California: Vacant seats? Let the governor fill 'em

State Sen. Bill Emmerson, second from left, has decided to leave the Legislature, saying that his passion has waned. Officials estimate that a special election will cost $1.1 million. (Associated Press / November 25, 2013)

The price of electing lawmakers to replace ones who bolt is high. The Senate leader says it's time to let the chief executive decide.

SACRAMENTO — Senate leader Darrell Steinberg says he has seen enough. He wants to rid California of incessant special elections to fill vacancies in the Legislature.

The elections interrupt the legislative process, he asserts, and they bleed local taxpayers — roughly $1 million each time some lawmaker jumps ship, which has been increasingly often.

Let the governor fill vacant seats and be done with it, the Sacramento Democrat contends.

Amen.

If it were possible, I'd order lawmakers to stop the music, grab a seat and stay put. This musical chairs game is too expensive for the adults, the taxpayers. No more switching offices in midterm.

But forbidding politicians to run for another office is probably unconstitutional. So if they do bail in midterm, just let the governor choose their replacement.

Like the governor is allowed to do when there's a vacancy in a statewide office. Or when there's an opening on a county board of supervisors. Or a U.S. senator quits or dies.

If there's a vacant seat in the U.S. House delegation, the U.S. Constitution decrees that there must be a special election. But there's no such federal mandate for replacing a state legislator. Only a state law.

"The cost of these special elections and the delays for months at a time compels us to look at different ways to fill the vacancies," Steinberg says. "It would be much better to have the governor make the appointment."

Count up the legislative defections in the past year alone: There have been 10.

The latest is Sen. Bill Emmerson (R-Hemet), who's departing Sacramento because his "passion has waned" for legislating.

Via: LA Times

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California lawmakers seek to ban imitation firearms

California lawmakers are pushing to ban the manufacturer or sale of imitation firearms in the state after a Northern California sheriff's deputy shot and killed a 13-year-old boy who was carrying a BB gun last month.

State and local officials announced legislation Friday that would require fake guns such as BB, pellet or airsoft guns to be translucent or brightly colored so they cannot be mistaken for real guns, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported.

"A toy should look like a toy. It should not look like a lethal weapon," the bill's co-sponsor state Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said.

Officials introduced the bill one month after Deputy Erick Gelhaus shot and killed Santa Rosa teen Andy Lopez after reportedly mistaking his BB gun for an assault rifle.

On Friday, dozens of protesters marched from Santa Rosa City Hall to the Hall of Justice, chanting slogans and carrying signs urging District Attorney Jill Ravitch to charge Gelhaus with murder, the newspaper reported.

California law already bars imitation firearms like the one Lopez carried from being displayed in public unless the weapon meets color guidelines

Via: Fox News

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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's budget outlook is the best in a decade, analyst says

TYPICAL LEFT WING MEDIA HYPE!! ALL IS NOT WELL IN THE GOLDEN STATE

SACRAMENTO -- California's finances are bouncing back after a lengthy recession, and tax revenues are primed for strong growth over the next several years, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Legislature's budget analyst.

"We now find that California’s state budget situation is even more promising than we projected one year ago," said the report from the Legislative Analyst's Office. "The state’s budgetary condition is stronger than at any point in the past decade."

The state is on track to end the current fiscal year next June with a reserve of $2.4 billion, more than twice the original estimate of $1.1 billion, thanks to higher-than-expected tax revenue, the report said. California's school funding formula is also expected to send $3.1 billion more to schools.

By 2020, state revenue could be $27.1 billion higher than the latest projections for the current fiscal year, according to the report.

Increased revenue could help cushion the state when temporary taxes under Proposition 30 expire in 2018. The analyst's office projects a $9.6-billion surplus that year.

"This helps prevent a 'cliff effect,' " the report said.

The analyst's office cautioned that surpluses are dependent on several factors, most notably continued growth in the stock market. More federal budget standoffs in Congress, like the country has experienced in the past year, could harm California's finances.

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) issued a statement saying the new numbers "validate the wisdom of the fiscal actions the Legislature and governor have taken." He said he would continue pushing for a new ballot measure to help California save money in a rainy day fund, something the state has lacked in recent years.

Via: LA Times

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California: Riddle me this: Why do government projects never seem to be completed efficiently, on budget and on time?

Riddle me this: Why do government projects never seem to be completed efficiently, on budget and on time?

Currently, national attention is focused on the failure of the ObamaCare website. Not since the launch of the Titanic has so much gone so wrong. After three and a half years and a $1 billion investment, most of those visiting the site found it non-functional — reports are that on the first day, only six individuals were able to sign up on a website intended to serve millions. However, this is only the latest IT project to be bungled by government officials.

A September $62 million systems “upgrade” by the California Employment Development Department triggered a backlog of 100,000 jobless claims and thousands of unemployed were still waiting for their benefits more than a month later.

An isolated occurrence? Hardly. In February, state officials jettisoned a flawed overhaul of the state’s payroll system that was $250 million over budget and four years behind schedule.

Earlier this year, the Sacramento Business Journal reviewed some of California’s biggest technological boondoggles and concluded that canceled projects, cost overruns and delays have cost taxpayers more than $2 billion. That’s nearly what the state’s general fund spends on the entire University of California system in a fiscal year.

Yale Professor Peter Schuck, author of the soon to be released, Why Government Fails So Often, and How It Can Do Better, has described most government agencies as operating in an “informational stone age.” He blames government for failing in the design of its own information systems and for pushing unworkable systems on the private sector.

But the failure of government to properly manage projects goes well beyond information technology and very expensive examples are as near as the latest newspaper.

Few Californians can avoid the impact of the gross mismanagement of transportation and highway construction projects in what is becoming the “pothole and detour” state.

A $1 billion widening project on the nation’s most congested roadway, the 405 Freeway running through the Sepulveda Pass, is now estimated to take 15 months more than scheduled with an additional cost of $100 million. Among the causes for the added cost and delay is the faulty construction of miles of new sound walls that had to be demolished and rebuilt.

Via: California Political Review

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California: Calderon Scandal A Reminder About Absolute Power

The alleged corrupt behavior of State Senator Ron Calderon has been at the center of California politics since the release by Al Jayzeera America last week of a sealed FBI agent’s affidavit detailing how Calderon supposedly pushed legislation that would benefit a particular business interest, in this case, a movie production company, in return for them “buying off” the Senator with payoffs.

“How could this happen?” — people will ask.

Obviously legislators are human beings, eh?  We are all imperfect.  So it makes sense that some will be morally lacking.  That’s really no different than any other profession.

In the ideal world, everyone would be an upstanding citizen, a Boy Scout, and always do the right thing, even when nobody is looking.

I guess one might argue that politics, as a field, has the potential to attract a higher percentage of people with questionable ethics.  What other professions are centered around money and power?

Some will and have argued that Calderon’s alleged activities create an opportunity to once again step up efforts to try and take money out of politics.  Despite the folly of this, as you will never really be able to do that – in the case of Calderon, what he supposedly has done is clearly already against the law.   So this would not be a case of someone taking advantage of a “loophole” or some other gray-area chicanery.

I will submit to you, however, that if you want to take a systemic approach to trying to stop this kind of bad behavior – the best way to do that would be to address the “power” side of the equation.

Over an extended period of time – decades upon decades – the size and scope of state government has grown to be quite vast.  The amount of tax money taken into Sacramento, and then redistributed out by the Governor and legislature is well north of $100 billion annually.

Via: California Political Review

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Food Stamp Fraud: Beneficiaries Illegally Sell EBT Cards On Craigslist, Social Media Sites

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – It’s a welfare fraud scheme costing U.S. taxpayers $750 million a year. People are illegally selling their electronic food stamp cards on Craigslist and other social media sites for cash.

CBS13 found two people here in Sacramento, both with the same idea, using Craigslist as free advertising to blatantly and illegally sell their state benefits.

Our hidden cameras were rolling as a woman, who we’ll call Lorie, told our undercover producer about her brilliant idea to game the system for a quick buck.

“Everyone said I was crazy, but I thought they’d say, ‘that’s freaking brilliant man,’ ” she said.

Another man, who we’ll call Joe, rolled up on a skateboard. He showed us his CalFresh card he illegally put up for sale on Craigslist.

“See, right now it still has $116 on it,” he told our undercover producer.

Rather than use that money for food like he’s supposed to, Joe offered to sell us the card for just $60 cash.

Via: CBS Sacramento

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In California and Washington, scandal spreads, government stumbles on

President Obama pauses while speaking at the SelectUSA 2013 Investment Summit in Washington on Thursday. (Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg / October 31, 2013)

A little tour of political news:

In Los Angeles, a former aide to City Councilman Jose Huizar filed a lawsuit alleging that he had harassed and punished her when she refused to provide sexual favors. (Not true, the married councilman said; it was a consensual affair.) Another former council aide has filed a lawsuit alleging that a second councilmember, Mitch Englander, not only allowed a harassing environment to exist in his office but also took part with inappropriate remarks. (He denied it.)

In Sacramento, an FBI affidavit was said to claim that state Sen. Ronald Calderon (D-Montebello) had accepted more than $60,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents, allegations first reported Wednesday by the Al Jazeeratelevision network.

By Thursday morning, as Calderon’s attorney was pleading his innocence, other legislators were scrambling to avoid being sucked into the quicksand. State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento took issue with Calderon’s claim that as a favor he had hired an unqualified woman onto the Senate staff. (The woman, unbeknown to any legislator, was an undercover FBI agent.)

In Washington, Republicans and Democrats showed no signs of abating their partisan tit-for-tat, most recently at a congressional hearing Wednesday where Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was raked over the coals for the balky opening of the federal healthcare.gov website. The meeting was replete with multiple references to Kansas—Sebelius is a former governor of the state, which means she deals with mentions of Dorothy and Toto and not being in Kansas anymore the way Californians bear the cross of flakiness, blond hair and surfers.

Via: Chicago Tribune

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NY Times Writer Celebrates Single-Party Rule in CA

The New York Times news department has apparently become the official national propaganda machine of California’s liberals in control of state government, more-or-less in the same manner as the Soviet Communist Party’s newspaper Pravda served as the official organ of that one-party state in Russia during the Cold War. 

At least that’s the impression some better informed observers can come away with after reading the Time’s crack reporter Adam Nagourney’s rather unbalanced homage to the loveliness of one-party liberal rule in California’s state capitol these days.

​With a sharply uncritical eye, Nagourney’s front-page above-the-fold piece in last weekend’s newspaper gushes about the wonderful “gridlock ease” in state politics as a result of the Democrats achieving supermajority status in both Houses of the State Legislature and sweeping control of every single state constitutional office in the last election. “A parade of bill signings” (as if that’s a good thing) and legislative successes now characterize Democratic-dominated Sacramento according to the article, where legislators are working together to solve problems in moderation and harmony. This is in contrast to the awful “shutdown in Washington,” where presumably Republicans still have some influence.

But Nagourney goes further and speculates that the current “end-zone dance” by liberals in Sacramento may instead be attributable to enactment of a handful of measures affecting elections “intended to leach some of the partisanship” out of state governance. Before those changes, Nagourney reports that California “was the national symbol of partisan paralysis and government dysfunction.” But now, after changes to the method of district apportionment, loosening of term limits, and elimination of partisan primary elections, Nagourney suggests even some Republicans are gleeful.

“We’re seeing, almost against the odds, a more centrist legislature, at least when it comes to jobs and budget issues,” according to liberal Republican Sam Blakeslee. The new rules “gives Republicans the chance to break with their caucus on certain issues” added a former Schwarzenegger aide.

Via: California Political Review

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