This is my first diary on Calitics, so please bear with me.  The legislature has now passed a budget deal.  This is a bad, bad, horrible, awful deal.  I will not discuss that deal further, as it prompts me to use language not suitable for mixed company. What it does tell me, and should tell anyone with a pulse, a brain, and a conscience, is that the two-thirds rule is a license to commit extortion.  Enough’s enough!

We must now move to next steps.  These are my ideas, but alternative suggestions are welcomed.  We should agree on our plan as a progressive community, and move forward.  We should all remember that “the perfect is the enemy of the good” and keep focused on the main prize — upholding progressive values.

My five point plan, coming up.

1.  Symbolic but necessary:  a resolution castigating Perata for blocking efforts to remove Denham and Maldonado last year.  Unilateral surrender is never an option.

2.  Defeating the open primary proposal in 2010.  Even if the plan itself is good on the merits (a debatable issue), we cannot give in to blackmail.

3.  Qualifying and passing a majority-rule initiative for June 2010.  Whether it’s a clean 50%+1, the August 1 proposal, Bass’ proposal, 55%, or some other option at this point is irrelevant.  We have to move the ball forward on this issue.

4.  Demand, I repeat DEMAND, that the party chair and the legislative leadership contest every single seat to the utmost.  Unilateral surrender is never an option.

5.  Start working now to elect a Democratic governor and more Democrats in both houses of the legislature.  We need to capture 2/3 in case the majority rule initiative fails.

Let’s go!