Free Republic

When the make-love-not-war generation finally got around to having kids, they were so proud of their accomplishment that they fawned over the little darlings and protectively adorned their minivans with yellow caution signs that warned of precious cargo: "Baby on Board." Now, after many years of being told they were special and entitled to endless conveniences and a life without turmoil, the children are grown up. And the University of California system, which has recently endured student protests and arrests over a fee hike, has to contend with the byproduct: Brats at the Gates. The protests erupted after UC regents...

Now the infighting begins. Democrats fired back only minutes after Republican state Sen. Abel Maldonado was appointed Tuesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to fill the vacant office of lieutenant governor. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg questioned the cost: Wouldn't California be better served spending $2 million to defray college tuition rather than for a special election to fill Maldonado's Senate seat should lawmakers confirm him? "It may be both fiscally and politically prudent to permit the people to make their own selection for this statewide office next year and avoid the expense of a costly special election," Steinberg said...

Dozens of students at the University of California, Davis, ended a standoff at the main administration building Tuesday night after administrators agreed to some of their demands, officials said. No one was arrested and students left Mrak Hall at about 11:15 p.m., said Sylvia Wright, a university spokeswoman. About 150 students packed the building's lobby at the height of Tuesday's protest, which began about 5 p.m. when students were asked to leave and refused. The number dropped to about 90 later in the night. Last week, authorities at UC Davis arrested 52 people - including 47 students - who protested...

Even as Sen. Abel Maldonado was being nominated Tuesday to serve as lieutenant governor, Democratic leaders expressed doubts about confirming him. "It may be both fiscally and politically prudent to permit the people to make their own selection for this state office next year to avoid the expense of a costly special election," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said in a written statement. Steinberg's reaction signals that the appointment of Maldonado, who angered members of his own party this year by voting to raise taxes, is no slam-dunk to be confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who...

Amid complaints of police brutality and heavy criticism about the university's handling of a massive protest and takeover of a campus building Friday, the university announced it will ask for an independent investigation of police actions that could bring about changes to the way officers handle protest crowds. The announcement came on a day when about 75 protesters, a few of them wearing casts and splints on their arms and fingers, gathered outside an Oakland courthouse to denounce what many say was abusive behavior by police at a UC Berkeley protest Friday. "The police broke my hand Friday," organizer and...

Before the economy went bust, California voters authorized multibillion-dollar charges on the state's infrastructure credit card. They approved generational investments in roads, schools and levees, as well as hospitals and stem-cell research. At the time, fiscal experts projected that California at most would have to spend roughly 6 percent of its annual budget on payments. But after an economic collapse, estimates now show that debt service could consume as much as 10 percent of the annual general fund budget by 2014-15 – an "unprecedented" ratio, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office. The latest debt warning comes weeks after lawmakers and...

Sacramento -- The number of public safety jobs created or saved with federal stimulus dollars has been vastly overstated in California, according to the state auditor. In a letter sent to leaders at the Capitol on Monday, State Auditor Elaine Howle said that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has overstated by as many as 13,000 the number of jobs saved by federal stimulus dollars. That represents more than 10 percent of the jobs California reported saving with the federal funds. Howle said the department appears to have counted employees who were not at risk of losing their jobs. The...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spilled the beans to late-night host Jay Leno that he's nominating Republican Sen. Abel Maldonado to fill the vacant lieutenant governor seat. Here's how Schwarzenegger described his pick, according to the show's transcript: "He's a terrific, loyal man that has worked very hard in public service. But he's also into bipartisanship and postpartisanship, so he can cross the aisle. He makes decisions based on what's best for the people rather than what's best for the party. He has helped us, many times, pass a budget, which was very important. And he comes from an immigrant family. They...

Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named Senator Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County) as his pick for lieutenant governor Monday, making the announcement on a late night show. Maldonado, a Latino and moderate Republican, gave the governor a crucial vote on the budget this year - which included tax hikes- angering the party's base. It's not the first time he's stuck his neck out for the governor.

For years California has courted a reputation as an eco-friendly, green-minded leader, but the state now finds its most basic program of recycling beverage bottles and cans mired in debt and litigation. Dozens of supermarket recycling sites have shut down recently as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators spar over how to close a massive gap in the program's budget. California's 23-year-old recycling program, managed by the Department of Conservation through fees charged to beverage buyers, has been hurt this year by recession, rising redemption rates and raids of its coffers to help ease the state's budget woes. Schwarzenegger and...

If the entertainment industry were allowed to pick California's next governor, there would be no contest: Jerry Brown would win by a landslide. That was made clear this past week as the 71-year-old attorney general was feted by industry leaders at an event raising more than $1 million and co-chaired by directors Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams, and other movers and shakers. It's also been clear for months as studio executives, writers and other Hollywood figures have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the as-yet-undeclared Democratic candidate's campaign. Meanwhile, industry figures contributed much less money, if anything, to Republican...

An anti-tax recall movement against Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Hesperia, has failed to gather enough valid signatures to go to the ballot, the California secretary of state's office announced Friday. "I'm elated. I'm euphoric," Adams said Friday. "People generally don't like recalls," he said. "I'm up for re-election in June, in the primary. Voters will have their say then." The recall effort was launched after Adams provided one of three GOP votes needed in the Assembly to pass temporary income tax increases last February. Tim Whitacre, who is active in Orange County GOP circles and managed the recall campaign, could not...

When Mac Taylor, the Legislature's chief budget adviser, declared this week that the state budget enacted just four months ago is already billions of dollars upside down, no one in the Capitol should have been surprised. Anyone with half a brain and a hand calculator could figure out that many assumptions on which the budget was based, both spending and revenues, were unrealistic, some of them conjured out of thin air to "balance" an inherently unbalanced budget for political reasons. Taylor told legislators that the current budget is $6.3 billion out of balance and the 2010-11 budget has another $14.4...

State Budgets: California's slide into fiscal oblivion continues, with no end in sight. Despite lots of budget cuts this year, a $21 billion deficit looms. The politicians' solution? Stop selling high-definition TVs in the state. It's starting to become routine. Last February, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a new spending plan with "real, lasting reforms" that would help close its $36 billion-plus deficit and ensure the state never got so out of fiscal whack again. And just four months ago the Governator and California's worst-in-the-country legislature agreed to a plan to close a $24 billion budget gap by cutting spending amid...

More grim news Wednesday for state workers: California's general fund faces a $21 billion deficit through the middle of 2011. The red ink could flow for years to come, according to a forecast by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.The state's 200,000 or so workers, already taking a 15 percent pay hit from three furlough days per month, knew this was coming. What does the state's rotten financial picture mean to them?• Real job cuts. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger already has ordered 7,000 jobs eliminated from the deficit-ridden general fund. And as this column reported a few months ago, the administration has...

California again is facing a mammoth budget deficit and the prospect of more severe cuts to state services, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office warned in a report released Wednesday.Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor said the state will face a $20.7 billion deficit next year and that the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger need to start work to fill that gap "as soon as possible." He also noted that many one-time fixes state leaders have relied on in the past to close deficits are not available. The state will face $20 billion annual deficits through 2015 if permanent fixes are not made,...

California faces annual budget deficits of $20 billion even while assuming state employees would receive no salary increases through 2014-15, according to a forecast issued today by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office. The fiscal report also assumes that the state would not provide automatic cost-of-living adjustments to social service programs, courts and higher education -- just as the University of California system today is considering raising tuition 32 percent over the next year to compensate for state budget cuts. Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor said today that his projections assume that state worker furloughs will end in June 2010. In the...

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- Power-hungry TVs will be banned from store shelves in California after state regulators Wednesday adopted a first-in-the-nation mandate to reduce electricity demand. On a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission required all new televisions up to 58 inches to be more energy efficient, beginning in 2011. The requirement will be tougher in 2013, with only a quarter of all TVs currently on the market meeting that standard.

When California's political consultants share war stories, 1988's immensely expensive, multifront battle between insurance companies and lawyer-backed consumer groups takes center stage. Tens of millions of dollars were spent on a confusing array of competing ballot measures, and when the dust had settled, insurers had lost big, particularly with passage of Proposition 103, which made the state insurance commissioner an elected official and dramatically increased insurance regulation. It was a big battle in the decades-long "tort war" over rules governing who can sue whom for personal injuries, including auto accidents – a war fought in the Legislature, on the ballot...

A federal agency says it is conducting a civil rights review of BART service and fares in part because of a complaint that a planned rail extension to the Oakland International Airport would unfairly benefit affluent airline travelers over minority public transit riders.

Despite revenue projections that are holding relatively firm, California faces a $21 billion state budget shortfall over the next year and half, according to sources who have been briefed on a projection from the Legislature's budget analyst. The shortfall will be detailed in a report due to be released Wednesday by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor. Sources said the report will show the state will fall short by $6.3 billion in the fiscal year that began July 1, due largely to failed projections in the spending plan lawmakers cobbled together in July. Lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger failed to reduce the...

Jerry Brown's first governorship was marked by what one might term – charitably – a high degree of flexibility. Although he generally hewed to a liberal line after his 1974 election, Brown was often willing to bend ideology for political advantage, a tendency that some called "flakiness." Most famously, prior to the 1978 election in which voters enacted Proposition 13, the landmark property tax limit, Brown denounced it as a "consumer rip-off" but afterward, he abruptly changed his tune, declared himself to be a "born-again tax cutter" and championed a big state tax cut. Brown claimed virtue in his pirouettes....

San Francisco's lowered home values and high unemployment rates have created another unwelcome side effect: far less revenue coming into city coffers than expected. A report released Monday by the controller's office shows that property tax revenues will likely be $35 million less than anticipated in the 2009-10 fiscal year that began July 1. Payroll tax revenues will probably be $24.8 million less than expected, the report said. To make matters worse, some city departments are going over budget, including shortfalls of $5.1 million in the Fire Department, $4 million in the Sheriff's Department and $3.2 million in Superior Court....

OAKLAND — Former state Senate President Pro Tem and 2010 Oakland mayoral candidate Don Perata joined cancer research and health advocates Monday to launch a ballot measure that would hike cigarette taxes by a dollar a pack. "This is the right measure for the right time," Corey Goodman, a UC San Francisco professor and former biotech entrepreneur, said at a news conference in the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, adding the half-billion dollars per year this measure could raise would help move scientific breakthroughs "from the bench to the bedside" to save lives. Perata said he conceived of the measure...

EAST PALO ALTO – At the top of the real estate bubble, CalPERS invested $600 million in two deals that were 3,000 miles apart but linked by a common vision: Buy apartments governed by rent-control laws and turn them into cash cows. The plan failed in a flurry of litigation and bad debt. A project in East Palo Alto is in default. The second deal, in New York, is likely headed that way. CalPERS could lose most or all of its money. What's more, critics say the deals might sully CalPERS' reputation as a champion of socially responsible investing, a...

When the state assumed full financial responsibility for the court system a decade ago, it was billed as a way of relieving pressure on county finances. However, much like the state's shouldering the financial burden for schools, judicial centralization has created unintended consequences. In both cases, hitherto independent systems have found that shifting financial responsibility to Sacramento puts them in competition with other sectors of the state budget for increasingly limited dollars. That's why the California Teachers Association and other school interests created an Education Coalition that wages constant war in political and legal arenas to protect its share of...

As America's trade with the Far East – principally China – expanded massively during the 1980s and 1990s, California reaped the benefits as the gateway for both exports and imports. With trade emerging as a major component of the state's very diverse economy, traffic and payrolls blossomed at its major ports. California now is mired in its worst recession since the Great Depression, and international trade has been seriously damaged. Imports and exports through the state's air and sea ports, the most recent Department of Commerce data show, are running at least one-fifth below last year's already depressed levels. Exports...

WASHINGTON – Steve Gándola, president and chief executive officer of the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, wants to count all Latinos in the 2010 census, including millions of noncitizens. Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter wants only legal citizens included in the official count. And the Rev. Miguel Rivera, who heads the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, wants illegal Latino immigrants to boycott the U.S. census as a way to show their displeasure with Congress' refusal to overhaul national immigration laws. His motto: "No legalization, no enumeration." With the largest Latino population in the nation, California has a...

On Nov. 1, the government of the state of California began withholding from workers' paychecks 10 percent more than what it had been withholding. The Los Angeles Times described this move -- prompted by California's fiscal calamity -- as "a forced, interest-free loan" from taxpayers to the government. The Times explained to its California readers that "You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less." The ostensible purpose of withholding is to better ensure that taxpayers actually pay the taxes they...

The Milken Institute is based in Southern California, but its annual survey of business conditions in the nation's cities has almost nothing good to say about California. It heaps praise on Texas - the Austin area was ranked No. 1 on Milken's list of "best-performing cities," released today, while three other Texas cities were listed in the top five, with only No. 3 Salt Lake City cracking that elite list. Cities in recession-wracked California, meanwhile, saw their rankings decline - especially those hit hard by the collapse of the housing market. "Metropolitan areas with a high exposure to durable manufacturing...

Advocates of overhauling California's troubled pension system for public employees couldn't have chosen a more providential moment to launch their reform campaign. The huge California Public Employees' Retirement System is in deep financial doo-doo, having lost tens of billions of dollars in often-speculative investments, and is telling state and local officials it will need more "contributions." Meanwhile, investigations are under way into multimillion-dollar payments to placement agents who arranged some investments. With a public pension scandal simmering and their private pension benefits shrinking, voters will resent a CalPERS bailout. Indeed, a recent Field Poll indicates that voters are inclined to...

In July, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for a "Commission on the 21st Century Economy," it was hoped the group of experts could provide a way to finally resolve California's budget woes. When the commission issued its report at the end of September, however, the recommendations fell to the floor with a resounding thud. Defenders of California's status quo in the state legislature in effect said "no way." Today, California is a by-the-numbers state tragedy. Unemployment is higher than 12.2 percent as of September. Business costs are almost 23 percent higher than other states on average. Migration out of the...

The grim reality of San Francisco's gasping economy took center stage at City Hall this week when the Board of Supervisors failed to muster enough votes to protect more than 500 workers in the city's largest union from layoffs, pay cuts or job reassignments. Without last-minute intervention by Mayor Gavin Newsom - which his chief of staff has hinted is unlikely - the budget-balancing cuts aimed at nursing assistants and clerical workers will start to take effect next week. The cuts are a direct result of the city's chronic budget problems. This summer, the mayor's office and supervisors faced a...

Early – very early – one morning last week, state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod wandered to the back of the ornate Senate chambers and expressed a feeling shared by many of the other people in the room. "I would rather stick my finger in a light socket," she said, "than spend another hour in here." The Chino Democrat's observation was colored by the fact that it came at around 3 a.m., during an 18-hour legislative session on overhauling the state's water system. But it also reflected a sentiment that could cover a growing number of marathon meetings by California lawmakers...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger estimated Monday that California's budget will fall out of balance by $5 billion to $7 billion this fiscal year, on top of a $7.4 billion gap already projected for 2010-11. If true, state leaders would confront at least a $12.4 billion to $14.4 billion problem when Schwarzenegger releases his budget in January. California currently has an $84.6 billion general fund budget. The Republican governor spoke with The Fresno Bee editorial board Monday after signing a bill placing a water bond on the November 2010 ballot. He emphasized deep spending cuts as a budget solution but did not...

Near Mark Oldfield's desk at the California Department of Conservation sits a ream of copy paper that is more than a routine office commodity. Made in part from recycled fiber, it is a symbol of the state's green spirit, one ream among thousands backing the department's claim that it is a champion of the environment – and complies with state law requiring it to buy recycled paper. There is a dark side to those sheets of bright, white paper: the part that isn't recycled comes from trees logged in the biologically rich but endangered forests of Indonesia. Oldfield, a public...

Mike Genest, who announced recently that he's resigning as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget director, deserves a respite after four years of dealing with the state's chronic fiscal crisis. Genest is a genuinely nice guy,... His imminent departure, however, is a reminder that as Schwarzenegger settles on what he'll propose on state spending two months hence, California is still speeding toward a train wreck. The Legislature's budget analyst, Mac Taylor, will issue his appraisal soon. He'll probably tell his bosses what they don't want to hear – that things are getting worse, not better. State revenues are running billions of dollars...

Up to one-fourth of the 110,000 jobs reported as saved by federal stimulus money in California probably never were in danger, a Bee review has found. California State University officials reported late last week that they saved more jobs with stimulus money than the number of jobs saved in Texas – and in 44 other states. In a required state report to the federal government, the university system said the $268.5 million it received in stimulus funding through October allowed it to retain 26,156 employees. That total represents more than half of CSU's statewide work force. However, university officials confirmed...

Welcome to California government, 80 percent-style. This is the first of 12 weeks in a row that the state will shut down every Friday. Between unpaid furlough days and paid holidays off, most California civil servants won't work a five-day week again until Jan. 29. But how much will the public notice – or care? We've had nine months to adjust to a part-time state government. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger started furloughing workers two days per month in February and upped it to three "Furlough Fridays" in July. Meanwhile, the public's most acute fiscal pain is closer to home. "Cities, counties,...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has complained that he doesn't get to pick his own lieutenant governor, a position he thinks should be more first mate than political detractor – if it must exist at all. He could soon get his wish. If Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi wins a special congressional election Tuesday in the Democrat-leaning 10th Congressional District, Schwarzenegger has the power to appoint Garamendi's replacement. The Republican governor has not tipped his hand. He has the option of choosing a caretaker who will serve out Garamendi's last year. Or he could use the appointment to reward a Republican legislator...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom made a surprise announcement Friday afternoon that he was dropping out of the gubernatorial race, leaving the Democrats with no declared candidate for the top statewide office. Attorney General Jerry Brown has opened an exploratory committee for governor but has yet to formally announce his candidacy. Nonetheless, Brown has opened a wide lead over Newsom in both fund-raising and in polls. "It is with great regret I announce today that I am withdrawing from the race for governor of California," Newsom said in a statement. "With a young family and responsibilities at city hall, I...

SACRAMENTO — The press secretary for California Attorney General Jerry Brown has been secretly recording telephone conversations with reporters, an apparent violation of state law. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday that spokesman Scott Gerber acknowledged taping a phone interview with one of its reporters. It said Gerber later acknowledged recording other conversations with reporters without asking their permission.

WASHINGTON ---- It may be highly improbable mathematically, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday that the encoded profanity contained in one of his veto messages was "a wild coincidence." Speaking to reporters at the White House, the Republican governor said: "That was a total coincidence. It was one of those wild coincidences." The first letter in seven lines of the message, when read from top to bottom, combine to spell out "F• you."

'Tis the season: A woman named Merry (really) Susan Hyatt and her brother David are apparently on the verge of having their initiative approved by the attorney general's office for circulation. It would amend the state Education Code to allow public schools to present "Christmas music" at Christmas. Parents would be given three weeks' notice and could opt out their kids. For the record, the proposed initiative was submitted in late August. That was before Bob Dylan released his new CD of Christmas music, souring millions on the sounds of the season.

Light a fire at home, pay a $400 fine.Burning wood fires in home fireplaces and stoves on bad air nights in the Bay Area becomes illegal again as of Sunday, when the region enters its second cold-weather season with lighting up banned during Spare the Air alerts. The crackdown, aimed at protecting public health from smoke, has two significant changes this year, the Bay Area Air Quality Management announced Wednesday: The district will slap a fixed fine of $400 on second-time violators, who received a written warning the first time they burned on a dirty-air night. Violators last year were...

California has two governments – the people we elect and the people who decide what really happens. Case in point: This week's revelation that the state has spent millions of dollars on vehicles that have sat idle, in some cases for years. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a big deal a few months ago about cutting down the number of cars and trucks the state owns. He signed an executive order to trim the state's vast fleet by 15 percent and touted a big state car sale. The "Terminator" star even autographed some of the vehicles to help sell them. Earlier...

A report released this morning says waste, fraud and mismanagement by state and local governments cost California taxpayers more than $600 million so far this year. The California Taxpayers' Association used media reports to compile its figures, but only 49 of the 117 examples were quantifiable, so the actual amount is likely much higher

ACRAMENTO — As oil companies continue to reap record profits amid strained state revenues, a pair of Democratic lawmakers are hoping to tap into their deep pockets by installing an oil severance tax that could relieve growing pressures to cut more state services. Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Long Beach, introduced a bill Monday called the Fair Share Act, that would impose a 10 percent oil severance fee on extractions from California wells to bring in $1.5 billion to the state's coffers. A similar bill that has already cleared one committee, by Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, would impose a 9.9 percent fee,...

Widespread public disdain for a dysfunctional Legislature – just 13 percent of voters approved of the job it was doing in a recent poll – has spawned a rhetorical game in political, academic and media circles that goes something like this: "Everything would be OK if only they would just (fill in the blank)." Of course, the phrases offered to fill in that blank vary widely, depending on the player's ideological or cultural orientation. And that's why reforming the Capitol in any meaningful way is, at least so far, as elusive as balancing the horribly imbalanced state budget. Thursday's joint...

Just look at what has happened to state workers and their unions in 2009: Furloughs. Looming layoffs. Columbus Day and Lincoln's Birthday erased from the paid holiday calendar. New rules that make it harder to earn overtime. It's never a good sign when the court bench becomes labor's focus instead of the bargaining table. Unions are party to most of the 21 furlough lawsuits statewide arguing that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's policy is illegal or ill-conceived. If you think unions have ruined government, you're rooting for the governor to win. If you're one of the state's 200,000 or so union-covered employees,...