Different Shades of Blue: California and Wisconsin

Though both Wisconsin and California have been a solid shade of blue in electoral politics for over 20 years, there are nonetheless important differences in their governing styles.  These distinctions, driven principally by the fact that Wisconsin has a Republican Governor, offer keen insights into the priorities of fiscal management between Republicans and Democrats.

Both states were hit particularly hard by fallout from the Great Recession.  Unemployment increased, manufacturing withdrew, and economic growth was anemic.  Governors Walker and Brown entered office staring at a wall of red ink from debts run up by years of political mismanagement and economic malaise.   Both had no choice but to implement significant changes.

After California’s Jerry Brown was elected in 2010, he was immediately faced with a $26.6 billion budget gap.  To address it, Brown instituted a combination of spending reductions and tax increases.  There was virtually no choice but to cut spending – everything from primary education to welfare recipients to correctional facilities saw reductions in their allocations.  Brown also successfully persuaded voters to pass Prop. 30, a “temporary” hike in income tax rates on the state’s wealthiest and an increase in the state’s sales tax rate.  After the increases, the nation’s most populous state now boasts the country’s second highest income tax rate and the highest sales tax rate.

Wisconsin was similarly faced with dire financial straits.  Governor Walker entered office in 2010 and was quickly faced with a deficit of $3.6 billion.  To address the sea of red, Walker implemented structural reforms to the state’s economics.  He reduced runaway spending, imposed targeted tax cuts to boost growth, and most controversially, sought to modify public sector union contracts.   The result was the “Budget Repair Bill”, also known as Act 10.   The Act required public sector employees to contribute a portion of their income to their pensions (previously they contributed little or nothing to their pensions), pay 12 percent of their health care premiums (previously they paid 6 percent), and most public employee unions would be unable to collectively bargain for wages.  In addition, Act 10 eliminated the requirement for public sector unions to have their dues automatically deducted from their paychecks – instead, members would have to “opt in” to the union.

The results for both California and Wisconsin were significant; the fiscal fortunes for the respective Governors improved markedly.  Though the resurgence of the stock market in 2013 as well as the rebound in housing certainly contributed to the turnarounds, the reforms also had clear impacts.  California is expected to generate approximately a $4.7 billion surplus this year.  Wisconsin, a smaller state with lower revenues and expenditures, is expected to have a surplus of $977 million.

Via: California Political Review

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Brown’s State of the State: It’s Morning in California

The theme of President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign was: It’s Morning in America. He won 49 states, losing only rival Walter Mondale’s native Minnesota.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State address this morning kicked off a similar theme in what effectively was his re-election pitch. He didn’t imitate Reagan and say, exactly, “It’s Morning in California.” But the meaning still was there. The governor enthused:

“What a comeback it is. A million new jobs since 2010, a budgetary surplus in the billions and a minimum wage rising to $10 an hour! 

“This year, Californians have a lot to be proud of. For a decade, budget instability was the order of the day. A lethal combination of national recessions, improvident tax cuts and too much spending created a financial sink hole that defied every effort to climb out. But three years later, here we are – with state spending and revenues solidly balanced, and more to come.”

Of course things are better than when he took office three years ago to clean up the wreckage of the disastrous Schwarzenegger administration. But unemployment in California remains stubbornly high, at 8.5 percent, sixth worst in the country; and well above such rivals as Texas at 6.1 percent and Florida at 6.4 percent. Both those states lack a state income tax, compared to the hefty top California rate of 13.3 percent because of Brown’s Proposition 30 tax increase.

The increase in the minimum wage Brown touted also likely will kill jobs, making unemployment worse.

And a November study by the U.S. Census Bureau found that, when California’s sky-high cost of living was figured into calculations, the state suffered the country’s worst poverty rate.

Via: California Political Review

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California: High Speed Rail Takes More Punches

If the California high speed rail project were a boxer you’d wonder how it could still be standing. It has been pounded by both left hooks and right jabs.  With the powerful governor of California in its corner it has managed to stay upright in the ring, but it may not be too long before project supporters cry, “No mas.”

Following Judge Michael P. Kenny’s ruling last November that the high speed rail funding plan does not meet the requirements demanded by the bond measure passed by voters, state Senate leader, Darrell Steinberg said that the governor’s budget spending on the proposal would be subject to debate.

The Legislative analyst threw another haymaker at the governor’s bullet train funding proposal saying the $250 million the governor wants to use from the cap and trade fees from business is “legally risky.” The reason: the fees are supposed to reduce greenhouse gases by 2020. The train will not be completed by then and may even add to the greenhouse gases problem. Environmental groups who don’t like the use of cap and trade fees for the train project are applying those left hooks to the project.

The right jabs are coming from Republicans in Congress. The bullet train has relied on federal funds so far but now some influential members are questioning the use of additional federal tax dollars.  At a congressional committee hearing yesterday, warnings were made by Republicans, who hold the majority, that federal funds could be cut off.

Another punch at the bullet train came in the form of a recently filed initiative proposal to ask voters to reconsider the project they barely passed in 2008. Assemblyman Jeff Gorell filed the initiative to stop funding the train project and instead dedicate money designated for the bullet train to educational purposes. How strong a blow against the train this is remains to be seen. Who will fund the initiative? And who will lead the fight as Gorell spends his time running for congress?

Even from across the country the bullet train took a shot a couple of days ago from an editorial columnist in the Washington Post. Charles Lane wrote,  “As it happens, Kenny’s ruling on the California rail plan was almost certainly correct; the Brown and Obama administrations have never plausibly explained where they would get the $68 billion needed to build the whole California system. Even if completed, high-speed rail would not enhance productivity; rather, it would consume subsidies, as it does in other countries. With teleconferencing a reality and driverless cars on the way, bullet trains don’t seem so cutting-edge anymore, anyway.”

Via: California Political Review

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Gov. Brown Advances Apparently Balanced Budget

Gov. Jerry Brown today advanced a budget proposal that apparently is balanced for fiscal year 2014-15, which begins on July 1. It would spend a record $106.8 billion on the general fund, which is up a hefty 23 percent from the $86.8 billion of his first budget three years ago, for fiscal 2011-12.

The new budget includes a $1.6 billion “rainy day fund,” or 1.5 percent of the total.

The budget addresses what the governor has called the “Wall of Debt” run up by the state, currently totaling $24.9 billion. The major items are:

* $6.1 billion in deferred payments to schools, which will be eliminated;

* $3.9 billion for the Economic Recovery Bonds voters approved in 2004, at the insistence of Gov. Arnold Schwarenegger, which will be eliminated;

* $3.9 billion in loans from special funds, which will be reduced by $1 billion, to $2.9 billion;

* $5.4 billion in unpaid costs to local governments and schools for state mandates, which will remain the same;

* $2.4 billion for the under-funding of Proposition 98 for schools, which will be reduced by $600 million, to $1.8 billion.

Spending increase

In a question-and-answer session with reporters, CalWatchdog.com asked about the $20 billion increase in spending over three years.

The governor replied that most of the new spending is going to pay down the Wall of Debt. “When you pay off that debt, you improve the debt, you don’t make it worse,” he said.

Via: California Political Review

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[CARTOON] Jerry Brown’s “Balanced Budget”

Via: California Political Review

Saving Bad Apples

Most people agree that bad apples—whether misbehaving police officers, state workers, or school teachers—should be removed from public service or at least disciplined. Yet a California legislature that couldn’t be bothered to consider serious pension reform or address a spate of coming municipal bankruptcies passed three union-backed bills that protect the state’s worst “public servants.” Talk about priorities.

Governor Jerry Brown signed the most offensive of the three bills, SB 313, which passed both legislative houses by a combined vote of 108-5. Republicans were just as likely as Democrats to back a bill that would forbid police agencies from relying on so-called Brady lists to reassign, demote, or otherwise punish police officers and deputy sheriffs. In a 1963 case, Brady v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court required prosecutors to disclose any evidence that could be favorable to the person accused of a crime. As a Senate analysis of SB 313 explains, “If the prosecutor is aware of misconduct, past or present, on the part of a police officer who may be called as a witness in a case, and that misconduct could discredit or ‘impeach’ the officer’s testimony, the prosecutor has an obligation to turn that evidence over to the defendant.”

As a result, district attorneys compile lists of officers who have been found to have lied under oath or falsified police reports, used excessive force, or who have been convicted of certain crimes. There’s good reason to keep these individuals off the witness stand, given that their lack of integrity can cost a prosecutor a conviction. And police agencies will sometimes discipline or reassign officers found to have behaved so poorly.

Progressive-minded police officials, such as Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, have publicly supported the use of Brady lists to help assure that the public can have “a high degree of trust” in their officers, as he explained to the Sacramento Bee. But police unions and their allies, such as the Peace Officers Research Association of California—a group that pays the legal-defense fees of officers accused of horrific behavior—despise the Brady lists. SB 313 expands the Peace Officers Bill Of Rights, which already makes it nearly impossible to discipline or fire law-enforcement officials for anything other than criminal convictions.

Via: California Political Review

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Gov. Jerry Brown's not saying whether he'll seek fourth term

Gov. Jerry Brown at a January news conference; though he stays out of the spotlight, his aggressive fundraising indicates he'll seek reelection in 2014. (Robert Gauthier, Los Angeles Times / January 8, 2013

SACRAMENTO — He has millions of dollars in his campaign account, solid approval ratings and a small number of potential challengers who are virtually unknown, but Gov. Jerry Brown still won't say whether he'll run for reelection next year.

As recently as Tuesday, the governor deflected the question at a public event. "I am aware that in November of next year there will be an election," he said, "and I will make some decisions regarding that."

Two days later, he joined deep-pocketed Hollywood luminaries in a campaign fundraiser at the Bel-Air home of Disney studio chief Alan Horn.

Although Brown stays mostly out of the spotlight, his aggressive fundraising — and his preference for biding his time — put the safe money on a run for an unprecedented fourth term as governor, a race he would enter as a strong front-runner. And experts say that despite an already respectable war chest, it behooves him to wait.

Brown had more than $13 million in campaign accounts as of July 1, according to reports on file with the state. Since then, he has raised more than $4.2 million from more than 120 donors, not including money he collected in Bel-Air, where more than 100 people gathered under a backyard tent for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.

Expenditures since July 1 have not yet been reported, so it is unclear how much Brown has on hand now. But the notoriously tight-fisted governor spent relatively little in the first half of the year.

Unlike most statewide officeholders, Brown does not keep political consultants on his campaign payroll. He spent $31,526 from January to the end of June.

By comparison, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, who is also expected to run for reelection next year with minimal opposition, spent more than $458,000 in that period. Polling, consultant fees and campaign workers soaked up $250,000 of that sum.

Via: LA Times

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California: Brown’s “School Reform” Morphs into Union Payoff

In 2013, maybe more than ever, the key to figuring out how California works is understanding that by far the most powerful forces in state politics are the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers and the 500,000 people they represent and collect dues from.

So when a Los Angeles Unified teacher feeds semen to his students and has to be bribed to quit, instead of enacting rules to make it easier to fire classroom sexual predators, the Legislature passes a fake reform that would have actually increased protections for pervert teachers.

So when a judge says districts must follow a state law requiring student performance be part of teacher evaluations, instead of compliance, we see the state cancel the standardized tests whose results could have been used against bad teachers.

And now here is the latest example of teacher unions’ hegemony in California: A much-trumpeted education reform enacted earlier this year is being hijacked in brazen fashion, further propping up the teacher-favoring education status quo.

The reform I refer to is Gov. Jerry Brown’s seemingly successful push this summer to divert school funding specifically to English-language learners, foster children and disadvantaged children because of his concern that they will lead difficult lives unless they get more out of school, with grim implications for the state’s future workforce. Brown didn’t say it, but these students are the biggest victims of the CTA/CFT chokehold on public education. Instead of having a school system devoted to getting the best teachers to where they’re most needed, we have a system devoted above all to protecting veteran teachers’ compensation. If minority kids suffer, the establishment ultimately doesn’t care.

Via: California Political Review

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CA: Tim Donnelly Proves There Is a God

Yes, ladies and gentlemen and especially fellow members of the media, Tim Donnelly is running for governor.

He may be a polarizing figure, but I believe he has already achieved a bipartisan consensus, at least among California’s Fourth Estate. And that consensus is: there is a God, and he loves us.

Before Donnelly’s official entry in the race, we were facing a snoozer of a gubernatorial election, with Jerry Brown certain to win re-election while facing maybe a nominal challenge from Abel Maldonado. We might have had to pay professional attention to such an election (I can’t call it a “race” or a “contest” and be accurate), but no one else would.

But now Donnelly is in, and, while we’re still facing a certain Jerry Brown win with no horse race drama, it won’t be quite so snoozy, since we’ll at least have one character in the race. And given the character of this character, we’ll be able to provide the public service of showing the total gap between his incendiary, attention-seeking comments and California’s 21st century reality.

He’ll rail against immigrant hordes, and we’ll be able to point out that net immigration to California has been zero for years and that immigrants are pillars of the community. (In many parts of Southern California, they’ve been here long than the native U.S. citizens). He’ll talk about a supposed lack of guns in the state, and we’ll point out the millions that are in hands of people who have demonstrated they shouldn’t own guns, Tim Donnelly among them. He’ll attack supposedly out-of-control spending, perhaps in press conferences held in a Sacramento decimated by years of government cuts and layoffs. He’ll rail against the oppressive dictatorship of the state and we’ll keep on writing stories about same-sex marriages and marijuana farms.

All the corrections would be helpful to the body politic. And Donnelly will keep offering opportunities in an interesting way that makes news. Heck, in announcing his candidacy, he promised to bring freedom back to California, which was surprising news since I hadn’t noticed its departure.

Via: California Political Review

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