Back in the February budget battle, notorious right-wing SoCal talk show hosts John and Ken put the heads of Republican legislators who voted for the tax increases on sticks as a threat of grassroots wingnut revolt. Their primary enemy became GOP Assemblymember Anthony Adams (AD-59), who they targeted with a recall effort, gathering and submitting signatures to put a recall on the ballot. It was to be the biggest demonstration yet of the power the KFI duo have over California politics - and the Republican Party.

Except they failed.

We learned today that the recall effort will fall 11,000 signatures short of qualifying for the ballot, according to the random sampling projections. John and Ken turned in 58,000 signatures but the sampling projects less than half - about 24,500 - will be valid, short of the 35,825 they needed to make the ballot.

Chalk this up as a pretty big FAIL on the part of John and Ken and their own SoCal version of the teabagger movement. Armed with one of the West Coast's most powerful radio signals and one of the highest rated shows in the region

On Twitter I noted that if they couldn't get the recall on the ballot, maybe John and Ken aren't so powerful after all. Anthony Adams agrees. Once again, the great anti-tax revolution of 2009 is a mouse that failed to roar.

Senator Barbara Boxer emailed our 700,000+ members today asking them to stand with us to fight for women's health and stop the Stupak Amendment. Sen. Boxer has become a very strong, compelling voice against this odious amendment, which would make it very difficult for women to access their right to reproductive choice. It's going to take a strong show of force by the California progressive community to ensure that this is taken out of the final bill. Please join us by signing the petition.

Below is the email Senator Boxer sent to our members.   Read More »

Sometime next month Time Magazine will announce their "Person of the Year," and it should be obvious by now who best personifies 2009: Herbert Hoover. 80 years after he helped the nation slide into Depression with his austerity budgets and refusal to use government to help provide relief and recovery, his basic approach to political economy is enjoying quite a renaissance. Alongside Sacramento, one of the most prominent places to embrace the new Hooverism has been the United States Senate.

Now it looks like they're moving to up the Hooverite ante, and two of California's powerful federal politicians are at the center of the debate. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is joining 6 other Senators to demand that Speaker Nancy Pelosi approve a commission to recommend cuts to Medicare and Social Security - or else they'll refuse to vote to increase the US government's debt ceiling:

Congress is under pressure to raise the cap on what the federal government can borrow by mid-December. If the debt ceiling is not raised above its current $12.1 trillion mark by then, the government will exceed its borrowing limits and will be forced to default on the debt. Economists have warned that the inevitable result would be a lowering of the U.S. credit rating, triggering substantial increases in the interest rates the government is already paying.

But before Tuesday's hearing was over, Sens. Conrad, Gregg, Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) publicly vowed to vote against raising the debt ceiling if a budget reform commission bill doesn't come along with it.

Chris Bowers at Open Left called this a national suicide pact, an apt description for this truly reckless demand:

Let's review the threat that these five Democrats are making:

* They will allow the United States to default on its debt, which will vastly increase the overall amount we have to pay on our debt

UNLESS

* Speaker Nancy Pelosi turns over Congressional power on Social Security and Medicare to an unelected commission that will almost certainly propose deep cuts in Social Security and Medicare entitlements. Keep in mind that deep cuts to Social security and Medicare that pass under a Democratic trifecta would doom the party at the ballot box for years to come.

This is completely insane, and there is no choice but to call this bluff.

Bowers goes on to point out the obvious fact that if these Senators did cause the US to default on its debt (the practical effect of refusing to increase the debt ceiling) their political careers would all be over, so we have nothing to lose by calling their bluff.

And he is right. Cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits would be a truly insane, reckless, and radical act. At a time when the US economy is entering a period of long-term high unemployment, the very last thing you want to be doing is further undermining the ability of Americans, particularly the aged, to make ends meet.

Cuts in Social Security and Medicare will not only ripple through the economy in the form of reduced spending, they'll also ripple through younger generations, who will fill the gap lost by the cutting of government benefits with money out of their own pockets to help their elderly relatives make ends meet and get the treatment they need.

Feinstein is embracing Hooverism, putting Democratic gains at risk, and threatening to make our economic crisis permanent. Of course, in doing so she's merely going with the flow in both DC and Sacramento, so it's not like she's some kind of outlier.

Still, this kind of insane policymaking has to be stopped. Pelosi should call Feinstein's bluff. Anyone here who thinks Feinstein would actually enable a debt default, please raise your hands. Didn't think so. Pelosi already got rolled once this month by a block of regressive Democrats willing to risk future elections in order to roll back rights and screw the poor and the middle class. She shouldn't let it happen again.

Note: this email was sent to our members this morning from Mike Bonin, one of the founders and now Program Director of Camp Courage.

Dear friend --

I never could have imagined it.

As a kid growing up scared and closeted in New England in the 1970's, I never could have imagined that the issue of gay marriage would ever be seriously debated, let alone hotly contested.

I never could have imagined a day when gay people would have been in television ads, when WWII veterans emotionally spoke out in favor of their gay children, when people of faith stood up for LGBT rights, when armies of people -- gay and straight alike -- would descend into a small New England state to say gay people should be equal.

I know that the news from Maine is depressing. But it is not the end. It is just another bump in a long road. Let's not forget how far we've come as a country, while recognizing how far we need to go to achieve full federal equality, fighting for it at every level: in the courts, at the ballot box and in Washington, DC.

Equality will be ours, but we will have to fight for it. And I can't imagine a better opportunity to learn the secret to our future success than Camp Courage -- an experience that graduates say is one of the most powerful and transformative events of their lives..

If you want to join more than 200 people who have signed up for Camp Courage Sacramento this weekend, you have less than 24 hours to do so. On Friday at 12 p.m., registration will close. Click here now to sign up:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento

While marriage equality did not come to Maine, it will surely come to America, and when it does, events like Camp Courage will be where the seeds of equality were planted.

On Saturday morning, Camp Courage Sacramento will begin. Within minutes, the room will be buzzing with energy, as participants learn how to tell their "story of self" -- the foundation of changing the hearts and minds of our friends, family and neighbors.

By the end of Camp Courage on Sunday, lives will be changed, powerful friendships will be forged, and a community will be connected.

Time is running out. If you want to experience this transformative event, sign up now for Camp Courage Sacramento before it's too late:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento

When I was a kid, I never could have imagined a day in America when full equality would be the law of the land. But one day, from sea to shining sea, that change will come.

Come to Camp Courage Sacramento this weekend and learn how to be that change.

Mike Bonin
Camp Courage Program Director

It stings, deeply, to have witnessed another close defeat for marriage equality. We fought a hard battle in Maine, and it is heartbreaking to have come so close and not won a victory.

And yet, we're not going to let this defeat discourage us. After the passage of Proposition 8, a new movement emerged to fight for and win full equality for LGBT Americans. That movement is a grassroots, bottom-up movement. The Courage Campaign has been empowering that movement ever since. That movement helped us fight to a near-victory in Maine. That movement appears to have fought to an actual victory in Washington State. And with your support, that movement will fight for victories in California and at the federal level.

The Courage Campaign is going to redouble its efforts to win. We're going to continue organizing on the ground. We're going to continue to do the research to learn from the experience in Maine and to learn how to win in California. And we're going to continue to fight for full equality at the federal level as well.

To do that, we need you to organize with us. Click here to make an investment in the movement for equality. Help us power the repeal. Help us win.

Below is the email Julia Rosen sent to our members today from Maine, where she had worked for the last week for equality.   Read More »

Last Thursday the San Francisco Chronicle reported that under the current bills being considered in the House and Senate, 90% of Americans would not be able to pick a public health insurance option. The proposed rules would limit access to the Exchange, where the public option would be offered, to "individuals who cannot get insurance, or whose health care costs exceed 12.5 percent of their income."

Not only would that mean most Americans wouldn't have access to the public option - it also means that public option would be weaker. For the public option to bring down costs and provide quality care, it needs to have a large base of paying customers to be able to negotiate good rates. Further, it needs to be able to attract healthy young people. If it can't, then the public option may suffer what is known as "adverse selection" where only the sickest people get the public option. That would drive up the costs of the public option, and make it less effective.

In order to make the public option provide the most benefits for the most people, we need to open it up so that anyone who wants to buy into it may do so. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is offering an amendment to allow anyone to access the Exchange, where the public option will be offered. Senator Barbara Boxer has already indicated her support for the Wyden Amendment. It's now up to Senator Dianne Feinstein to join Boxer, Wyden, and the American people in demanding everyone be allowed to choose the public option.

That's why we sent the following email to our members today, asking them to sign the letter to Senator Feinstein asking her to open the public option to everyone:   Read More »

We sent the following email out today about Camp Courage Sacramento - and telling a remarkable story about an experience one of our campers had at Camp Courage East Los Angeles back in August.

Dear friend --

Before we see you at Camp Courage on Saturday, we want to share a story with you.

Take a moment to read what Theresa Wang, a Los Angeles activist, said about her experience at Camp Courage and how transformative it was for her mother:

My mother, Stella, has always been the stereotypical Asian woman, not drawing any attention to herself and for the most part keeping quiet. When I came out, she was devastated, but dealt with it on her own, prioritizing my happiness over her own discomfort. Eventually she grew to be completely supportive, even attending protests and on this particular weekend, attending Camp Courage East LA.

The heart of Camp Courage is about telling your "story of self," and as I facilitated my group's stories, I peeked over to see my mother telling hers. She was crying.

As this was an exercise completely foreign to her, I immediately began to question my judgment in bringing her to camp. Telling her story out loud appeared to be too much.

After group sharing, a few people were asked to share their story on stage and I was surprised to see my mother getting up to tell hers. I watched in shock as my mom's group stood behind her as she talked about her coming-out process as the mother of a lesbian who was getting married.

In that moment, I watched my mom turn into a storyteller on stage, grabbing the attention of the whole room. Near the end of my mom's story most of the audience was crying as well. As she finished, the entire room gave my mom a moving standing ovation while chanting her name -- "Stella!" "Stella!" "Stella!" -- in a moment of unbelievable joy.

The people attending Camp Courage that day were not the only ones moved by my mother's story. A few weeks later, my mom wrote her story down and had it published in the China World Journal -- the most widely-read Chinese language newspaper in the United States.

There are so many "Stellas" in our lives -- people who want to learn how to support us in our activism or become an engaged activist themselves.

Do you know someone like Stella -- a friend, family member, co-worker or ally -- or anyone who would enjoy sharing Camp Courage with you? If so, please ask your friend to come to Camp Courage Sacramento. Just give them a call and tell them how important it would be for them to come with you on Saturday.

Or forward this email to your friend or loved one and let them know that you want to share this experience with them and that you need their help in bringing marriage equality -- and full equality -- to California. Here's the link for your friends to RSVP:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento

We all have a place in this movement. See you on Saturday at Camp!

With gratitude,
Daniel Segura and Billy Pollina
Camp Courage Coordinators

We're delighted to share this message with you from Sheila Kuehl, elected in 1994 as the first openly gay or lesbian state legislator in California history, and the first woman to hold the position of Speaker pro Tempore.

Sen. Kuehl attended Camp Courage Fresno in March and would like to share her experience with the Courage Campaign community in anticipation of Camp Courage Sacramento.

Rick Jacobs
Chair, Courage Campaign

Dear eden --

"We were all amazingly moved. We cried. We didn't want it to end. Maybe most unexpected of all, we were profoundly changed."

That is what I wrote in 2004 after flying to San Francisco to officiate at the weddings of eight of my closest friends, following Mayor Gavin Newsom's historic decision to -- at least temporarily -- legalize same-sex marriages.

I could just as enthusiastically have written those words about Camp Courage Fresno, the transformative training event for marriage equality activists that I attended in early March -- just over five years after the "Winter of Love" in San Francisco and a few months after the shocking passage of Proposition 8. I was there as a camper and loved every minute of it. We all -- experienced organizers, or not -- learned so much and came away very fired up.

We've come a long way. But we still have a long way to go, if we want to repeal Prop 8 and restore marriage equality to California.

That's why I want you to sign up for Camp Courage Sacramento on November 7-8. Spots are filling up fast and I don't want you to miss this wonderful opportunity:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento

People ask me when I first became an activist, expecting me to say that I experienced some great tragedy because of my sexual orientation that lit a fire, ignited a bulb, or wound up the spring leading me to devote a good part of my life to the lesbian and gay movement.

Imagine their surprise when I say, "It was the week I spent as a camp counselor at UCLA's UniCamp for 'underprivileged' children." The pain expressed by these kids -- a feeling of being unworthy -- affected me deeply. I realized that I needed to start working to make things better in the world.

That was the root. The tree took a little longer to grow.

That is the beginning of my "Story of Self" -- the training model used by "Camp Obama," and adopted by Camp Courage, that transforms each participant's unique inspiration for supporting marriage equality into compelling and authentic narratives that can be used to persuade undecided voters.

To discover your own Story of Self and gain so many skills and committed new friends, please come to Camp Courage Sacramento on November 7-8. Space is limited for this special training in Sacramento, so please sign up ASAP:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/CampSacramento

For most of our lives, gays and lesbians have been part of a community that couldn't even dream of full equality. But that afternoon in 2004 on the steps of San Francisco City Hall -- and later, when the couples came home to balloons in their yards, flowers in their homes, celebrations at work, presents, notes, and endless congratulatory e-mails -- we saw how marriage allows society to recognize our equality.

For the couples, and for me, it was like a dam opened. That place where all of us had buried any hope of marriage -- where we had dutifully registered as domestic partners and convinced ourselves marriage wasn't worth having -- that place cracked open to the sun. It was a revelation.

No matter your level of experience or skill, Camp Courage can be a revelation for you as well -- gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual or transgender.

I hope you will be at Camp Courage on November 7-8.

Sheila Kuehl

NOTE: Please note that it is necessary for participants to bring their own lunch to Camp Courage on both Saturday and Sunday. As lunch time is limited and there will be no time to leave the Camp venue to purchase lunch, please make arrangements before you arrive at Camp to bring lunch with you. Thank you.

Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote a letter to California's Congressional leaders today about health care reform. Most of it is a long extended whine about the feds not offering enough money to states to provide for health care, since Arnold believes California should not be spending much money to help people get health care.

But there's also an interesting proposal from our governor about the public option. Basically, he wants to use the "opt-out" as an opportunity for California to design its own public option, one that would benefit fewer people than the federal option:

In terms of state coverage options, I support the inclusion of language that will provide states the option of developing state-based insurance options for people with incomes above 133 percent of the federal poverty level but below 200 percent. I believe this provision can be strengthened and made more effective by allowing states, especially those with higher costs of living, to serve populations up to 300 percent FPL, providing states access to at least 95 percent of the tax credits and cost-sharing subsidies available for eligible individuals in the state and ensuring sufficient state flexibility to enable continuity of care between Medicaid and the state-based option. Providing states with the flexibility to set eligibility to 300 percent of the federal poverty level recognizes different cost structures across states and is more consistent with existing income eligibility thresholds allowed under the federal children’s health insurance program, which will help support the policy goal of keeping families together for health insurance purposes.

Finally, creating transparent and user-friendly health insurance exchanges at the state level can help facilitate the enrollment process. At the same time, I believe these state-based exchanges must be more than simple clearinghouses of information, but instead allow states to certify plans and negotiate within broadly established federal parameters to help promote competition among health plans. I also continue to believe that states must remain the primary regulator of health insurance in order to maintain the strongest consumer protections possible.

What this means is that Arnold Schwarzenegger would have California exercise the opt-out in order to design a "public option" much more restrictive in who it is available to, provided in state-based exchanges instead of through a national system. Alongside protecting the customer base of his insurance industry allies, this would also enable California to force the people who would want a public option to jump through a number of hoops designed to discourage them from actually getting the benefit, as California now does with things like IHSS, food stamps, and such.

Some may argue that California would never go for this kind of "Arnold option," but let's consider some things here. First, the Senate language regarding the opt-out has yet to materialize. Arnold may well be mainstreaming right-wing and corporate talking points that could be used by conservadems in the Senate to shape the opt-out in a way that would have the program more closely resemble the Nixonian "block grants" that have given states too much power to restrict federally-mandated benefits. In short, Arnold might be saying "hey, here's how the opt-out should look!"

Arnold may also be setting up the language and framing that could be used by Republican gubernatorial candidates to deal with federal health care reform. In a state where the public option concept is popular, Arnold could be showing how the public option could be neutered in practice while preserved in name.

In a state that has gutted much of its public sector over the last two years, with bipartisan support the entire time, it's a strategy worth watching closely. Especially since the outcome of the federal health care reform project now appears to be a shifting of the battleground to the states.

UPDATE by Robert: John Myers reports via Twitter that "Guv's ofc says his health care letter should not be interpreted as support for opt-in/opt-out public option" and that, quoting a governor's office spokesperson, Arnold "is calling for state-based insurance options to offer coverage for lower income populations not eligible for Medicaid."

One of the most important transportation projects in California, aside from my beloved high speed rail project of course, is the Subway to the Sea. A long-planned effort to build passenger rail to Santa Monica via the Wilshire corridor, it has become a primary goal of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Few areas in North America are as congested as LA's Westside, and a subway through this region would be a godsend, creating thousands of jobs and reducing dependence on oil while untangling the traffic mess.

But LA County also has several other passenger rail projects they're considering, and with the passage of Measure R (a *tax* approved by 2/3rds of voters in the state's most populous county last November) along with a transit-friendly White House, Metro can actually reasonably expect them to get built.

The question is what gets built and when - and with what federal funds. As with most other transportation projects around the country, Metro's projects will need federal "new starts" funding. Villaraigosa wants Metro's board to prioritize the Subway to the Sea and another related project, the "Downtown Connector" (finally linking the Blue and Gold lines, as originally intended).

Villaraigosa's plans are getting some pushback from local members of Congress. 14 members of Congress, including Adam Schiff, Jane Harman, David Dreier, and Maxine Waters, wrote a letter telling the Metro board that if they follow Villaraigosa's plan, they risk losing out on federal funding:

The 14 members of Congress who signed a letter released Tuesday said those two programs [Subway to the Sea and Downtown Connector] don't have a good shot at immediate federal funding.

Further, they said the county risks not getting much from the federal New Starts program for several years unless it adds other regional transit proposals to the application, including the Gold Line extension east from Pasadena, a rail line down Crenshaw Boulevard and the Gold Line Eastside extension Phase 2 from East L.A. to South El Monte or Whittier.

"We are very concerned that Los Angeles County is not positioning itself well to receive its fair share of New Starts funding in the near- and long-term," the delegation wrote.

The background is that there are three other projects that some Metro board members and legislators want funded: a light rail line down Crenshaw, connecting the Red and Purple lines to the Expo and Green lines; and two extensions of the Gold Line into the suburban San Gabriel Valley.

The battle reflects typical political debates in LA County, with the Subway to the Sea and the Downtown Connector seen as benefiting the wealthy Westside at the expense of the less prosperous and more diverse South LA and San Gabriel Valley communities. And as the legislators' letter makes clear, it's inconceivable that Metro could get new starts funding for all 5 projects.

Yonah Freemark, who runs The Transport Politic, one of the best transportation blogs out there, points out that the other 3 projects would serve far fewer riders than the Subway to the Sea and the Downtown Connector, and that from a transportation need perspective, those should be prioritized.

Of course, the US Congress isn't a place where such sensible considerations rule the day. David Dreier, whose district includes the I-210 corridor along which one of the Gold Line extensions would run, has been particularly adamant about ensuring that project gets support from the Metro board. And South LA representatives understandably want to ensure that their communities get served by transit - as residents there have the greatest dependence on transit, their case is strong.

If it were up to me, I'd back the Subway to the Sea, the Downtown Connector, and the Crenshaw line and tell Dreier to shove it. As the LA Subway Blog notes, the Subway to the Sea will have enormous regional benefits. Just because it is located on the Westside doesn't mean that's the only place it will assist - just as the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach doesn't just benefit people living in San Pedro and Wilmington.

But the real issue here isn't picking which of the 5 worthy projects gets supported and which doesn't. Metro would be in better shape if the state of California wasn't in the process of abandoning its support for mass transit. The state ought to be able to help fund construction of one or two of these projects, leaving the feds more able to support the other three. For example, the state should be able to help start the Crenshaw line and one of the Gold Line extensions, enabling the feds to fund the Subway to the Sea, the Downtown Connector, and the other Gold Line extension.

Southern California was the poster child for the 20th century sprawlconomy, and is now suffering greatly for having clung to that model for too long. Voters there now recognize it is time to change, and have put their money behind the kind of mass transit solutions the region desperately needs. It's up to the state and federal governments to deliver their share.

UPDATE by Robert: The Metro board voted today to recommend the Subway to the Sea and the Downtown Connector for federal new starts funding. The board also passed an amendment by Mark Ridley-Thomas directing Metro to seek all other possible funding (aside from new starts) to build the Crenshaw and Gold Line extension LRT projects.

Major policy changes often happen as a result of a sudden shift that is, in fact, not so sudden at all. Public attitudes and behavior steadily change over time, but a political system whose practitioners have made up their minds on a topic years ago, before that change became apparent, are typically unwilling to accept the new reality. Until something changes - a new generation of leaders takes power, a financial crisis causes people to become more open to new ideas. Or perhaps it's just as simple as an idea whose time has come, an idea whose wisdom can no longer be denied.

We're at such a turning point with marijuana. One of the state's main cash crops, the economic base of many small towns in the North Coast (and of a growing but hard to track number of metropolitan households), marijuana is already widely available in California, whether on the black market or at a quasi-legal dispensary. As more and more Californians are comfortable with the use of marijuana, even if they do not partake of it themselves, the decades-old drug war has become seen as more and more absurd when it comes to marijuana.

When an April Field Poll found 56% of Californians back marijuana legalization, it became only a matter of time before the topic became a fully mainstream subject, deemed appropriate for "serious" conversation at everything from public policy summits to the dinner table.

And so this week California is witnessing a fundamental shift in marijuana policy, where for perhaps the first time it really is a question of "when," and not "if," the sale and use of marijuana will become legal in California.

The biggest news comes from the federal government, where Attorney General Eric Holder has followed through on his early signals and announced the Justice Department will no longer prosecute people for using medical marijuana in accordance with their state's laws. Holder is not yet embracing full legalization, of course. But this is a significant shift that recognizes states do have a right to innovate when it comes to drug policy. Whether the Obama Administration intends it or not, the new policy will be further evidence that a strict federal "War on Drugs" is no longer desirable or viable.

Here in California, more fundamental changes are under way. As a judge rules LA DA Steve Cooley's attack on dispensaries to be invalid, the movement for full legalization is well under way. Tom Ammiano's bill to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana, AB 390, will get its first hearing in the Assembly next week.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking at a bill signing ceremony in Merced yesterday, said he is "basically opposed" to legalization but believes it's time to have a debate about the issue. In Arnold-speak that says he doesn't see legalization as a political loser, even if he's not quite willing to go there himself. His comments show that legalization has gone from being a sensible idea on the fringes of our political discourse to something we can debate as easily and naturally as, say, water policy.

Meanwhile, armed with the Field Poll results - as well as the recent Gallup Poll which found support for legalization was highest in the Western US, with moderates and independents nationwide about split on the matter, California activists are not waiting around for the legislature or the governor to act.

Instead they're going directly to the ballot. TaxCannabis.org is the headquarters for the effort to put an initiative on the November 2010 ballot to treat marijuana much like alcohol. The initiative would legalize possession of up to one ounce for all adults over 21, and give local governments the ability to determine whether to more broadly legalize and tax marijuana themselves. It would essentially create a "local option" instead of a statewide free-for-all.

It's not yet clear if they have the money or the volunteers to put this on the ballot. And the fact that local governments would be the ones implementing the policy, instead of a single statewide standard, might limit the savings in prison spending and the overall tax revenues created. But it's a clear step forward for sensible drug policy, one whose time has clearly come.

Late last week we learned that California's unemployment rate dropped 0.1% in September, from 12.3% to 12.2%. That stat obscures far more than it reveals, including the fact that the 12.3% rate for August was an upward revision of the earlier reported number.

More significantly, the stat is not an accurate reflection of the job market in California. We actually lost 39,000 jobs in September. The only reason the rate appears to have dropped is that a significant number of the long-term unemployed have stopped looking for work and are no longer counted as "unemployed.

Nearly 1/3 of those lost jobs came from the public sector, as Steven Levy explained:

The state's job losses were especially pronounced in construction, which lost 14,100 jobs over the month, and government, which lost 12,700.

Cutbacks in government employment, which includes public schools, are partly to blame for the state's lackluster performance this month, said Stephen Levy of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy.

"We are disproportionately hit in the government sector because our state and local governments are having worse budget shortfalls than in other states," he said. (LA Times, 10/17/09)

As Atrios said, that's not the way it's supposed to work. Government needs to be the employer of last resort, especially in a state that has the highest unemployment levels in 60 years. When 12,700 government employees lose their jobs, that translates into less consumer spending, which in turn means pressure to lay off more workers, all of which results in less tax revenue for the state, which merely exacerbates the vicious circle.

Yet Arnold Schwarzenegger simply doesn't care about the unemployment crisis. Instead of working to create private sector jobs through the preservation and expansion of public sector jobs, Arnold has engaged in a right-wing shock doctrine attack on the basic services of the state, an attack that was never going to succeed before the recession hit.

Once upon a time conservative Republicans claimed job creation was their #1 task, and that we had to give corporations whatever they wanted to create jobs - tax cuts, regulation cuts, etc. California did so - and as a result we have a far larger recession and unemployment numbers than we've ever had when Big Government supposedly ruled our political economy.

Today, you'll hear nary a peep out of the Republican Party about jobs. Sure, the Cal Chamber will publish its list of "job killer" bills, but that's only the public excuse to give Arnold the reason he needs to veto bills he'd have vetoed anyway. Instead you have a party that simply does not care about unemployment and the jobless. Instead, to hear Chuck DeVore tell it, the unemployed should just leave California.

California Republicans see unemployment as an unalloyed good, something to be embraced as a tool to destroy what remains of the New Deal and create a working class utterly dependent upon and unable to resist corporate power. California's economic policy has become nothing short of kleptocracy, justified by a constant media drumbeat demanding greater spending cuts, apparently for their own sake.

It is up to Democrats and progressives, then, to make the case to California that jobs matter, that jobs are what this state desperately needs, and that Republicans have not just given up on providing jobs, but are actively cheerleading unemployment and attacking the jobless.

Of course, we don't need jobs for their own sake. We need quality jobs, jobs that pay a living wage, jobs that are sustainable and not dependent on the latest asset bubble Ponzi scheme. And just as we learned in the 1930s, we need government to step in and provide them - instead of actively destroying them.

A few weeks back the Guardian's Sunday paper, the Observer, published a long article titled Will California become America's first failed state? It was one of their most widely read and emailed articles that week, and generated a lot of responses. One of them was mine at Calitics.

The Guardian wanted a response to their article for their Comment is Free section of the website, and asked me to write it. The result is now available: From Golden State to failed state.

With a 700-word limit it was difficult to be more expansive than I could here at Calitics. But my article makes the basic points: the 20th century model of California, emphasizing sprawl and weighing government down with absurd, non-functional rules designed to protect that sprawl, have produced "a California that more closely resembles the world of Charles Dickens than that of the Beach Boys."

We need to craft a new vision of the California Dream for the 21st century. Go read the article to see what that would look like.

Six years ago this month, California voters threw out an unpopular governor amidst a recession and a severe budget crisis, replacing him with a Hollywood action star who promised to fundamentally change the way the state does business.

Instead the people of California got a governor who actually is as a bad as Gray Davis was incorrectly assumed to be. And finally, the public realizes just how bad he is. The latest Field Poll shows a state that is fed up with the failure currently occupying the governor's office. Only 27% approve of Arnold Schwarzenegger's job rating, and 65% disapprove.

The lowest approval rating Gray Davis ever sustained was 22% in August 2003, 2 months before he was recalled. And that remains the lowest approval any CA governor has sustained since at least 1958 (Field Poll doesn't offer stats before that year). Arnold Schwarzenegger is now in Davis territory.

This will likely spark more talk in the comments of a recall of Schwarzenegger. But in fact, such a recall is scheduled, just 385 days from now. The November 2010 election will be California's chance to decide whether they want to continue Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies in the form of either Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner or Tom Campbell.

It would be nice if the Democratic candidates offered a meaningful change away from Arnold's policies of "cut for cuts' sake, no matter the damage it does to our economy" and his overall right-wing approach to governance. Jerry Brown might have signed AB 98 but he has stated his preference to continue the totally failed Schwarzenegger "no new taxes" policy that is wrecking our state's finances and our economy. Gavin Newsom has made some interesting statements about the need for structural reform, but he has yet to offer a specific solution to the economic and financial crisis.

Which is unfortunate, because Californians clearly, desperately, want change. The candidate that offers a different and better path than the failed legacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger will be the one to sweep into the governor's office in January 2011 with a mandate for change.

We'll see if there is any such candidate willing to step up and play that role.

Yesterday was the deadline for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto or sign nearly 700 bills passed by the Legislature. It was a mixed bag, with some great news for the cause LGBT rights but some very bad news for health care reformers and women across the state.

Among the vetoed bill was AB 98, which would have mandated that all health insurance plans offer maternity coverage. The governor's veto message:

Maternity coverage is offered and available in today’s individual insurance market. Consumers can choose whether they want to purchase this type of coverage, and the pricing is reflective of that choice. While the perfect world would allow for all health conditions to be covered, including maternity, I cannot allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good.

This is, as I noted back in March, is untrue:

When Wendy Root Askew of Monterey started looking for a doctor she hoped would be her gynecologist as well as deliver her future children, she was shocked to discover her health insurance policy didn't include a single OB/GYN in her county.

The 31-year-old considered changing health plans. But then she learned that while 85 percent of the plans available in Monterey County offered maternity coverage five years ago, just 15 percent offer it now.

She found only two individual policies that included maternity, but they were three to five times as much as the policy she already had and came with annual deductibles of up to $15,000.

Wendy is a very good friend of mine. And now she, like women across the state, have fallen victim to Arnold Schwarzenegger's greed.

Given his veto of AB 98 and a number of other similar bills designed to produce meaningful health care reform, it was somewhat surprising to learn early this morning that the governor signed two bills advancing the cause of LGBT rights, including a bill he previously vetoed. The governor finally signed the bill declaring May 22 as Harvey Milk Day. And even more importantly, he signed Sen. Mark Leno's SB 54 allowing California to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside the state. If a same-sex couple gets married in Massachusetts, under this law, that marriage will be recognized as valid in California. Equality California did some excellent work on both of these bills, and deserves credit for getting them signed.

We can expect right-wingers to challenge that law as well, as part of their campaign to take away rights from LGBT Americans.

Ultimately this very mixed record on bill signings shows us how much damage Arnold Schwarzenegger has done to California - and how much better a governor he could have been. As we begin to look toward the 2010 election, when we will pick Arnold's replacement, progressive Californians should seek candidates who will embrace LGBT rights and health care reform at the same time - for we need both at once if we are to have a progressive state that cares for and respects the rights of all its people.

Just a few months into the 2009-10 fiscal year, and after three excruciatingly painful rounds of budget cuts (September 2008, February 2009, and July 2009) we learned today from John Chiang that California's budget is again in the red:

State revenue has already fallen more than $1 billion short of assumptions in the budget lawmakers passed less than three months ago, according to a new report from the state controller.

Disappointing income tax receipts are the main culprit, falling 11% below what lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger expected when they agreed on a patchwork budget during the summer, halting the state’s issuance of IOUs. Sales and corporate taxes have also slid below projections.

"While there are encouraging signs that California's economy is preparing for a comeback, the recession continues to drag state revenues down,” said Controller John Chiang in a statement. He called the new figures “a major blow to a budget that is barely 10 weeks old.”

Even before the bad fiscal news, policymakers were bracing for a big budget deficit next year. The Department of Finance anticipates a $7.4-billion deficit in 2010-11. That’s a conservative estimate, because lawsuits have tied up or reversed some planned budget cuts.

As we've made quite clear here at Calitics, the previous budget deals did absolutely nothing to solve the state's economic and fiscal crisis. Despite those who would have us believe the problem is somehow caused by "overspending," we are actually seeing the effect of state budget cuts that have laid off thousands of workers, and caused them as well as those who remain to spend less money in the state. It was entirely predictable that the massive budget cuts would merely weaken the economy further and thereby exacerbate the cycle of decline in revenues.

But it should come as no surprise to us that such an outcome has taken place. At no time during the present recession have legislators and the governor given any thought to how they will produce economic recovery. The dominant impulse in Sacramento is to cut, to cut for its own sake, to cut when it costs money to do so, to cut when it is illegal to to do, to cut when it further weakens an already disastrous economy.

The last thing California needs are the further and deeper budget cuts that we're likely to hear suggested in the wake of this news. California instead desperately needs jobs, particularly unionized, well-paid and high-benefit government jobs.

Californians also need affordable health care. They need affordable transportation. They need also more educational options. As Paul Krugman pointed out today, the cuts to education are weakening our economy and will cause permanent damage:

For example, the Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported on the plight of California’s community college students. For generations, talented students from less affluent families have used those colleges as a stepping stone to the state’s public universities. But in the face of the state’s budget crisis those universities have been forced to slam the door on this year’s potential transfer students. One result, almost surely, will be lifetime damage to many students’ prospects — and a large, gratuitous waste of human potential.

Krugman calls for an emergency package of aid to state and local budgets, a call we at Calitics heartily second.

But we must also work hard to stop the 121 Herbert Hoovers in Sacramento from doing further harm to an already stressed state. We've tried Republicans' neo-Hooverite solution. Democrats have insisted we had no choice to go along with it, but they have instead caused untold suffering and pain to the people of California without gaining anything in return.

As we prepare for the next budget battle, we need to also prepare to demand that Democrats abandon neo-Hooverism and stop embracing policies and budget deals that merely make the economic and fiscal crisis worse.

Yes, our state has severe structural governance problems that make truly progressive solutions difficult. But the first step toward fixing those structural problems is to articulate a clear vision for a fairer, more prosperous, and more economically secure California. Only then will Californians be willing to dismantle the structural barriers that have strangled our state over these last 30 years.

Earlier today at Calitics David Dayen leveled his criticism of the Sacramento Democratic establishment for their apparent failure to produce an initiative to roll back the 2/3rds rule and start fixing California's broken government.

Here I want to offer a slightly different perspective on the issue of what we need to do to win the battle. This isn't a disagreement with David, but instead a discussion of something related - the question of how it is we win this battle.

My own views on this have evolved somewhat over the last 6 months. I very much think we need to be "making the argument" for majority rule, and that so far this hasn't yet been done.

And the way that has to be done is to place the 2/3rds rule into a broader effort to emphasize progressive values. This is a twofold approach that requires us to do two things:

1. Show Californians where progressives want to take them: Universal health care, free higher ed, eliminate traffic, create sustainable jobs, etc. Articulate our end goals and get people excited about them, since it's hard to excite people about procedural questions.



2. Show Californians how we want to get there. Go populist and hammer the shit out of the corporations and wealthy folks who benefit from the current tax structure, and push for sensible revenue solutions consonant with that populism that can achieve the promised goals.

I think that to emphasize the procedural problems (the 2/3rds rule) before emphasizing the fundamental injustice and inequality of our tax code is to put the cart before the horse. If we are going to reverse the polling and win this, we need to first mobilize Californians behind the notion that our state's economic problems and our inability to properly fund schools or healthcare or parks or transit is because we are letting those with the money escape their obligations.

The PPIC and Binder polls (the one from the May 19 election) have both shown the public is willing to support certain taxes to preserve important services. So the move should be to push hard for an oil severance tax to fund schools, or closing corporate tax loopholes to expand Healthy Families, or to jack up taxes on the wealthy (particularly taxing unearned income) to bring down higher ed tuition, or something to that effect.

Dems should plan to move these things in the next legislative session and spend several weeks beforehand making this argument. Back Republicans up against a wall, make them defend the unpopular tax breaks for the unpopular bandits that have ruined out economy. And when the Republicans predictably use the 2/3rds rule to block those revenue solutions, then we will be in a much better position to win public support for majority vote on revenue.


We will have the opportunity over the next 12 months to move on this strategy, especially as outrage builds over the existing cuts. That outrage is not about process, but about the basic values of this state being violated and cast aside in order to enable the wealthy to get tax breaks at the expense of everyone else.

There are some folks in Sacramento who seem to get this. Lt. Gov. and future Congressman John Garamendi has been calling for an oil severance tax to fund higher education.

I know that leads some to criticize "ballot box budgeting" and argue that dedicating specific taxes to specific services doesn't help the problems with the general fund. I have always been much less critical of ballot box budgeting than others, partly because I see it as a necessary holding action until we resolve Prop 13 itself.

But more fundamentally, we need to overturn 30 years of anti-tax rhetoric that has sank very deeply into the minds of many Californians, including those who otherwise call themselves progressive. One of the core tenets of the anti-tax mentality is the notion that government would just waste new revenues. Public hostility to dumping money into the general fund is significant.

So what we have to do is rehabilitate the notion of using taxes to provide services. Californians need to see the connection between low taxes and failing schools, jammed roads, a lack of health care, and a lack of jobs. And they need to see that it is Republicans that are blocking those things from getting done, by the 2/3rds rule.

The only reason anyone in America knows about "reconciliation" in the Senate, or the "mark-up" process, or even the "filibuster" is because those things stand in the way of key progressive goals. Those Senate procedures have screwed us and have needed to be eliminated for a long time, but only when they stood in the path of something people wanted did awareness rise.

In short, we are not going to win this if it is framed as a procedural problem, or even as a way to fix a broken state. We win the majority vote by enfolding it within a broader narrative and a broader campaign that uses progressive populism to beat the stuffing out of the large corporations and their allies in the Republican Party, in the service of clear goals that people actively and strongly desire.

Steve Wiegand of the Sacramento Bee telegraphed his intention yesterday to spread the right-wing myth that California has a spending problem. And sure enough, that's what we got from Wiegand today in an article with the stunning title of "State officials spread loot like Santa." That quote comes from Dave Doerr, head of the right-wing California Tax Association, and furthers the myth that California "overspends" and is, unfortunately, *not* a reference to the "two Santa Claus" theory.

Wiegand's article repeats many of the right-wing frames about state spending - yet at the same time it actually examines the structural revenue shortfall. The two are related, of course - Wiegand's study of the structural deficit is vague and lacking much detail, and is used to buttress the argument that California overspends. In short, Wiegand is taking as gospel the right-wing claim that our state budget mess is a product of overspending, when in fact it is a problem of undertaxing. Take this section of the article, for example:

Doerr's observation is borne out by a Bee analysis of California's spending and debt patterns compared to other states', which found California spends more per capita than the national average in every government program except highways and public welfare - but consistently runs budget deficits and takes on more and more debt.

Why would that necessarily be a bad thing? Most other states are penurious with their public spending, and have economic and social problems that reflect such miserly policies.

Doerr appears again:

Doerr's reference is to a penchant of lawmakers and governors over the past three decades to spend whatever money they have on hand - and promise even more - then let succeeding budget drafters fend for themselves.

This is in fact a core conservative frame. They believe that when it comes to budgets, you can spend whatever you take in, and nothing more. If you have $100 billion in revenues one year and $80 billion the next, then you just have to cut $20 billion in spending, no matter the effect.

A progressive budget frame is that it is government's job to see to it that certain tasks get done because they are inherently valuable or necessary. This might include keeping open 220 state parks, or ensuring children under age 10 learn in classrooms of no more than 20 students, or that our state's children and poor families have access to health care no matter the state of the economy.

Under that frame, the "overspending" claims are rendered even more absurd than the Wiegand article shows them to be, given its lack of explanation in most places for what actually caused the spending spikes. California needs to find the revenue to maintain core services, and to maintain and even expand government employment as a counter-cyclical recovery measure. The UCLA Anderson Forecast showed that budget cuts have worsened CA's recession - but none of that seems to have made it into Wiegand's article.

Given the dearth of media coverage of California politics, it's especially unfortunate that when a major paper chooses to devote so much time and space to examining the budget crisis, they have not only gotten it so deeply wrong, but have wound up reinforcing right-wing dogma in the process.

Anytime a member of the media says there are "inarguable facts" about the state's economic and financial crisis, that's usually a sign that you should be extra dubious of their claims. Steve Wiegand uses that phrase in his Sunday SacBee article to essentially make the Parsky Commission's case for it, in advance of whenever it is exactly that they're going to produce an actual final proposal. Wiegand's article essentially rehashes the basic center-right argument about state government: our taxes are too volatile, and combined with "reckless spending" and the severe economic crisis, that explains the state budget mess:

Three inarguable facts dominate California's system of financing state government:

• It's a mess.

• It's currently a mess in large part due to the deepest and most pervasive global recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

• It's been a mess for much of the past three decades because the combination of an out-of date tax system, reckless spending and fickle voters has made state government extremely vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of the economy.

I'll grant Wiegand the first two points. Since 2007 California has had a total of about $60 billion in budget deficits. $47 billion of that is due to decline in taxes. But much of that decline is led by collapsing sales taxes. This recession is a balance sheet recession led by consumers working feverishly to pay down debt. Until the debt is purged and wages grow, the massive consumer spending binge of the last 20 years *is never coming back*.

That starts us down the path of realizing just how wrong Wiegand is in making his third point. Wiegand repeats the discredited "volatility" argument to infer that the reliance on personal income taxes is flawed:

Since California relies so heavily on those revenues – more than half of general fund income comes from income taxes – it makes state government extremely susceptible to swings in the economy.

"When the market tanks, those taxpayers sneeze," said H.D. Palmer, the veteran spokesman for the Department of Finance. "And when those taxpayers sneeze, the state budget catches pneumonia."

One of the reasons CA relies on that income is because Prop 13 has meant the state does not capture the wealth temporarily created by two massive real estate bubbles since 1978 (one in the 1980s and the other in the 2000s).

But Wiegand misses two other crucial points about income taxes. Both personal and corporate income taxes have held up better than sales taxes during this recession. This is an especially important point during this so-called economic "recovery" where those at the upper end of the income scale, along with large corporations, are weathering the storm pretty well. It is nutty to assume that they need their tax burden reduced.

Wiegand's entire embrace of the "volatility" argument is of course flawed from conception, since there is no government budget out there that I'm aware of that has been able to resist the stress of the economic downturn. Those states that haven't had significant budget crises, like North Dakota, also haven't been hit as hard by the recession. The underlying economy in California is volatile and has been since about 1980. It makes perfect sense that tax collections would reflect a boom-and-bust economy.

The rest of Wiegand's article focuses on the sales tax. As I argued above, any examination of state tax policy that does not examine the collapse of consumer spending, likely to be a long-term trend, is probably not going to be a very useful guide to what's actually happening. After mentioning in passing the notion of modernizing the sales tax, he quickly shifts to a trip down memory lane, to the widely-mocked 1991 "snack tax" that Pete Wilson and the Legislature used in their solution to the budget deficit that year. The "snack tax" was repealed at the ballot box in 1992, and Wiegand uses it to argue that California voters are reluctant to extend taxes to untaxed goods and services.

But is still actually the case? Polls from 2009 suggest voters are willing to raise taxes to protect existing state services. Taxing accounting services, for example, in order to keep teachers in classrooms or taxing soda and junk food to keep parks open may well be more popular today than it was 17 years ago.

Wiegand closes his article by letting David Doerr of the right-wing California Tax Association repeat the totally unverified and undefended claim that the other element in our state's fiscal crisis is "overspending":

"The tax structure has been pretty consistent in providing income," Doerr continued. "It's spending. They (elected officials) just can't say no."

This claim isn't supported by any evidence in the article, and as it's the very last sentence in the article, it is not rebutted. California's media takes it as a given - an "inarguable fact" as Wiegand said at the outset - that we have "reckless spending." They believe this is so self-evident that they don't actually have to prove it or explain it or justify the claim.

In fact, California's spending over the last 6 or 7 years has been flat. The largest amounts of spending have actually gone to tax cuts, with Arnold Schwarzenegger's $6 billion per year backfilling of the VLF cuts in 2003 being the most obvious example.

When will California's major media outlets start questioning the "reckless spending" myth? As long as they treat that myth as an "inarguable fact," it's not something I'm going to hold my breath to see.

You wouldn't know it by paying attention to the goings-on in Sacramento these days, but California is mired in one of the worst economic crises we've experienced in several decades. Over the Labor Day weekend our friends at the California Budget Project charted the depths of that crisis in a new study, "In The Midst of the Great Recession: The State of Working California, 2009."

The CBP's study has already been getting media coverage for its stat that 2 of 5 working-age Californians are jobless. But the report gives a fuller picture of just how bad things are out there. Among the conclusions:

• California has about the same number of jobs in July 2009 that it did in January 2000 - in other words, the recession has wiped out a decade's worth of job growth. Add in the fact that we have 3.3 million more people of working age and you can see how severe the recession is.



• Job losses have been more severe - in both overall number and the rapid rate of decline - than in any previous recession (at least those with available data).



• Wages are declining across the board, but the top wage earners have seen increases, and the top 1% is taking a share of the overall wealth at a rate unseen since the Roaring '20s, which as we know ended so well.



• More and more people are beginning to exhaust their unemployment benefits, a situation likely to worsen as high unemployment lingers for several more years.

There are several important conclusions I take from this study. You're unlikely to ever see these in what's left of the major media in this state, and even Democrats in Sacramento don't seem to be touting these stats or conclusions as evidence of a need for change.

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a job killer. He and his allies at the Chamber of Commerce like to tout their opposition to so-called "job killer" bills that usually increase taxes or regulations on businesses. And yet after 6 years of these policies California is far worse off than we were at the depth of recession that ultimately cost Gray Davis his job. If Democrats ever wanted evidence that anti-tax, anti-regulation policies are an economic disaster, California in 2009 is it.



2. Sacramento has nothing - nothing whatsoever - to offer the jobless or to this state's future. As I often remark, the only words forbidden to be spoken within the halls of the state Capitol are "economic recovery." Both Republicans and Democrats have agreed that their #1 task isn't economic recovery but to eviscerate government when it is most desperately needed; they merely disagree on the particulars. Economic recovery should take precedence over nutty demands to cut spending, but in Sacramento, it's been the other way around.



3. Specifically, we have yet to see *any* plans from either party in the state legislature for producing meaningful, lasting economic recovery. California voters took matters into their own hands last November by voting for Proposition 1A, to create 160,000 short-term jobs and 450,000 long-term jobs by building a high speed rail system. But HSR, to name but one example of possible government job creation programs, has very few defenders in the Legislature, and plenty of opponents (including Democrats like Sen. Alan Lowenthal).



4. Lacking any plan for economic recovery or job creation, the factors identified in the CBP report are going to get much worse. Wages will continue to drop for everyone who isn't already wealthy, as persistent unemployment perpetuates a weak economy and fuels a deflationary cycle.

So what do we do about this?   Read More »