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.

One of the better tangible policy changes during the first 6 months of the Obama Administration is the expansion of SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.  Starting from the premise that all children deserve access to health insurance, SCHIP is a state/federal partnership that seeks to cover children who fall between the gaps, whose families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough money to afford health insurance.  The program has been wildly successful since its introduction under the Clinton Administration, and virtually every state has expanded their state-based SCHIP budgets to cover the maximum amounts of children.

Every state except California, that is.  As part of the budget revision, the Legislature cut Healthy Families, causing between a $128 and $144 million shortfall in the program’s current budget.  With his veto pen, the Governor (illegally?) slashed $50 million more.  The total, as much as a $194 million shortfall, is over 50% of its budget.  This has led to the only waitlisting in the country for an SCHIP program.

The program already froze enrollment earlier this month, quickly amassing a waiting list of some 22,000 kids in need of health care, and swapped its application payment assistance program for $4.6 million in savings. Now, to cope with the cuts, it’s expecting to disenroll hundreds of thousands of participants starting later this fall […]

No talk of preserving a safety net for the neediest here. Disenrollment will be based on when participants entered the program. Children who hit their one-year coverage anniversary will not be eligible to renew their enrollment, and will instead be moved to that growing waiting list.

“At this point, it is strictly based on eligibility renewal dates,” Puddefoot said. “Those children who were enrolled in July or August, and those children who were first enrolled in September will be the first to be disenrolled.

This could impact as many as 900,000 children.

Officials with the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board met in Sacramento today to figure out the policy for waitlisting or disenrollment, and to explore additional avenues of support to fill the program gap.  Many have speculated that First Five, the successful voter-approved program to support young children, could provide some funding, but they cannot cover a $194 million dollar hole, and their mandate allows them only to support children between 0-5.  At the meeting, the board basically punted.

The task of shedding hundreds of thousands of children from the public Healthy Families health insurance program – or finding ways to keep some enrolled – was put off Thursday until Aug. 13 by the board managing the program.

The Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board must come up with a plan to respond to deep cuts in California’s budget, including Healthy Families […]

Disenrolling children from Healthy Families “is something we do not relish doing,” said Cliff Allenby, the board’s chairman, as members listened to a number of speakers anticipating harm that will come from cutting so many children from insurance. Allenby said the board “may have no choice,” but is looking at ways to restructure the program to reduce costs and raise money for premiums from other sources.

Among the options under consideration: eliminating vision benefits, increasing co-pays and changing reimbursement schedules.

First Five committed to help with some money, but failed to delineate the amount.

I know one way to instantly restore $50 million in funding for poor children – by overriding Arnold’s possibly illegal vetoes.

So the Governor kicks sand in the face of the entire state Legislature, vetoing 130-odd bills with the same generic “Sorry, I couldn’t persuade any Republicans on the budget so now you will pay” message, including some which were passed out unanimously, and the leadership’s response is not “Time to override” but… “Oh yeah, well just try that again!”

Of course, the governor has always made it clear he prefers campaigning to governing. That has to change if we have any hope of solving California’s challenges. The people of California deserve better than constant campaign mode. The people of California deserve better than staged fights for the cameras.

I’m willing to look past all this and hope we can see a new start. Part of that should involve the new bipartisan blue-ribbon commission I’ve been pursuing to look at tax modernization and two year budgeting and other potential solutions to California’s chronic fiscal crises. The governor has been supportive of that effort, and it’s a good place for us to move forward from.

I will also be asking Assembly members to reintroduce all the blanket-veto bills and will expedite their passage so the governor can have a second chance to act responsibly on them.

That is weak from Karen Bass.  There is absolutely no reason not to go back into a lame-duck session in November after the elections and get this done.  Otherwise you are enabling a bully.  At least some lawmakers get this:

Assembly Majority Floor Leader Alberto Torrico vowed today to push for a bipartisan legislative backlash against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by overturning many of his recent vetoes.

“We’re all very frustrated, both Democrats and Republicans,” the Fremont Democrat said at a news conference this morning. “I don’t think there’s going to be any problem attaining the votes for an override.” […]

Torrico said that when the Legislature reconvenes in January, he will push for overriding vetoes of both Democratic and Republican bills that received two-thirds support in the Legislature. Dozens of bills could qualify, he said.

Torrico said that he had not yet discussed the idea at length with legislative leadership, but “I think that’s going to be the first order of business upon our return.”

Sadly, Torrico doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  The bills expire at the end of the legislative session and cannot be taken up in January.

Just leaves you brimming with confidence, doesn’t it?

Instead of just stamping your feet and talking tough, this is a perfect opportunity for action.  Go back to work before November 30 and override these vetoes.

Robert made an oblique reference to it, but the Governor showed his true character with his series of vetoes this week.  Yes, he did allow some valuable bills to pass into law, particularly SB 375, the land use bill.  You will now be able to register to vote online thanks to the signing of SB 381, and your menus at restaurants will have calorie contact and nutritional information.  He also signed two green chemistry bills that will crack down on hazardous industrial chemicals, and in the biggest surprise, he signed AB 583, the clean money bill which would establish a pilot program making the Secretary of State races in 2014 and 2018 publicly financed races.  (It was a bit easier for Arnold to sign this one, because it also must be put before voters on the June 2010 ballot.)

So those are some of the success stories.  But there are hundreds of failures, some of them absolutely inexplicable.  We knew that Arnold would veto SB840, the single-payer bill, but he also vetoed health care provisions that were in his own legislation from last year’s health care reform overhaul, including one that would end rescission (dropping patients after they put in a claim) and requiring that 85% of insurance premiums be spent on health care.  He vetoed the California DREAM Act for the second year in a row, after it was altered to conform to the standards he set in last year’s veto message.  He vetoed a bill which would have done away with the archaic and authoritarian practice of requiring loyalty oaths for state employees, because it’s “our responsibility to ensure that public resources are not used for purposes of overthrowing the U.S. or state government, or for communist activities.”  He vetoed sensible card check legislation for farm workers that would have allowed employees to unionize while resisting employer intimidation.  He caved to Big Business – and Sarah Palin – and vetoed the groundbreaking port cleanup bill that essentially signs a death warrant for families living in and around that toxic stew.

All in all, he killed 35% of the bills sent to him this session, and 45% of those sent in the rush of the final week.  Most of the vetoes I described above reflect the right-wing ideology and fealty to the Chamber of Commerce that I’ve come to expect from the Governor.  But what’s unusual is his contempt for the legislative process itself.  Here’s Frank Russo:

On many of the bills the Governor did not give a clue as to why he did not sign them, and instead employed a cryptic boilerplate veto message: “The historic delay in passing the 2008-2009 State Budget has forced me to prioritize the bills sent to my desk at the end of the year’s legislative session. Given the delay, I am only signing bills that are the highest priority for California. This bill does not meet that standard and I cannot sign it at this time.” How will this look in the future-next year or when history is written? In the hundreds of bills that met this fate there are many that were trivial or could be seen in that light. Some were amended down to the point of a pilot project or study or some other pale shadow of their former selves and the original intention of the legislator that introduced them. Even in this form, to the people involved, some of these were very important.

Some of these bills were passed out of both chambers with UNANIMOUS support.  And he rejected maybe 500 bills with that dismissive message.

It’s not like these bills are foisted upon the Governor after being hidden away in secret.  There is public information on all of them, and I’m assuming he has a staff to read the bill text.  The excuse is not only lame, it’s a final middle finger at the legislature, a disregard for the work that they do.  As Dan Walters noted:

The budget imbroglio, the governor’s threat to veto bills unless it was resolved, the Legislature’s delay in sending him last-minute bills, the hundreds of vetoes, and his drive to change how legislative districts are redrawn every decade worsen his already acidic relationship with the Legislature. The relationship is now so bad that Schwarzenegger was unable to move a single vote from his fellow Republicans on the budget.

There’s really only one thing to do.  Veto overrides are incredibly rare in California, with the last one occurring I think 30 years ago.  But it is incumbent upon California lawmakers to stand up for themselves and immediately move into a session where all unanimous bills are voted on in an effort to override the Governor.  This is as much about checks and balances as anything else.  Schwarzenegger showed his contempt for the process by hijacking the budget late in the game and threatening to veto.  The “detente” against veto overrides should be dead and buried by now.  I’m sure Democrats would welcome the maneuver, and Yacht Party Republicans aren’t too pleased with the Governor in their own right.

This is about asserting the ability to carry out a core job function.  If unanimous bills can be vetoed with no consequences the legislature just diminished greatly in stature.  Stand up for yourselves.  Stand up to this bully of a governor.  Override.