As regressive as it is, Governor Schwarzenegger finally announced a plan to close the state's budget deficit. A one-cent sales tax increase, which disproportionately raises costs for low and moderate income families versus California's rich and wealthy. Speaker Karen Bass and the Democrats quietly released their plan last week. It calls for a reasonable one percent income and corporate tax increases for the very wealthy of our society. What has the California Republicans offered? Nothing, except for no tax pledges almost all of them signed a year ago.   Read More »

A few months late and several billion dollars short, Arnold has finally gotten around to making a serious revenue proposal - a 1 cent increase in the sales tax for a duration of three years. The SacBee reports this is expected to raise around $4 to $5 billion.

Not one to offer a solution without strings, Arnold insists that this would only happen in exchange for "long-term budget fixes" such as a rainy-day fund. A rainy day fund is a good idea but that needs to come AFTER we fix the structural revenue shortfall.   Read More »

So much for Sen. John McCain's off-shore oil drilling plan. At least on the west coast, where all three pacific coast governors have announced a new action plan to clean coastal waters and beaches, restore fisheries, prepare for rising sea levels and to produce energy from the ocean's natural waves and tides.

As a first course of action, Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger; Ted Kulongoski of Oregon; and Chris Gregoire of Washington told the federal government to keep new oil drilling rigs out of their waters and to spend more money on programs restoring the health of the Pacific Ocean.   Read More »

Despite your petitions, a personal delivery and Democratic leaders bending over backwards to compromise with "yacht party" Republicans, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made good on his threat to layoff 20,000 public employees and impose a federal minimum wage on approximately 200,000 state employees. Many of which are currently compensated through a legal collective bargaining agreement between the state and the workers' union bargaining agents.

While it appears the Governor used this threat and action to leverage a budget compromise on Republican and Democratic legislators, it is irresponsible for him to play poker with a public servant's mortgage or children's school tuition.   Read More »

Thanks be to God, internet technology allows us to renew our vehicle registrations and even file our tax returns online. Now, California is one step closer to allowing voter registration online with the help of the DMV. State bureaucracy has officially entered the 21st century.

Currently, eligible voters can obtain and fill out the registration forms online. But, they must print it out, sign it and mail it to the appropriate government official. Online registration will allow you to save a stamp and a trip to the mailbox for eligible voters who have either a California's Drivers License or Identification Card.   Read More »

(cross-posted on Calitics)

Today was supposed to be the day that Schwarzenegger signed the executive order to cut over 200,000 state employees pay to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour. He has delayed that action until at least Thursday, which SEIU Local 1000, the Courage Campaign, True Majority and CREDO Mobile can take some credit for.

I just got back from a great day of actions at and around the capitol on this proposed wage cut. After picking up over 28,000 signed petitions, a big backdrop and an easel I headed to the airport to pick up Rick Jacobs, and Jethro Rothe-Kushel, our videographer.

We headed straight for the noon rally held by SEIU Local 1000, which represents nearly half of the workers at risk of living in poverty due to the proposed callous action by the governor. It was a great rally of about 200 Local 1000 members wearing their purple shirts, marching, chanting, blowing whistles and waving signs. Jethro snagged a few interviews with some Local 1000 members and it should be part of the video he produces in a day or two. The folks at Local 1000 were really happy to see all of these non-union activists being so supportive of their members and pushing back against the governor.

After the rally we grabbed a sandwich and then headed over with the sign, stand and the two boxes of petitions across the street from the Hyatt, where the governor stays when he is in town. Assemblyman Dave Jones joined us there. Sen. Florez and Controller Chiang had conflicts, but wanted to be there. We started off across the street from the capitol with Rick and Jones doing some one on one interviews. KCRA (local NBC affiliate), KXJZ (local NPR) and a few other print folks were there. The governor actually left in his motorcade as Jones was doing an interview.

Rick carried the big box (that sucker must have weighed at least 60 lbs) and Jones the smaller one across to the Hyatt, plastered with the Courage logo. We decided to drop them off at the Hyatt to point out how out of touch Arnold is with what he has proposed. The governor pays $293/night to stay in the suite. It would take someone working 44.7 hours at the federal minimum wage, without any taxes being taken out to afford just one night's stay at the governor's special rate. That is more than a week's worth of work!   Read More »

The numbers are astounding. But the comments are painful to read.
When we launched our "Stop Arnold" campaign on Thursday morning, we had no idea it would spark a grassroots firestorm, becoming one of the most widely supported Courage Campaign actions ever. We just knew it was the right thing to do.

Over 48 hours later, 22,051 concerned citizens have signed on, including thousands of our friends from True Majority and CREDO Action, and the leaders of the California State Legislature -- Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Senate President Pro-Tem Elect Darrell Steinberg.

But, with 200,000 state workers facing Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan to slash their salaries to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour, we can't stop now.

http://www.couragecampaign.org/StopArnold/

First thing Monday morning, I will be flying from Los Angeles to Sacramento to personally hand-deliver your signatures -- and comments -- to the Governor, along with State Senator Dean Florez and Assemblymember Dave Jones.

Rick Jacobs, Chair of the Courage Campaign

Expect to hear updates soon!   Read More »

In a surprise move, President Bush withdrew his veto threat of a Housing bill intended to help homeowners on the brink of losing their homes to foreclosure. Of course, banks must decide to participate and homeowners must share any future equity. But San Diego City Attorney, Michael Aguirre has a simpler idea to help homeowners in default - force lenders to restructure terms of bad loans.   Read More »

Today the New York Times reports on the continuing failure of the Michael Mukasey as Attorney General experiment. The short version is that Mukasey has not performed as promised...by a long shot. Back in November we at the Courage Campaign didn't much like the notion of an Attorney General Mukasey, but Senator Dianne Feinstein strongly disagreed. She got a lot of pushback and defended her case in an LA Times OpEd that she might want back at this point given the way reality has actually played out. Let's play point/counterpoint between Feinstein's argument in November and the New York Times today:

Feinstein:

During a long career in public service and private practice, Michael B. Mukasey has forged an independent path as a lawyer and federal judge.

Sen. Arlen Specter:

"I don't want to use the word 'disappointed,' but he hasn't provided the balance that I had hoped for"

   Read More »

(cross-posted on Calitics)

It is a dirty little secret, but often times the more virulently anti-union employers are religious orders that run health systems. Such is the situation with the Sisters of St. Joseph who run the St. Joseph Health System. They have been resisting the efforts of their service employees to join SEIU-UHW for the past three years.

SEIU-UHW is organizing a series of events this week in support of their organizing efforts. Today Delores Huerta of the United Farm Workers wrote a HuffPost piece on the struggle.

This week I'm joining St. Joseph Health System workers, Attorney General Jerry Brown, Father Eugene Boyle, actor Ed Begley Jr, and community and religious leaders to call upon the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange to make peace with their workers.

For decades, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange have fought for justice for California's workers. In the summer of 1973, they marched in solidarity with Cesar Chavez and farm workers during the brutal Grape Strike. I witnessed the Sisters putting their personal safety at risk. They walked picket lines and even went to jail with more than 3500 striking farm workers. I was inspired by the Sisters' commitment to stand with the farm workers, even in the face of violent provocation.

But now, these same sisters are refusing to show their own workers the same justice they once fought for.

Flip it for more and a video.   Read More »

Friendly reminder: Republican legislators continue to hold the state's budget hostage by refusing to negotiate on whether to close this year's deficit with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. Meanwhile, a federal receiver is moving ahead with his threat to force the state to spend an extra $2.5 billion on the state's deplorable penitentiary system.

At some point they must deal with the facts, our state cannot simply cut spending and still provide the same level of public services the people expect their government to deliver in the form of education, health and welfare. It must be paid for somehow and Democrats don't appear to be opposed to decreasing spending. Speaker Karen Bass and other Democratic legislators are beginning to hold public townhall meetings to shine light on the fact that Republican posturing over potential tax increases is holding up Sacramento from doing its job.   Read More »

Cross posted at Calitics

Blackwater may be on shaky ground. Despite official protestations to the contrary, it's starting to look as though Blackwater's course might be shifting. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is starting to ask why the government is using so many private contractors, asking "Why have we come to rely on private contractors to provide combat or combat-related security training for our forces?" and going on to wonder "are we comfortable with this practice, and do we fully understand the implications in terms of quality, responsiveness and sustainability?"

These are questions that a competent government would have been asking in 2001 when Donald Rumsfeld declared that privatizing national security would be a good idea because...I don't know why...his friends would make money? It was Rumsfeld shift away from publicly-guaranteed and provided security that brought about the rise of Blackwater and a litany of other, slightly less infamous private security firms. But in light of the continuing legal proceedings probing Blackwater's Nusoor Square (17 civilians dead for no reason), Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's insistence on eliminating immunity for security contractors in any new Iraq-U.S. security negotiations, and now Gates' expressed concerns, Blackwater executives have been saying they'll shift away from private security because it's causing them too much grief. Blackwater will supposedly "survive with a focus on international training, aviation and construction."   Read More »

Finally, Democratic legislators go public with a plan to increase income taxes on the wealthy to balance the state's $15 billion budget deficit. Today's LA Times opines whether or not it is wise to further increase the nation's highest state income tax bracket, but a California Budget Project paper provides a different proposition about raising income taxes.   Read More »

There's a lot of talk this year about more and better Democrats. Generally the "and better" part means primary campaigns and being selective in the candidates that we support with time, money and cyber ink. The other side of that is holding our representatives accountable in ways outside the ballot box, because sometimes we can't just wait for re-election to get responsive representation; too much happens. It's not always easy to find effective ways to get attention and movement, but passion and creativity can be combined into a potent mix.

Last week Senator Dianne Feinstein voted to give away our 4th Amendment privacy protections and grant retroactive immunity to the telecom companies who may have been illegally complicit in domestic spying on U.S. citizens. It was hardly the first time that Sen. Feinstein has given us reason for serious concern. Once before, her support of previous iterations of FISA legislation, Judge Leslie Southwick and now-Attorney General Mukasey inspired us to insist she pay attention to Californians. We asked you whether it was time to pursue censure again, and more than 12,000 of you responded with a clear message.

Rick Jacobs sent an email this morning running through the results, explaining where we go from here, and asking you to help:   Read More »

The State of California is on the verge of joining New York City if Governor Schwarzenegger signs a bill into law that would prohibit restaurants and bakeries from preparing foods with oils that use unhealthy trans fat which increase your risk for obesity and heart disease.

For a couple years now, most of the leading consumable brands found at your local grocery store have been converting to oils that contain no trans fat and have also found value in marketing this conversion to an increasingly health-conscious consumer base. It is now common knowledge that eliminating trans fat does not change the taste of your favorite snacks.

So what is trans fat?   Read More »

Governor Schwarzenegger has received much praise from this blog recently, largely due to his critique of the Bush-McCain offshore oil drilling plan, but now its time to rebuke his administration as his State Board of Education, (all members appointed by the governor) just voted to require all eighth grade students take algebra courses.   Read More »

Our governor was on This Week this morning and as Arnold has a largely undeserved reputation for being an environmentalist George Stephanopoulos decided to ask him some questions on that topic. The answers were quite revealing, and should give Obama a major opening to attack McCain should he be interested in doing so.   Read More »

"A Heavy Heart." That was the subject of the email I received today from Senator Chris Dodd. After fighting tooth and nail for many months, with a coalition cobbled together on the fly, brought together by a fundamental drive to protect the Constitution, the Senate was finally able to force through a new FISA bill including retroactive immunity for telecom companies.

A number of Democrats abandoned the Fourth Amendment to vote for immunity, including Senator Dianne Feinstein. It's been a relatively tough year for the Constitution when Feinstein's been faced with challenging votes, and this sadly was no exception. But it's important to hear Senator Dodd's words today:

...let us stand tall, knowing that by working together we were able to make wiretapping and retroactive immunity part of the national discourse these last number of months.

We came together - all of you, Senator Feingold, bloggers like Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald, organizations like the EFF and ACLU, and untold hundreds of thousands of Americans who simply wanted to make sure that this one, last insult did not happen with ease.

I'm sorry we weren't successful.

And so Rick Jacobs put the challenge to Courage supporters today via email. What are we going to do about it?

---------------------------------------   Read More »

Make no bones about it, as a taxpayer who funds California's over-saturated transportation system, including freeways; I am no fan of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to convert taxpayer funded carpool lanes into toll roads on several southern California freeways.   Read More »

As heavyweight Democratic gubernatorial candidates jockey for position, the Republican side of the aisle appears to be a race with no clear cut favorite. Keeping in line with the "yacht party" mantra, the GOP will likely field several candidates wealthy enough to fund their own campaign, but not nearly represent the majority of the state's citizenry.

Once these folks go public with their stances on social issues the right-wing of their own party will eat them alive. Cant wait.

Republicans Rumored to Replace the Terminator:   Read More »