"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign an emergency spending plan into law today that promises to solve the largest deficit in California
history after 106 days of contentious negotiations," write Matthew Yi and Wyatt Buchanan in the Chron.
The governor plans to sign the budget at 11:30 a.m.
"The spending plan, which the Legislature approved early
Thursday after a Republican senator from Santa Barbara
County cast a breakthrough vote, is intended to keep
the state in the black through June 2010.
"But the agreement exacts a toll: Californians will pay higher taxes and get less in
return; education, transit and services for the poor, disabled
and elderly will take deep cuts.
"In addition, key parts of the funding plan, including
borrowing money from future lottery sales, will require
approval by voters in a special election in May.
"Recovery from the fiscal crisis will be gradual.
Some state offices are closed again today as part of
twice-a-month worker furloughs for the next 16 months; many construction projects remain on hold; thousands of state employees could be laid off; and state financial officials cannot say when tax
refunds and other payments will begin flowing from
Sacramento."
Although the budget will be signed today, counties shouldn't expect to see their delayed payments for a couple
of weeks," reports Loretta Kalb in the Bee.
"[I]t will take weeks – or longer – for the state spigot to reopen and begin pouring money
into local government coffers.
"'We don't know how long payments will be delayed, or if further
delays are needed,' said a Chiang spokesman, Garin Casaleggio."
Payments from the controller's office to Mr. Maldonado's district may be unexplainably delayed...
"First the state Finance Department has to release its
data based on the new budget. That should come within
a week.
"Then the controller's office next week 'will begin crunching those numbers and come up with
the plan to make sure the state meets its obligations
and makes good on the payments it has delayed,' Casaleggio said."
"In a state where fed-up voters have a tradition of imposing their will,
the crisis that led to a deficit of historic proportions
and ended as the sun came up Thursday was seen as a potential defining moment for changing the
way government and politics are run," write Michael Rothfeld and Eric Bailey in the Times.
"The sense that California's state government does not function has been building
for several years -- since before the recall that swept Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
into office -- but residents and experts said nothing has so crystallized
it as the turmoil of the last few months.
"'It seems to me that the public is probably more aware
than any time in the last 20 or 30 years that there's something broken up there with respect to the budget
process,
' said Bruce Cain, a political scientist at UC Berkeley."
The Bee's Shane Goldmacher and Jim Sanders look at the aftermath of Abel Maldonado's decisive budget vote.
"'He's a man without a country now,' said Republican strategist Dave Gilliard. 'And in politics that's a not a good place to be.'
"Within hours, conservatives had launched a whisper
and Web site campaign to recall Maldonado."
"Party activists, meanwhile, are pouring into Sacramento
this weekend for their state convention – poor timing for a politician who just openly bucked
party orthodoxy. The party will consider formally censuring
Maldonado and the five other GOP lawmakers who supported
the budget.
"Maldonado acknowledged the fierce opposition, joking
earlier in the week that "some people are probably going to lynch me," if he voted yes. He cast his decision as that of a
statesman.
"'I'd like to have seen somebody else vote for this budget,' he said. 'And it would have been easy for me to cast a 'no' vote. But during difficult times, you need to step
up to the plate.'"
George Skelton writes that Maldonado emerged the big victor of the budget battle.
"California Republican and Democratic Party leaders,
always at war, finally agree on a common enemy: the open primary," reports Carla Marinucci in the Chron.
"A proposed constitutional amendment would go before
voters in June 2010 instituting a "top-two" primary system, which would effectively eliminate
party primary ballots, erase candidate party labels
in primary elections and allow voters to choose the
two candidates - of whatever party - who would compete in the general election.
"An open primary would dissolve the current political
primary system, and has the potential to seriously
erode party power and change the entire landscape of
state politics.
"The measure was the work of Republican state Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County), the swing vote Democrats needed to push through state
budget legislation Thursday morning. That vote earned
him the wrath of his party."
Political consultant Paul Mitchell ran the numbers on which primaries would have moved
on to a runoff under the Maldonado's "top two" plan:
"The biggest effect is the “Top Two” twist. With Top Two you would have
districts in which either two Republicans or two Democrats
move on to
the General against each other. Then the Republicans
have to chose
among two Democrats – probably giving the election to the more moderate
candidate.
"Just looking at the 2008 primary elections, and dismissing the
“crossover” votes for this analysis, check out the wild General
Elections we would have had this past November:
SD 3: Leno vs. Migden
SD 9: Hancock vs. Chan
SD 23: Pavley vs. Levine
SD 25: Wright vs. Dymally
AD 8: Cabaldon vs. Yamada
AD 14: Skinner vs. Thurmond
AD 19: Hill vs. Papan
AD 46: Perez vs. Chavez
AD 52: Hall vs. Harris-Forster
AD 62: Carter vs. Navarro"
Interestingly, no Republican races would have gone
to a runoff.
Meanwhile, the California Cannibals Festival begins today in Sacramento.
"The three-day California Republican Party Convention, beginning
in Sacramento today, will be a closely watched turning point for a state
party at war with itself.
"Firebrand conservatives are pushing a resolution to
censure six Republican lawmakers who voted for a California
budget plan raising taxes.
"On Saturday, a GOP committee is to decide whether to
call a Sunday floor vote to censure lawmakers who backed
a state budget deal with $14.3 billion in tax increases.
"State Senate Republicans on Tuesday ousted leader Dave
Cogdill for agreeing to the plan with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
and Democrats.
"Jon Fleischman, the party's Southern California vice president and editor of
the conservative FlashReport, introduced the censure
resolution by assailing tax-hiking Republicans as traitors to principle.
"'Breaking core promises to our constituency is the political
equivalent of turning ship straight into the political
iceberg,' Fleischman wrote."
The LA Times political team looks at the May 19 ballot measures serving as the duct tape holding the
budget plan together.
"'Given how disaffected voters are and how really disgusted
they are, you might find all the ballot measures could
get swept away,' said Democratic strategist Darry Sragow.
"Voters will be asked to wrest money from mental health
services, children's programs and future lottery receipts. They will be
offered the opportunity to constrain future state spending
-- but only if the tax hikes just passed stay in place
for four years instead of two. The failure of one or
more of these measures could reopen a deficit.
"Lawmakers and the governor are already looking nervously
toward the campaign for the measures, even as they
breathed a sigh of relief Thursday when the Legislature,
in lockdown for a third straight day, finally passed
a budget. The plan's approval halts the state's slide toward insolvency and allows officials to once
again begin paying tax refunds, vendors and public
assistance recipients, though those checks could be
delayed several more weeks.
"'It is very important we start campaigning now,' Schwarzenegger said at a Capitol news conference.
Earlier in the day, he took down the clock outside
his office that counted how much money the Legislature's inaction on the budget was costing California."
Dan Walters dissects Meg Whitman's new jobs promise.
"Meg Whitman, the former boss of eBay, is running for
the Republican gubernatorial nomination next year on
her successful business record and a promise to create
2 million new jobs in the first five years.
"'This is the amount we need if we're going to replace the jobs our economy has stopped
producing or is losing to neighboring states,' Whitman said in her first major speech this week.
'It's the target we need to hit if we're going to restore prosperity. ... We'll do it by streamlining regulations, restructuring
and cutting taxes, spending less and spending smarter.'
"That statement defies economic, demographic and political
reality. When the California economy is popping, as
noted above, it creates about 250,000 new jobs a year, somewhat more than the annual growth
of the labor force. Whitman is saying she could create
400,000 jobs a year, twice as much as labor force growth."
And finally, from our Florida Files, Reuters reports
"Even the sharks are feeling the impact of the global economic slowdown.
"Shark attacks on humans
dropped worldwide in 2008 to their lowest level in five years,
apparently because the recession has curtailed seaside
vacations,
University of Florida researchers who compile the annual
tally said on
Thursday.
"They confirmed 59 shark attacks on humans in 2008, down from 71 the previous year and the fewest since 2003."
