After some nudging from a list of Democratic activists, longtime San Francisco politician aims to increase stability in Democratic Party
by Brian Leubitz
As you may know, I am a regional director for the state Democratic party. As a San Franciscan, I have tremendous respect for the work that Sen. John Burton has done for our community and for the state. He is a progressive that will fight for his beliefs.
But it turns out he knows how to lead a state Democratic party. He knows how to hire a good team and let them run a solid organization. Since he assumed control, the party has been in a much better financial situation, has spoken out on issues that it was too timid to discuss before, and oh, by the way, also managed to sweep statewide during a tough election year.
And as somebody who, as a statewide field director, relied heavily on the state Democratic Party's field operation last year, I know that John Burton and his team know how to mobilize voters and win elections. It was for these reasons I was glad to sign on to a letter asking him to run again, and equally glad to hear that he's running again.
California Democratic party chair John Burton, 78, hasn't officially announced it yet -- but he has made the decision to run for another term to lead the party in 2013, the Chronicle has learned.
The plain-spoken, tough-talking Burton -- one of the most battle-scarred of California political veterans -- was urged earlier this month to run for another term by a host of party activists and insiders. Their efforts were expressed by two party leaders, CDP regional director for San Francisco Brian Leubitz -- who's also the Calitics blog director -- and Alice Huffman, NAACP president, in a letter earlier this month. The group expressed "strong support" of Burton's next term and urged him to announce his decision for another term.(SF Gate)
The day he was elected as chair, Sen. Burton called on President Obama to bring our troops home from both Iraq and Afghanistan. And he has continued to challenge the Democratic Party to dream big. He's done well, and the party will be lucky to have him and the strong team that he's built (and convinced to stick around).
By the way, Burton had some choice words for the Republicans debating in our state right now. Check that out over the flip.
By Lynda Gledhill
Press Secretary for Attorney General Kamala D. Harris
Law enforcement, public safety and key anti-gang operations are all at risk under the budget agreed to by Legislative Democrats and Governor Jerry Brown.
The cut of $71 million will wipe out the state's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement and the Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence and eliminate more than 55 statewide law enforcement task forces. These agents and task forces are on the frontlines of the state's struggle against sophisticated gangs and drug trafficking organizations. The loss of these task forces, combined with the elimination of DOJ's role in the state witness protection program, will dramatically undermine recent gains made against gangs in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and the Central Valley.
Just weeks ago, the Department of Justice and local law enforcement partners arrested 101 gang leaders and members in the Central Valley. They were members of a notorious prison-based gang with ties to foreign drug cartels, and this operation has crippled their grip on the drug trade flowing through the central part of the state. The month before, we took down more than 30 members of a transnational gang operating in the Bay Area, seizing over 100 pounds of methamphetamine.
These are operations of statewide significance, which is why the California Police Chiefs Association is pleading for these task forces to be saved.
But it's not only gang enforcement that's losing out. This proposed cut will eliminate much of the California Mortgage Fraud Strike Force that our office recently launched. The cut would eliminate nearly every one of the Strike Force's investigators, cutting off pending investigations and potential cases designed to protect homeowners and hold bad actors in the mortgage industry accountable.
The last Attorney General fought against these very same cuts. It was the right decision then and has even more urgency now, as drug cartel and transnational gang activity in California is rising and our homeowners urgently need protection from predators in the mortgage market.
The cuts should be undone and, at minimum, be unallocated so that the Department of Justice can make decisions on where to cut and how best protect the programs most critical to Californians.
A periodic update on the Republican war against public employees in the OC
Is Huntington Beach following the Costa Mesa train to Crazy Town, opting for confrontation instead of common sense with their employees?
On Monday, May 2nd, the Huntington Beach City Council, in closed session, voted against a proposal that would save the City almost $1.3 million in pension costs over the next two years and would also create a second pension tier for future public safety employees.
On May 3rd, Council Member Devin Dwyer was telling city employees that if they hadn't been there very long, they should start looking for another job. He also said that negotiations with the Fire Association had broken down, only to be quickly corrected by a representative of that group, who expressed an interest in continuing to talk.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Orange County right wing politics, where ambitious young pols like Don Hansen and Matt Harper seem poised to try to get some of the publicity that Jim Righeimer has been garnering in Costa Mesa. Term limits will open up an Assembly, State Senate and County Supervisor seat, and the players want to be seen as pension fighters and union busters to appeal to the hard core of Republican primary voters.
Pictured is the Women's Club Fire one of four major fires among a total of 36 fire calls in Huntington Beach in April. During the last two weeks, Huntington Beach also had a fatal fire, a fire where 2 victims were rescued with a ladder from a second story window, and a multi-million dollar home fire.
Well, the California Democratic Party Convention is set to begin in a few hours, and I am just shoving the last of my items into my bag as I get ready to head to Sacramento. For the most part, the convention will be fairly unified. Democrats are thankful for their electoral success in 2010's elections, but what issues might arise? Well, there's always the budget, but there is one other issue rearing its head as we head into it.
A new David Binder Research poll is showing that a strong majority of voters now supports converting all of our death penalty sentences to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP):
A recent statewide survey of 800 high propensity voters conducted by David Binder Research showed a strong 63% support for converting all current death row sentences to life imprisonment without any possibility of parole in order to save the state $1 billion dollars in five years, where the money saved would be required to pay for public education and law enforcement. Notably, support for this idea to convert all of the death row sentences to save the state a billion dollars over five years receives support from all political parties and from across all regions of the state. This idea appears to be the type of solution voters are looking for politicians to develop, but this idea in particular is one that political figures have so far overlooked.
This is likely to come up throughout the convention, but not likely from the podium. However, grassroots support for a signal of agreement with this poll has been bouncing around over the last few days and weeks. I'm interested to see where the question goes from here.
I'll be focusing much of my communications on Twitter, check my Twitter feed here.
UPDATE: On a somewhat related note, Governor Brown is actually letting the parole board do its job rather than what Govs. Davis and Schwarzenegger did by blocking pretty much every parole. We can't really begin to address the prison mess without prioritizing for dangers criminals.
The end of Illinois’ death penalty comes at a time when more and more people express the view that the death penalty is ineffective, costly, and unjust. A slew of recent editorials and opinion pieces have highlighted the enormous problems with the death penalty in California in particular. As these editorials and op eds show, it is time for California to cut this: the death penalty.
An editorial recently published in The San Jose Mercury, Pasadena Star News, Long Beach Telegram, and other papers, calls on Governor Brown to convert all death sentences to life imprisonment without any possibility of parole to the death penalty, to save the state $1 billion over the next five years. As these editorials point out, the money now wasted on the death penalty could be better spent to fund education and invest in public safety. Yet, at a time of financial crisis, the Governor and lawmakers are instead choosing to cut public safety, as well as healthcare and education, while remaining on track to spend $1 billion on the death penalty in five years.
Its never good news to hear a state has a budget deficit. But this recent article in The Economist made me a little happy for a couple of reasons. One, I was really tired of hearing conservatives (like Meg Whitman in 2010) praise Texas as a model for California. So hopefully that won't happen again. Two, its a vindication that California is not broken just because were lazy or some other variety of insults hurled our way from the other 49. It shows that regardless of the economic system, the bipartisan consensus was over-reliance on a massive bubble.
Many, if not all, will argue my view that the left's model of government-as-charity is unsustainable. But the the progressive case against the conservative model of government-as-corporation has been proven with the demise of Texas's "economic miracle." So there are a few lessons here, and most demonstrate why Texas and California can't be compared now or in the future.
1) The Dutch Disease. California is the third largest oil producer but due to our economy and size we are not an energy exporter. An oil tax exactly modelled on the one in Texas would generate revenue but cannot be a large enough cash stream to support our state. Texas is still over-reliant on its energy sector. It will receive a windfall with the current mideast crisis of the day. Don't be surprised if this contributes to a recovery and is used as proof that the Texas Model "works." California conversely will suffer economically due to high gas prices. People should be aware that the ups and downs of the energy market don't demonstrate which system is better only that both systems are not properly buffered for it.
2) Environment. An issue conservatives cringe at in California and abhor in Texas. But the thing is, our mild climate and natural beauty can't be found or replicated in Texas. As oil is to that state, the environment is a resource to us. Its a strong enough resource in fact that the wealthy will continue to live here regardless of the tax situation (much like they live in France).
3) Taxes. Our environment opens the door to higher taxes on the wealthy as long as its packaged as the price to live here. But it doesn't open the door to high taxes on ALL corporations. Companies that are high tech and want to attract people that want to live the California lifestyle can afford those taxes. Companies that require low-cost labor and are face stronger market competition (the non-Apples) cannot. Texas does grow more low-cost labor jobs and manufacturing. Granted there is not a high margin on that production but high-end producers that California is known for cannot employ all of us. Both no-taxes Texas and higher taxes California are too broad brush. A more nuanced corporate tax code may be needed.
4) Education. As the article points out, Texas aims to entice intellectual talent with no income taxes and more jobs instead of growing it natively with its education system. Its definetely a cheaper way to go, but is it sustainable? California's education system currently relies on its upper institutions to draw talent and hopes that its lifestyle and environment will keep them after graduation. I think California is the model to bet on, not (just) because of state pride, but Texas opens itself up to a race to the bottom situation.
5) Jobs. The Texas Model trumpets no income taxes and uses this to draw talent from across the nation. California, often called (incorrectly) the highest taxed state, uses taxes to provide services that higher educated/higher income people come to expect - well maintained roads, good schools, beautiful parks etc. The Texas job numbers were high last year but it appears that those were primarily lower-income jobs (some numbers said 2/3rds of all jobs created). Of course those are important jobs but not revenue generators or economic growth contributors like high tech. Bottomline, Texas plans to attract the lowest bidder (those that don't want to pay taxes). Like Wal-mart shoppers they don't expect frills or high quality products and services. California is like (insert expensive store of your choice, I won't play favorites) it gives you high end stuff and you expect to enjoy the experience not get the deal and rush out. But unquestionably its expensive, Californians need to decide which "store" do we want to be?
I have some thoughts on the issue but open it to all, what is California to do next?
And no, it's not their fear of seeing their heads on a stick. And don't believe that the ransom list had anything to do with their real issues. Restoring 23 million in cuts to rural state fairs? Please.
Republicans never wanted to agree to pension reform because it was the only single issue where the public agrees with them.
If Republicans were at all serious abut solving problems, they would have jumped at the deal that Jerry Brown had negotiated.
There was a significant package of reforms agreed to by the Brown Administration that would have made a huge dent in California's pensions problem. And let's make it clear that there is no crisis but there are some serious problems, particularly with the unsustainable costs of public safety pensions for local governments.
Washington, D.C. insider and anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist was recently quoted by conservative columnist Debra Saunders in the SF Chronicle as saying "I think golf and cocaine would be more constructive ways to spend one's free time than negotiating with Democrats on spending restraint."
I have always considered golf a good walk spoiled. As a recovering cocaine addict, I am surprised that anyone would think that it is at all constructive to spend one's free time using that drug.
We have no budget, no money for child care centers and college students, and no hope that these problems will be solved anytime soon. But take heart California, what we do have is a state-of-the-art death chamber. And soon we will have the best and brightest death row housing facility. Can anyone in Sacramento say “priorities”?
On September 22, “Day 83 Without a Budget,” the Governor revealed a brand new execution chamber. This was his latest leap into the budgetary black hole that is the death penalty. While state employees have been furloughed, the inmates at San Quentin have been hard at work building the new facility to replace the rigged-up gas chamber they had been using. After a judge ruled it was too small and poorly lit to put people to death without risk of serious error, the new one boasts such improvements as a room with lights.
Its price-tag? A mere $853,000.
A few weeks earlier, back on “Day 41 Without a Budget,” the Governor “borrowed” $64 million from the state’s general fund, to be paid out of our still non-existent state budget. That money will be used to begin construction of the new death row housing facility, which in the end will cost $400 million to build. That breaks down to about a half a million dollars per cell. The facility is being designed to hold 1,400 inmates—twice the number of people currently on death row. That’s because the government knows that almost everyone sentenced to death in California will not actually die in the shiny new execution chamber. In fact, almost all will die of natural causes, just like they do now.
(Excellent stuff from the Democratic candidate for AD-70 - promoted by Robert Cruickshank)
I was recently asked by the Orange County Register to give answers about how to fix the California budget in 75 words.
That is not possible, because it's a complicated issue.
Of course, I could have pretended it was simple, like my opponent will do, by blaming California's budget problems solely on government spending.
But that is not the case.
California has the second lowest ratio of state employees to population among all the states, with 103 full-time equivalent state employees per 10,000 residents. The national average is 143 state employees per 10,000 residents.
It isn't excessive spending that is the real culprit causing our budget woes - it's the reckless borrowing we've done to pay for unfair tax cuts to the rich and giant corporations.
California enters 2010 facing a $20 billion hole in its budget. Does this sound like a familiar story? By all evidence not much has changed since last year when the governor and legislature took 144 days to solve this problem---and then apparently did not.
The Governor has floated creative ideas for saving and raising money to get the state out of its terminal financial doldrums from shipping undocumented immigrants off to Mexican prisons to mounting overhead electronic billboard displays on freeway bridges.
They received only the most tepid response from legislators in both parties who are in the grips of a political paralysis which many think unprecedented as they struggle to find any common ground. Democrats want to raise taxes which Republicans, including the Governor, fiercely resist preferring cuts in services.
Even some of the cuts previously approved for prisons and Medi-Cal rates were never enacted while $1 billion more than planned must be spent on public schools because of Proposition 98 guarantees.
These are just some of the balancing act choices, none of them popular, in a bitterly divided legislature.
With the job market still sluggish even after the infusion of millions in federal stimulus funds and with the state's jobless rate holding at12.4%, the vague hopes for recovery that accompanied the cheery pronouncements from Sacramento after last year's budget crisis have only solidified voter cynicism that anything can ever get done.
These sentiments are echoed across the nation where voter revolt has already cost the Democrats a Senate seat in Massachusetts, governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, and the likelihood with the announced retirement of Senator Evan Bayh, a popular Indiana Democrat, that the contagion is spreading and could engulf the Administration by the time of the November mid-term elections. Loss of their Senate majority is already a foregone conclusion.
In California, this is posing problems for Barbara Boxer, the former Marin resident now in her third term whose credentials as one of the most liberal members of the Senate has not hurt her in past campaigns but could be wearing thin as anti-incumbent fever stoked by Tea Party advocates and reinvigorated conservatives sweeps the country.
While Boxer is still seen as the narrow favorite, the entry into the race of political moderate and former Peninsula Congressman, Tom Campbell, muddies the picture which showed Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard chief, with the early lead and a vast fortune to back it up.
This creates an opening for Irvine Assemblyman, Chuck DeVore, who as the most conservative of the three may be positioned best to wrest the nomination. That would be welcome news for Boxer in a state which still leans heavily Democratic and who held off a charge by an ardent conservative to gain her seat in 1992.
But if California's economy and the nation's have not significantly rebounded before November which is still a good bet, no incumbents are safe.
Millions will be poured into the race to defeat Boxer, aided by the Supreme Court's recent ruling allowing corporations to spend unlimited sums in federal elections. If this happens, California may become the bell weather state for the majority party's fortunes in November and beyond.
But Republican incumbents in California and everywhere must also worry if they cannot deliver.
I am not sure who we should blame for this one, our greenwashed governor or our no oversight legislature.
According the the Sacrament Bee, the State of California is in danger of losing tens of millions of dollars in unspent energy stimulus funding.
Eight months after California was awarded $226 million in federal stimulus money to boost energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, it has failed to spend any of the cash and risks losing it, the state auditor charged Tuesday.
I don't know about the rest of you, but the excuses sound pretty lame to me. They can't spend the money because they don't have any controls. Maybe they don't have the controls because they don't have the budget? My God, the Republicans Win again.
When will we make competence a criteria for keeping your job? Probably never.
As policy wonks and issues-based progressives, most of the writers here tend to understand the implications of the decisions in this train wreck of a budget. The savings are phony, but the cuts are real, and it makes you want to scream when you realize that the budget is a vast tax on the future of California.
One dollar stolen from road maintenance easily turns into an eight dollar liability in the future when you need to tear a street down to the roadbed and replace it all, rather than continue with routine patching, overlays, and slurry seal.
Cuts in health services and social welfare are leveraged by losses of matching Federal funds, and the savings may prove illusory. Patients who lose in-home health services may prove to be a greater burden on the state as they are still eligible under Medical for nursing home care, at a cost five times greater than the in home services.
Cutting back on treatment programs, vocational programs in prisons, and community college programs are negative investments that will produce negative long-term returns.
The piratization reforms, particularly outsourcing eligibility and selling part of the State Compensation Insurance Fund, are projected to save money and generate revenue, but real world experience, both in California and in other states, shows that these are more likely to be costly failures that will increase costs while wrecking services.
I could keep this list going, but it isn't the point of this rant.
Getting past all of the issues with the specifics, there's a fundamental failure of our state leaders to understand the macro-economic problem at hand. Our most recent California bubble was built on extraordinary leverage and reckless borrowing.
When Mortgage Equity Withdrawal (People using their houses as ATM's) peaked in Q4 2006, an amazing 9% of consumer income, nationally, was coming from mortgage equity withdrawal. In California, ground zero for mortgage fraud, with soaring housing prices, that number was much higher. A substantial part of our entire economy was based on borrowing against assets that have now tanked.
We have permanently lost 10% of our consumer economy, the part that was based on absolutely unsustainable leverage, and it's not coming back. Our sales tax revenues aren't coming back. Our property taxes will keep declining. Incomes will continue to sag for years as we've lost jobs that won't return in finance, real estate, insurance, construction and affiliated fields. Every sector of real estate is overbuilt, including housing, commercial, hotels, and industrial, so we won't have any upsurge in construction jobs, especially after the state raids the local funds for road maintenance and redevelopment. And it's all still overpriced and over-leveraged, with more failures and foreclosures coming for hotels, commercial real estate, and industrial properties. Agriculture is a disaster. Read John Chiang's monthly reports on our plunging revenue, and follow the unemployment numbers, and you can see how these numbers are playing out.
State and local revenues will not miraculously return as they have in previous recessions, because this is not like previous recessions. Jobs won't bounce back as retail continues to tank, and small businesses close their doors.
And our cuts in state spending amplify the problem, as furloughed and laid off government employees spend less, lose homes, pay less in taxes, and the people they buy from spend less, lose homes, and pay less in taxes. Twenty billion in government cuts will act push the economy into another downward leg, forcing unemployment up another two per cent, and translating into billions less in state and local government revenue.
When legislators pretend that they will somehow have money to pay back local government or education, they show that they have failed to grasp the reality of our de-leveraging economy. We won't revert to our previous income levels any more than housing prices will return to their peak of the bubble prices. Se we won't have more revenue to pay back this ridiculous scheme of borrowing that we are taking from local government, much less paying back education.
We need to start with the knowledge that the California economy is resetting, and that we need to restructure our government, implement national health care reform, and come up with a new basis for our tax system that is much fairer, and corrects some of the worst flaws we have written into our Constititution.
Reporting from Sacramento -- The state budget deal negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders would reduce the population of California prisons by nearly 27,000 inmates in the current fiscal year.
That would be done with a combination of new measures, including allowing some inmates to finish their sentences on home detention, creating new incentives for completion of rehabilitation programs and scaling back parole supervision for the least serious offenders.
Via Capitol Weekly, we see this glimpse behind the scenes as angry Republicans threaten to scuttle the budget over this.
Their "cut strategy" for prisons must have included the Governator's original barbaric ideas to eliminate alcohol treatment and vocational training, rather than cuts in the prison population.
We start to see behind the curtain.
From: (Sam Blakeslee)
Date: July 21, 2009 3:21:24 PM PDT
To: (Assembly Republican Caucus)
Subject: Budget Double-Cross?
Throughout budget negotiations we insisted that Republican votes would never be provided for a budget deal that included early release of prisoners.
Our caucus and staff developed a cut strategy for corrections that provided the necessary savings to close the deficit without risking public safety.
We had a clear understanding with the democrats that NO corrections bill would be a part of the budget and that we would have an honest chance to contest the policy issues in the light of day in August.
Just two hours ago I learned from staff that Senate democrats are concocting a radioactive corrections bill that includeds the worst of the worst _ sentencing commission and release of 27,000 prisoners, etc
When I spoke with Dennis he was as surprised and upset as I was regarding what appears to be a serious breach of the agreement in the Big 5.
I have called and personally told both Karen and Darrell that their will be no republican votes for any portion of the budget if they allow such a bill to be part of the package.
To: Assemblymember Sam Blakeslee
Fax: 916-319-2133
Subject: We all live in Sam Blakeslee's district
Dear Mr. Blakeslee,
In 2006, a young blogger wrote "We all live in Richard Pombo's district." He went on to explain that, because of his anti-environmental stance, everybody in the nation had an interest in Richard Pombo's bid for reelection in California's 11th congressional district. The post was widely reproduced and money poured in from across the country for Mr. Pombo's opponent, Jerry McNerney. Phonebanks sprang up across California to support Mr. McNerney. People from all over Northern California went to his district to canvass voters. And my friends and I formed the core of his campaign staff.
With no prior political experience, Mr. McNerney defeated Mr. Pombo and serves in Congress today.
I attended my youngest child's "graduation" ceremony from elementary school today. It was a touching morning filled with awards and a montage of baby photos, girls dressed up in their best dresses and boys squirming uncomfortably in collared shirts. As a long-time parent, I've attended quite a few of these affairs.
But at the end came something that was markedly different from any ceremony I've attended before. We bid goodbye to a favorite teacher. My son's beloved part-time health teacher received a pink slip this spring. In good years these "temporary" teachers find themselves with a job again after the budget issues have settled down. But this is not to be this year.
A cheer went up among the children when her name was announced along with the other teachers. She's a favorite with the kids. My quiet little son, who seldom relays details of his school day, often came home with stories about the great discussions he's had in her class.
Clearly this is a teacher who is making an impact. And yet we seem to be unable to afford her salary any longer. This is the grim reality of state budget cuts. A family without a second income will be making fewer purchases in the community. Next year's students will not receive the benefit of her instruction.
It is a chain of ruin with profound impacts on the future of our children and the economy.
I went up to her afterward and assured her she would land on her feet. Unable to find child care today, she had her small daughter with her. She thanked me for my words of support and I could see the tears forming in her eyes.
I think back to the day I watched the TEA Party protesters in Ventura in giddy celebration of taking down the government.
This is the government: a now unemployed health teacher who really gets through to her pupils, holding the hand of her 3-year-old.
Marie Lakin is a community activist and writes the Making Waves blog for the Ventura County Star
In the market for a prime piece of real estate? Governor Schwarzenegger has the deal for you! Facing a $21.3 Billion budget deficit in California, Schwarzenegger has offered to sell state-owned property to make up the difference. The crown jewel of the proposed fire sale is San Quentin State Prison, home to California’s death row and beautifully situated in the San Francisco Bay.
But before he can flip San Quentin for a profit, Gov. Schwarzenegger will have to figure out what to do with the 680 condemned inmates who currently call it home. Fortunately, there is a solution. The best way to solve California’s budget woes would be to do away with the death penalty all together. By eliminating the death penalty, the state will save $1 billion in five years. And that’s not even counting the profit from selling San Quentin.
California currently has the largest death row in the country and spends more than any other state on the death penalty. In the next five years, California can save $1 billion by getting rid of the death penalty. Here’s how:
Save $125 million per year by cutting extra costs of the death penalty—costs not incurred through permanent imprisonment. According to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, the annual cost of California’s death penalty to the state is $137 million. If the worst offenders were condemned to permanent imprisonment instead, the cost would be only $11 million and California would not be any less safe.
Save $400 million in construction of a new housing facility for death row inmates. According to the State Auditor, this is how much it will cost to build a new facility at San Quentin, needed because the current facility is filled past capacity. And this is the state’s cost saving measure; building at any other site will be even more expensive.
Keep in mind that any attempt to “speed up” the death penalty will cost even more. The California Commission concluded that in order to reduce the time needed to review death penalty cases, the state would need to spend an additional $100 million each year.
These figures don’t even take into consideration the windfall profits from selling off San Quentin, if anyone even wants it. But before death row can go on the market, Gov. Schwarzenegger will have to come up with an effective alternative for the inmates already living there. Luckily, California has such an alternative already in place—permanent imprisonment—which is just as safe as and so much less expensive than capital punishment. The money saved can be used to provide victims’ services or other crime prevention measures. And there would still be money left to help dig California out of this economic hole.
Right now, Gov. Schwarzenegger can convert all of the current death sentences to sentences of permanent imprisonment, ensuring these inmates are kept off the streets forever and die in prison. Every guilty person sentenced to permanent imprisonment in California stays in prison until he or she dies, and it costs $175,000 less per inmate per year than a sentence of death by execution.
Before selling San Quentin, the Legislature will also need to temporarily suspend any new death sentences until the state recovers from the current fiscal crisis so we don’t recreate the current problem. As an added bonus, suspending new death penalty trials would also save county budgets, which are in no better condition than the state budget. Each death penalty trial costs the local counties at least $1.1 million more than a trial where the district attorney seeks a sentence of permanent imprisonment. California currently averages about 20 new death sentences a year, so stopping death penalty trials could save counties an additional $100 million in five years.
Of the many proposals Gov. Schwarzenegger has put before the voters and the legislature to rescue the state from financial meltdown—all of which have failed—none are quite as simple or reasonable as suspending the death penalty and saving $1 billion in five years. Since the Governor is now into real estate, he should know a “money pit” when he sees it. The longer he waits, the more money he wastes.
WHAT'S THE BEST REASON to not cut our state education funding? In the future we'll need sharp minds to get us out of these budget messes.
I've been hunkered down for the past few days looking over documents and trying to make some sense of the budget package the governor just signed and how it will affect the bottom line of our schools. It's a precarious hodgepodge of $8.4 billion in cuts offset by reforms and accounting tricks. And all of this hinges on a package of ballot measures up in May, some designed to reshuffle prior ballot measures.
This labyrinthine budget reduces Prop. 98 guaranteed school funding from now through 2010 and then adds in another ballot measure to help to help restore the lost funds in 2011. Yet another tinkers with Prop. 98 formulas because the state now needs to borrow from future lottery earnings that would've gone to our schools.
Several of the seven ballot measures coming up on May 19 are so complicated that one could safely predict most voters probably won't do anything but vote no in protest, if they bother to cast a ballot at all.
Lost in the drama of the California budget is one huge part of the story that is ignored by our hapless local press.
The Obama stimulus package will prevent the cuts to education, the tax increases and the unsustainable borrowing from being much, much worse.
According to the budget documents, if the state receives what it predicts from the federal stimulus package - more than $9 billion - there would be other benefits to the budget: borrowing would be reduced by roughly half, $950 million in cuts would be restored and the tax increases would be reduced.
And every Orange County Republican in Congress voted against the stimulus package, then self-righteously gloated over their unity. So they not only voted against the largest middle-class tax cut in the nation's history, they also voted to fire teachers, increase California taxes, and borrow more against future revenues.
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the entire State Legislature is in need a new cerbral cortex. They are not thinking straight. We are in a budget crisis and can come to no agreement between Democrats who are afraid that the unions will recall them and Republicans who are afraid that they will be booted out of the party if they vote for a new tax.
Personally, I would rather listen to a scientist like Dr. Chu. At least when he speaks you have more of a chance to hear a fact rather than some BS designed to make you think that the legislature is on your side.
