiculous measure needs to be defeated.  Not only for the policy, but also to shove Maldo’s face in the piece of crap he let loose on the Senate floor.

I’ll get some video of Maldo’s speech as soon as possible, but oh it is rich.  Rich I tell you.

The rest of this will be a stream of thought blog, my apologies if it gets a bit random.

* Maldo gets his attack on John Chiang’s furniture budget, in SB 20. What a joke this man is. He manages to get 27 votes for this measure, with a combination of Dems and Reps.

* Ashburn gets his sweeteners, money for the state fairs across the state. Ashburn calls them “economic generators.” Anything that increases jobs we ought to do, he says? Oh, really? Then why is the state slashing jobs?  I’m just sayin’. I think some of these folks are getting a little sleeplessness-drunk. In an exchange, Sen. Padilla says that only somebody of “Ashburn’s stature” could carry the bill in response to Ashburn’s “jockeying” of the bill.

* Bill to set up the election for May 19 passes.

* Sen. Benoit stands up to talk about AB 5, a measure to “increase flexibility on the work week.” AKA, cut into worker’s rights.

* AB 7, a 90 day foreclosure moratorium, passes with a simple majority.

* AB 8, to gut CEQA for 11 projects and for state property, and to lift restrictions for offroad diesel operations that were regulated by CARB. Passes with a simple majority. Sad stuff.

* Sen Steinberg talks of the 45.5 hour session, longest in the history of the Senate.  He talks of difficult decisions, but “great relief”. He takes “real pride in our imperfect institution” because apparently they can solve anything if they can tackle a $40 billion deficit. Thank you to the membership for thriving under pressure, to Speaker Bass for doing her part, to Dave Cogdill for “becoming friends”. Aww, it’s a Big 5 lovefest. More props to Sen. Ducheny and the budget staff, the other Senate staff, Leg Counsel, and his own staff.

* Hey, look at that, the Senate gets Thurs and Friday off.

* Sen Steinberg moves to adjourn.

* Sen. Padilla thanks Sen. Steinberg for moving people a lot further than they thought they would come.

* Over on the Assembly side, they are wrapping up the last of the bills to make this happen. The necessary measures pass quickly, and they adjourn for the weekend.

Because he knows he can get it, Abel Maldonado is offering his list of demands in exchange for being the 27th vote on the budget.  I guess Darrell Steinberg’s “1 Republican Vote” sign got to him.

In what could be a break in state budget talks, legislative Democrats are contemplating a firm offer – approval of three constitutional amendments – from Republican Sen. Abel Maldonado as a means to closing the state’s $40 billion budget shortfall.

Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, could provide the crucial 27th vote necessary to pass a budget package that has been stalled since Saturday. In a lunch meeting at Spataro with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maldonado asked for ballot measures to create an open primary system, prohibit legislative pay raises in deficit years and stop legislators from receiving salaries if they do not pass a budget on time.

Maldonado said in a brief interview Wednesday that there was “a good chance” for a budget vote tonight and that he wants all three of the reforms he has put forth to secure his budget vote.

Asked if he would settle for one or two, he said, “I’m asking for all three,” before rushing into a meeting with Assembly GOP leader Mike Villines. “We’re very close on the details and I just want to leave it at that.”

The move here would be the one Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog came up with – to intentionally draft the law in a way that is unconstitutional.  But there already is a draft of it, and it sounds similar enough to the law in Washington State that passed the Supreme Court’s muster.  Candidates wouldn’t have to put their party on the ballot, leading to oftentimes intentional confusion.  The vindictive part of me thinks I should sue to tangle this up in court until the day after the 2010 Controller’s primary just to screw with St. Abel.

Oh, and Schwarzenegger has wanted this for a while.  It’s entirely possible that St. Abel is a sock puppet.

The three constitutional amendments, combined with the rest of the bill, would potentially put EIGHT measures on a hastily assembled ballot in May, all of which are essentially must-pass or it’s back to the drawing board.

I hate this fucking broken system.

…the only saving grace is Roy Ashburn invoking Reagan raising taxes in 1967 on the Senate floor and shoving it in the rest of the Yacht Party’s faces.  Didn’t know he had it in him.

About, oh every 14 seconds, we here at Calitics mention the fact that Abel Maldonado is taking the state hostage.  In fact, the email I sent out a few days back, said exactly that:

Call Senator Abel Maldanado (R-Monterey County, 916-651-4015) and tell him to give up his list of demands and end this hostage situation.

In today’s LA Times, they say, well, exactly the same thing.

California’s budget held hostage

His demands have merit, but Sen. Abel Maldonado can’t put politics above what’s good for California.

* *  *

There was a point at which Maldonado’s reform demands began to look suspiciously like his next campaign for controller rather than a moral stance for centrist pragmatism. Here’s one not-very-promising campaign slogan: “I demanded reform. They wouldn’t give it to me, so I sent your state over the cliff.” We’ve seen that movie too, and we don’t like the way it ends.

Of course, the Times didn’t tell you to keep that phone ringing, but I will. If you haven’t called him, please call Maldo,916-651-4015, and tell him to end the hostage situation. If you have, call him again, or you can also call his local offices. And if you are in the district, why not call both offices and send him an email too?