Free Republic

February's Top Ten list compiled by the FPPC identifies those individual donors who have contributed the most money to California candidates and ballot measures from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2009. This list includes five candidates or former candidates for state office, whose totals include personal money contributed to their own campaigns, as well as money they contributed to ballot measures and other candidates and committees.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, desperately seeking new sources of revenue to cover a $19.9 billion budget shortfall, yesterday declared a state of fiscal emergency. As part of his proposed solution, Schwarzenegger called for the deployment of a massive statewide speed camera program to generate at least $397.5 million in net profit to state and local government. Under the proposal, existing red light cameras at intersections would be converted into "speed on green" cameras that issue citations to motorists who try to speed up at an intersection to make the light. Those who slow down and fail to make the light...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger prides himself on trying to balance environmentalism with economic considerations, but he has grown more critical of environmental obstructions in this recessionary period, especially as he pushes for a jobs package in the Legislature. The governor twice this week portrayed environmental regulations as a barrier to job creation, at one point Tuesday suggesting that some environmentalists "become fanatics and they go overboard" when they object to green technology projects. Schwarzenegger has asked lawmakers to give his administration more authority to expedite projects once they have undergone an environmental impact study. "We don't mind CEQA or any of...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday sent another letter to California's congressional delegation asking for more federal dollars after President Barack Obama released a budget that provided only $1.5 billion of the $6.9 billion in new money that Schwarzenegger wants. The governor wrote that Obama's budget "represents only a down payment on what we are owed," but described the president's plan as "the first step in a lengthy and complicated process that can result in the fair and equitable treatment of California's taxpayers -- with your help." Schwarzenegger hopes to use federal dollars to help bridge the state's $19.9 billion deficit....

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California plans to install a network of computerized monitors to measure methane emissions from regions that are home to dairy ranches, farms, landfills and other sources. It will be the first network of its kind in the United States and will help the state take another step toward reducing emissions of the gases related to global warming. By May, seven devices about the size of a personal computer will be placed in regions of the state where methane emissions are believed to be the highest. Those include the farm fields of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys...

For Capitol insiders, it's easy to chalk it up as a bluff when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes terminating welfare-to-work and in-home care for the disabled if California doesn't get billions in federal money he's requested. But it's no chess game for a welfare-to-work mother seriously trying to find a job, or a person in a wheelchair whose living stipend has already been slashed twice in one year. Social services spending is a big chunk of the state budget and is often cited as a prime example of runaway spending. Indeed, national comparisons show California is home to nearly a third...

Governors and other politicians come to the Capitol and eventually go away, some to other political venues and some to obscurity. As they come and go, however, thousands of interest groups and their professional warriors remain, fighting and refighting battles for decades. None of those conflicts is more enduring than "tort war," the struggle over the rules governing injury lawsuits waged by trial lawyers, who would expand the ability to sue and collect damages, and business groups that want to restrict suits. While some of their clashes are obvious – the decades-long fight over medical malpractice damages, for instance –...

It's been four years since StopSusanKennedy.com was born. That was just the start of a ruckus set off when Sacramento's political cognoscenti got wind that the diminutive ex-Cabinet secretary to recalled Democratic Gov. Gray Davis had been hired - as chief of staff for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Kennedy remembers those days well. "I was thinking, 'Can I really do this ... when half of the people in the horseshoe (slang for the governor's office) probably want to slit my throat?' " ... As the headlines from one conservative Web log attest, some things have changed since the former abortion...

In a four-page review, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office said today that lawmakers should reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed ballot measure to dedicate more money to public universities than prisons. "It is an unnecessary, ill-conceived measure that would do serious harm to the budget process," the LAO report concludes. Schwarzenegger's constitutional amendment would require the state to spend no more than 7 percent of general fund money on corrections and no less than 10 percent on the University of California and California State University systems. In 2009-10, the state is spending 5.7 percent of general fund money on UC and...

The U.S. Labor Department report last week on December unemployment included still more grim news for California. The state had the nation’s biggest losses, with a net decline of 38,800 positions. Yet its unemployment rate stayed steady at 12.4 percent for a perverse reason: 106,000 state residents gave up looking for work. Contemplating the depth of the recession, California’s most popular politician last week had the common sense to change her mind on a related big issue: how to regulate the emissions believed to cause global warming. A proposed federal law would set limits on these emissions and charge the...

Arnold Schwarzenegger, with 11 months remaining in his star-crossed governorship, says it's "a little bit too early to reflect" on his legacy – but California voters appear to be rendering their verdict already, and it's not a positive one. Schwarzenegger once enjoyed some of the highest approval ratings ever recorded for a California governor – 65 percent during his first months – but the latest Field Research poll, released on Sunday, found that just 27 percent of registered voters approve of his performance, and 59 percent say he'll leave state government in worse condition than he found it. Schwarzenegger professed...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday offered yet another way California can save on incarcerating illegal immigrants: send them to Mexico. The Republican governor said he will not raise taxes for a second year in a row during a speech at the Sacramento Press Club. Instead, he suggested that the state can find plenty of money in other ways such as cutting pension costs, allowing offshore oil drilling and lowering prison expenditures. Schwarzenegger's budget plan calls for an $880 million infusion from the federal government to pay for housing illegal immigrant prisoners who have committed crimes in California. The governor also...

Remember back in 2003, when voters decided Gray Davis was running the state into the ground and picked a movie superhero to lead California? Well, a new poll finds that Californians believe Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made a mess of things. According to California Politics' Anthony York, a majority of Californians believe California is worse off now than when Schwarzenegger took office in late 2003, a new Field Poll finds. The survey found 59% of those surveyed believe the state will be in worse condition after Schwarzenegger’s tenure is over. Only 7% of the registered voters surveyed think Schwarzenegger will...

Field Poll: 59% say California's condition has worsened on Schwarzenegger's watch 59% IN POLL SAY SITUATION'S WORSE kyamamura@sacbee.com Published Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010 This was hardly what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger envisioned seven years ago. The movie-star governor, who took office in 2003 on a promise to "clean house" in Sacramento, remains mired at a personal-low 27 percent approval rating, according to a Field Poll released today. Even worse, only 7 percent of registered voters think Schwarzenegger will leave California government in better shape than he found it, while 59 percent believe he will leave it in worse condition, the poll...

Five years ago, California's local government officials were hailing Arnold Schwarzenegger as their fiscal savior for championing a ballot measure to protect their treasuries from raids by the state. Now they're denouncing him as a bandit who steals money they need for providing police, fire and other local services because he exercised a loophole in that ballot measure. "On this point, let me be very clear," says Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, "the most immediate threat to the financial stability of this city is raids on our general fund by Sacramento." It's a dramatic turnaround in relationships that needs some...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was insistent at his January budget presentation that his spending plan does not raise taxes. He said, "I refuse to raise taxes, because there are so many other areas where Sacramento can be smarter, more efficient and save precious taxpayer dollars." But Schwarzenegger again proposed a 4.8 percent surcharge on all residential and commercial property insurance to help pay for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Department of Finance estimates that the surcharge would cost about $48 per policyholder and relieve the general fund by $200 million through June 2011. Property owners would begin...

Sacramento - -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has traveled around California this week touting his plan to create and retain nearly a quarter-million jobs in the state, but what he has not mentioned is that it ultimately would be paid for with a tax on businesses. Under the proposal, industries with large seasonal workforces and high unemployment, such as agriculture, food processing and construction, would pay a tax of up to $7 per year per employee. They are now exempt from the tax. The change, which requires legislative approval, would come as Republicans have maintained a united front against any new...

Regulations: A California legislator pushes a November ballot initiative to free the state from the job-killing shackles of a 2006 law designed to fight climate change. The other choice is freezing in the unemployment line. At last report, California's unemployment rate was 12.3%, with 2.25 million residents looking for work. So one would assume the first rule of holes would apply — when you're in one, stop digging. Yet there was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger touting his state's green initiatives in Copenhagen as California barrels toward full implementation of its own version of job-killing cap-and-trade. "The desire and hope and desperate...

California drivers could save a dollar and change each visit to the gas pump under a tax swap proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In an effort to free up money to balance the state budget, the governor wants to reduce the sales tax motorists pay on gas purchases while increasing the gas excise tax, also paid at the pump. The net result, state finance officials estimate, would be a 5-cent savings for consumers per gallon of gas in the next year. A Bee calculation based on this week's $3-per-gallon average in California puts the savings at 7 cents a gallon....

One dictionary defines "blue sky" as "idealistic or visionary and without practical application" or, alternatively, as "not worth very much money." There's also a verb form of the phrase, meaning to peddle a worthless concept. It's most often applied to con artists. When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled his last budget proposal last week, one that supposedly dealt with the state's chronic deficits, it was evident that he was blue-skying it with fanciful and politically unrealistic notions that once again sidestepped the chronic imbalance between income and outgo. The budget is riddled with them, the most fantastic being inclusion of $6.9...

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office on Tuesday deemed "almost nonexistent" the chances that California will receive anywhere near the roughly $8 billion in federal aid and waivers that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is counting on in his budget plan. In its initial review of Schwarzenegger's budget, which you can read here, LAO said California is likely to fall "several billion dollars" short of the amount the governor relies upon to balance his $82.9 billion general fund spending plan in 2010-11. LAO excluded the governor's $1 billion reserve from the state's deficit figure, portraying the governor's deficit as an $18.9 billion problem....

Bioethics: Five years after a budget-busting $3 billion was allocated to embryonic stem cell research, there have been no cures, no therapies and little progress. So supporters are embracing research they once opposed. California's Proposition 71 was intended to create a $3 billion West Coast counterpart to the National Institutes of Health, empowered to go where the NIH could not — either because of federal policy or funding restraints on biomedical research centered on human embryonic stem cells. Supporters of the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, passed in 2004, held out hopes of imminent medical miracles that were...

A: If you're the Governator, you try to get the other 49 states to pay for it. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger claims the Federal "owes" California 6.9 Billion. Based off his latest budget proposal, he assuming that the Federal Govenment is going to pay and has backed it up with a threat. If the state is unsuccessful in getting more federal funding this year, his budget calls for eliminating scores of social service programs such as in-home care for frail seniors and the disabled as well as the state's main welfare program, CalWORKS.

Picture this. In any town, in any state, sits a nice, happy neighborhood with say, 50 houses. Some are bigger, some smaller, and while minor issues are unavoidable, for the most part everyone gets along. At the end of the cul-de-sac rests the largest house in the neighborhood. The beauty of the home is exceeded only by that of the land, complete with lakes, rivers and open fields. For years, the community gets along without incident. It’s the American dream. Those in this quaint neighborhood watch as the family in the big house seem to have an endless supply of...

In a national television interview that aired Sunday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said California's congressional members "are not representing us really well" as he pushed for higher federal reimbursements to help reduce the state's structural budget deficit. The Republican governor said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the U.S. Senate's proposed federal health care overhaul would saddle the state with an extra $3 billion to $4 billion in annual costs due largely to an expansion of Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California. Schwarzenegger believes the health care plan would enshrine existing cost-share formulas that he says are unfair to the state....

Like California governors before him facing a budget crunch, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes various ways to reduce state payroll and the state work force. That's certainly appropriate given multibillion dollar annual deficits. But it is time to get beyond one-time crisis solutions and actually debate: What is the right size for the state work force, what core functions should the state protect (and even enhance) and what obsolete functions should the state jettison? It is not just ongoing budget shortfalls that demand such a discussion. The reality is that 70,000 out of 359,000 state workers will be eligible to retire...

Arnold Schwarzenegger achieved fame and fortune by starring in celluloid fantasies, so it may be fitting that his final state budget proposal would be so disconnected from economic and political reality. With the state still facing huge deficits, the governor bases his 2010-11 budget on such fanciful elements as persuading the federal government to cough up an extra $7 billion, asking voters to reverse themselves and shift money from protected pots for mental health and children's programs, overhauling transportation financing, and persuading state employee unions to accept pay cuts and increases in workers' pension and health care costs. Even Schwarzenegger's...

From my inbox: "You may already be aware that California's government has put into place a plan to impose an unprecedented new regulatory regime in order to "show leadership in the fight against global warming." AB 32, signed into law in 2006, is a coming freight train that will kill over a million jobs, add $50,000 to the cost of a new home, increase the cost of gas by 20% and increase electric bills by 30%. In effect, AB 32 will tell you what to eat, what to drive and where to live. Our good friend Assemblyman Dan Logue has...

There was a sobering symmetry between the first State of the State speech offered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the one he recited last week. "Jobs, jobs, jobs," he said on Jan. 6, 2004, just months after winning .. the wacky recall election. "The more jobs the better. I am going to become California's Job Czar." And on Jan. 6, 2010, delivering the last such speech of his governorship: "The first priority for the coming year, obviously, is to get the economy and to get jobs back. Jobs, jobs, jobs." That rhetoric was the same, but everything else seemed wearily...

Here is video of Arnold Schwarzenegger on "Meet the Press" saying that Obama is "doing everything that he can" to keep America safe...(Video)Schwarzenegger said that he thinks "Democrats a lot of times get the rap that they're not strong on security and those kind of things." Schwarzenegger called the attempted terrorist attack over Christmas "an unfortunate situation" and said it was "a total failure in the communication within the departments." He said "it's not like the President has done something wrong...what it has to do with is simply they didn't connect the dots within the agencies, within the airport authorities,...

No love from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for Guv Schwarzenegger's idea to get $6.9 billion from the fed government to help plug California's budget hole. The Speaker -- in SF Saturday for a New Year's Party (yes, really..geez, are we THAT desperate for a party in SF) -- told me so her very self: "The idea that any state can say 'This is my shortfall, pick up the tab,' is not one that would work well in Washington, as you can imagine," Pelosi told . . .

WASHINGTON – California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says concessions made to Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson to win his vote on the health care overhaul bill were a "rip-off" for his state and is urging California lawmakers to vote against it. In an interview airing Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, Schwarzenegger says giving extra Medicaid benefits to Nebraska to secure Nelson's vote, critical to Senate passage of the measure, was "like buying a vote." In Sacramento, he says, "it is illegal to do that, to buy votes."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is counting on lead-footed California drivers to help dig the state out of its latest budget hole. Buried in the details of the governor's spending plan released Friday is a proposal to raise nearly $400 million by allowing cities and counties to install "automated speed enforcement systems," also known as speed cameras. The devices could be attached to existing cameras that monitor red light violations, and would track speeders by license plate. The tickets would come in the mail. Infractions would result in fines of $225 for going up to 15 miles an hour above the limit,...

A new round of political sniping was unleashed Friday when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told California to give him oil drilling off the coast so that he can give the profits to the beleaguered state park system. The quid pro quo would revive a Texas company's proposal to tap an oil field just off the coast of Santa Barbara and save California State Parks from more swings of the budget ax. The governor's plan is to use $200 million in oil lease money in the next fiscal year from the so-called Tranquillon Ridge Project to fund the parks, which are still...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will propose ending furloughs for state workers at the end of June but seek permanent pay cuts and higher employee retirement contributions in their place, administration officials said Thursday. Those two measures, which require legislative approval, would equal a 10 percent cut in gross pay, compared with a 14 percent reduction that state workers now face with three monthly furlough days. State employees would resume a full workweek in July. Schwarzenegger will ask the Legislature to approve those changes as part of his budget proposal today, which is a "Furlough Friday" for state workers. His plan seeks...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled an $82.9 billion state spending plan today that calls for no tax hikes but envisions pay cuts for state workers, reductions in services to California's neediest residents - and on the benevolence of the federal government. The governor also declared yet another fiscal emergency, and called for yet another special session of the Legislature, designed to keep a projected $19.9 billion budget deficit from growing by another $2.4 billion. "We must begin our work immediately," Schwarzenegger said in his message to legislators. "If we fail to take action in the special session that I have called,...

SACRAMENTO — For the sixth time in seven years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today will unveil a budget plan that promises pain for Californians. Lawmakers and the governor are facing a $20 billion deficit, and officials familiar with the governor's strategy warn that health and social services programs for the state's neediest residents once again may take the brunt of the slashing. After a year that saw legislators close deficits amounting to $60 billion — through accounting tricks and modest tax hikes, but mostly through deep spending cuts — many expect a plan that feels numbingly familiar. "There are going to...

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who until recently endorsed Democrats' efforts to reform health care, has changed direction and become a battering ram for Republicans, who have seized on his caustic comments this week that the bill is a "trough of bribes, deals and loopholes" that unfairly penalize the state. The governor raised eyebrows in his 27-minute State of the State address Wednesday when he criticized the financial burdens of expanding government health care, saying, "You've heard of the bridge to nowhere? This is health care to nowhere." The Republican National Committee immediately bannered Schwarzenegger's comments in a news release crowing,...

CA Governor sees the light and in his final address, speaks up against Obamacare's “health care to nowhere”.California Governor Schwarzenegger is one of only a few Republican officials to publicly come out in favor of ObamaCare. In October of 2009 he even submitted a statement of support. Now, he's back... Yesterday, Governor Schwarzenegger gave his final State of the State address in Sacramento and along with his famous accent and charm, mixed in with occasional humor, he had much to say about California issues, especially our economy and jobs. Toward the middle of his address, he talked about the...

Arnold Schwarzenegger began his last State of the State address Wednesday by describing how two pets, a pony and a pig, jointly filch dog food from a sealed container. "So one lesson to draw from the pig and pony story is what we can accomplish when we work together," he told state lawmakers, describing 2009 as "a pig and pony year." Schwarzenegger quickly followed that upbeat metaphor, however, with a litany of California's ills, ranging from a recession-wracked economy to continuing budget deficits, and laid out an agenda of reforms whose enactment is about as likely as his pet porker's...

Mention Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - you need only say his first name - and many Californians respond with a long sigh, then with words like "squander" or "waste" or "missed opportunity." Those in the political class look at Schwarzenegger and see what might have been. Close your eyes and think back six years. There was excitement as Schwarzenegger delivered his first State of the State address in 2004; international, Washington and Southern California media flocked to sleepy Sacramento in such numbers that Capitol workers had to put up a tent to contain the overflow. The larger-than-life action figure garnered more...

Schwarzenegger proposes tax credit to spark new home building By Jim Wasserman jwasserman@sacbee.com Published: Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 6B Last Modified: Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010 - 12:11 am More than 20,000 California homebuyers could get state tax credits of up to $10,000 this year under a new stimulus proposed Wednesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor's plan to allocate $200 million in credits to buyers of new or existing homes is part of a job creation strategy. It goes now to state lawmakers for consideration. "This is about helping eliminate extra housing to get construction...

January 7, 2010 Schwarzenegger Seeks Shift From Prisons to Schools By JENNIFER STEINHAUER SACRAMENTO — With his state strapped and his legacy looming, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed on Wednesday to greatly reduce the amount of money California spends on its prisons and to funnel that sum to the state’s higher education system instead. The governor said he would also push for a constitutional amendment prohibiting the percentage of the state budget earmarked for prisons from exceeding what is set aside for its public university system. “Choosing universities over prisons,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in his final annual address to the Legislature....

Now Congress is about to pile billions more onto California with the new health care bill. Now, as you know, while I enthusiastically supported health care reform, it is not reform to push more costs onto states that are already struggling while other states are getting sweetheart deals. Health care reform, which started as noble and needed legislation, has become a trough of bribes, deals and loopholes. Yet you've heard of the bridge to nowhere. Well, this is health care to nowhere. California's congressional delegation should either vote against this bill that is a disaster for California or get in...

Doesn't look like California is going to get much financial help from its Senate delegation. Just hours after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made an impassioned argument for more federal funds -- noting that the state gets back just 78 cents for every dollar it sends to Washington, D.C. -- Senator Dianne Feinstein fired back. And she didn't mince words. "It sounds like the Governor is looking for someone else to blame for California's budget. California's budget crisis was created in Sacramento, not Washington. These problems are not going away until there is wholesale reform of the state's budget process," she said...

Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave his final state of state address Wednesday, admitting that California’s budget woes remain dire. But, unlike in his movies, where he mows down all obstacles single-handedly, Schwarzenegger is asking for more handouts. California got $8 billion from the $787 billion stimulus last year but still faces a $19.9 billion shortfall over the next two years. From IBD’s front-page story in Thursday's print edition: Schwarzenegger admitted, “The budget crisis is our Katrina. We knew it was coming. We’ve known it for years. And yet Sacramento would not reinforce the economic levees.”

Schwarzenegger wants more federal money for California Peter Henderson and Jim Christie SACRAMENTO, California Wed Jan 6, 2010 5:25pm EST SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday vowed to pry more dollars from the federal government, which he said took more than it gave, but left details on how to close a $19.9 billion state budget gap until later this week. In a state of the state speech, the governor said creating jobs was the top priority for his last year in office and proposed spending $500 million in worker training funded by part of the budget...

"You've heard of a bridge to nowhere. This is health care to nowhere. California's congressional delegation should either vote against this bill..or get in and fight for the same sweetheart deal that Senator Nelson of Nebraska got for the Cornhusker State. He got the corn, we got the husk.'' The Governator gave his final State-of-the-State speech today and made a surprising 180 degree turn on Obamacare. Schwarzenegger was a big supporter of the bill, but finally realized that it will drive California deeper in debt, with the higher state costs for Medicare. In his speech he laid down a challenge...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday in his final State of the State address that he will protect schools in his upcoming budget and proposed a constitutional guarantee that California will never spend more money on prisons than on higher education. Schwarzenegger urged California's congressional delegation to block the federal health care overhaul backed by President Barack Obama unless the package includes billions of dollars more each year for California. He delivered his harshest indictment yet of the plan, calling it "a trough of bribes, deals and loopholes" and "health care to nowhere." The Republican governor said California's budget deficit stands...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers his seventh and last State of the State address at 10 this morning. Though circumstances suggest he should be melancholy, the governor likely will be his usual sunny self. But it is Californians who should be melancholy. There is little hope Schwarzenegger will use his final year in office to pursue the reform agenda that first got him elected and that characterized his first two years in Sacramento. Instead, the likelihood seems to be 12 more months of contradictions. We are confident that the governor will be responsible and continue to oppose new taxes, which would...