Because the Citizen’s Commission process that actually determines legislator salaries is clearly hopelessly br-

Declaring that elected officials must share the pain of California’s fiscal crisis, an independent commission voted today to impose an 18 percent pay cut for statewide elected officials and all members of the Legislature.

The California Citizens Compensation Committee, which sets salaries for state officers, earlier voted in favor of a more modest 10 percent pay cuts in an April 29 meeting in Sacramento. But the action couldn’t stand because the seven-member board lacked the required four votes.

But today the commission voted 5-1 to make a deeper reduction in elected officials’ salaries because of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s announced plans to lay off 5,000 state workers.

The only reason this didn’t pass before is that the Governor didn’t do his job to keep the required amount of appointees on the committee.  Of course, by his logic, aren’t these state workers?  Shouldn’t they all be fired so we can “live within out means?”

Now that the already-in-place process did what it was supposed to do, clearly we can all agree that Abel Maldonado is the kewlest man evah.  Two snaps up with a circle, Abel.  Two snaps.

The establishment in both parties continue to close ranks around the May 19 special election, even as the grassroots continues to reject it.  Today Antonio Villaraigosa endorsed all six ballot measures, asserting that they will “bring stability back to California’s budget system,” like any artificial spending cap that forces spending $16-$20 billion dollars below initial baseline estimates during an economic crisis where state spending is needed urgently tends to do.  Without question, Villaraigosa, a potential candidate for Governor, sees that giant pot of CTA money being tossed around in support of the measures and figures one of the candidates could draft off of that nicely in the primaries.

At the local level, more and more Democratic clubs are opposing the ballot measures, because unlike the establishment, they have read them and calculated that they would put the state in an objectively worse situation, and they are unmoved by the idle threats of Armageddon casually tossed out by the Governor and his minions.  The dichotomy is both interesting and revealing.

Meanwhile, in maybe the lamest online initiative effort since the invention of Compuserve, Abel Maldonado’s tears have created  “Reform For Change,” a site dedicated to the petty, self-righteous, useless Prop. 1F measure that would eliminate raises for lawmakers and staff during an economic downturn.  In the silly video accompanying the site, Maldonado’s tears tell us that “we can fundamentally reform California and change it forever,” through apparently passing a .0001% change in funding for state lawmakers that is dealt with through an independent commission and not “the legislators themselves” (one of many lies on this site).

Sigh.

UPDATE: Apparently Antonio said this today – “If we don’t pass these initiatives CA will go into bankruptcy.”  That’s just ignorant fearmongering.  These people should be ashamed of themselves.