Free Republic

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...

Washington - -- President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were poised to win a stupendous - but still incomplete - victory Saturday, predicting House passage of the biggest expansion of health care coverage since Medicare's creation in 1964, in the face of unanimous Republican opposition. As a matter of policy and politics, the 10-year, $1.05 trillion legislation is among the most complex and difficult Congress has ever considered. Enactment would prove the signal achievement of Pelosi's speakership. Success or failure will define Obama's presidency. In the hours before the vote, Obama traveled to Capitol Hill to urge fellow Democrats...

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...

Washington -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gladly pocketed one more precious Democratic vote for health care legislation Thursday, swearing in Bay Area Rep. John Garamendi as key Republican gubernatorial victories this week in Virginia and New Jersey rattled moderate Democrats before a showdown vote set for Saturday. Two California Democrats, moderates Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa from the San Joaquin Valley, remain uncommitted. "We are right on the brink," Pelosi said. "We have a historic opportunity for us to again provide quality health care for all Americans. It is something that many of us have worked our whole political lifetimes...

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,...

It's Barbara Boxer's big moment on Capitol Hill, and Republicans want nothing to do with it. The California Democrat, who heads the Senate's environment committee, wants to begin marking up her long-awaited climate-change legislation on Tuesday. But Republicans are planning to boycott the meeting. Sen. James Inhofe . . . wants the Environmental Protection Agency to do more analysis of the bill, which would place mandatory limits on the emission of greenhouse gases. Boxer today urged Republicans on the committee to "come back to work" and help Democrats pass the legislation.

Berkeley once again dipped into U.S. foreign policy Tuesday when its City Council unanimously passed a resolution asking the Obama administration to withdraw troops and private armed contractors from Afghanistan and cease drone attacks on Afghanistan and Pakistan. The issue proved to be the liveliest of the evening, with members of the public protesting when councilmembers Susan Wengraf and Linda Maio suggested postponing the item to correct ambiguous wording in the resolution. Code Pink, CopWatch and Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission, which recommended the resolution to the council, voiced their support for immediate troop withdrawal. Melody Ermachild Chavis, author of...

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...

DETROIT, (AP) -- Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a lawyer who leaked racy text messages to the Detroit Free Press and kicked off a scandal that brought down Kilpatrick's administration and sent him to jail. The lawsuit, filed in Wayne County Circuit Court, cites recent testimony by attorney Mike Stefani before a disciplinary board that he leaked the messages to the newspaper. The suit says Stefani violated a confidentiality agreement requiring him to turn over all copies of the explosive messages in exchange for settling police whistle-blower lawsuits involving three ex-Detroit officers he represented. James...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday called on Congress to pass a health-care overhaul that would require all Americans to carry insurance, but he warned that California will get stuck with a bill of more than $1 billion for expanding Medicaid if the federal government doesn't provide more money to the states. Sounding more like a Democrat than a Republican, the governor said Congress should pass a plan "quickly, thoughtfully and, most important, successfully." And he said health care should not be a partisan issue, . . .

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,...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner said Monday he would restore order to the state's finances by cutting taxes, reducing the state budget by 10 percent over two years and creating a $10 billion rainy-day fund. Poizner's so-called 10-10-10 plan makes the deepest cuts in welfare, Medi-Cal and prison health care while finding the greatest savings – $3.85 billion over two years – by eliminating government waste revealed after a "top-down review" of programs. The plan predicts cutting taxes will immediately generate more revenue by encouraging businesses to invest in the state, Poizner said in a news conference. "My vision for...

It's hard to instill confidence in the U.S. economy when Washington keeps finding new and creative ways to spend money it doesn't have. Take President Obama's proposal to send additional $250 checks to Social Security recipients - on top of the $250 checks they already received as part of the president's $787 billion economic stimulus package. Because seniors don't need a cost-of-living increase, the president wants to give them a bonus. Don't even try to follow the logic. You can't find it. Last week, the Obama administration said that for the first time since automatic Social Security cost-of-living increases were...

A federal judge today halted the state of California's plan to cut or reduce caregiver services for 130,000 disabled and low-income seniors as of Nov. 1. Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland imposed a preliminary injunction against the plan, aimed at helping balance the state's budget by cutting $82.1 million out of In-Home Supportive Services starting next month. Wilken's order completely freezes the plan to cut services pending further hearings on arguments against the state's method for selecting who should be dropped form the program or have hours of care reduced. : The judge on Monday also ordered the state to...

When California's government employees gained collective bargaining rights three-plus decades ago, thanks to then-Gov. Jerry Brown, it was depicted as merely giving those on the public payroll equality with private workers, but in fact it went way beyond parity. Yes, unions could bargain with public agencies on contracts. But unlike those in private business, public worker unions could try to select those on the other side of the bargaining table by contributing heavily to campaigns for state and local offices. Seeking contracts from those you've placed in office is a far cry from the arm's length bargaining over private sector...

As he became California's state Senate leader last December, Darrell Steinberg gave a speech urging his colleagues to pass a bill – within 120 days – extending health insurance to every child in the state. Ten months later, after a season of budget slashing, Steinberg instead scrambled for votes and money to rescue the existing kids insurance program from collapse. "When I gave that speech, I don't think anybody realized the complete magnitude of what we were about to face," the Sacramento Democrat said in an interview, looking back on his opening year as president pro tem of the California...

WASHINGTON – Californians have an overwhelmingly negative view of Congress, with two of every three voters disapproving of its performance, according to the latest Field Poll. Only 23 percent said they approve of the way Congress is conducting itself. It's the highest disapproval rate since 1996. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco doesn't fare much better, with more Californians rating her negatively than positively. About one in three – or 34 percent – gave her good marks, while nearly half – 44 percent – said they disapprove of her performance. That's a sharp turnaround from March, when 48...

California officials say computer programming changes make it impossible to stop budget cuts before Nov. 1 to the In-Home Supportive Services program – even if a federal judge orders it. Federal Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday blocking officials from sending notices Thursday to 130,000 seniors and disabled people slated to have aid cut or reduced as of Nov. 1. But program officials say programming changes that took weeks to accomplish cannot be reversed by then. "Even if we don't send the notices, the cuts will take place because they can't be stopped," said Lizelda...

A solid majority of California voters think state and local governments should make pension benefits for new hires less lucrative than the current system, according to a new Field Poll released Thursday. However, that same survey of 1,005 registered voters in the state indicated that only a third of those asked think that pensions for current employees are too generous. More than half believe that state and local government worker pensions are about right or not generous enough. Meanwhile, a majority of voters surveyed approve of somewhat more generous pensions for safety workers such as firefighters and police than for...

Three months ago, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature enacted a much-revised state budget, this column pointed out that the state was seemingly operating on a five-month budget cycle. With recession rampant, it would take about three months for new holes to appear in a revised budget and two more months for the politicians to make still another adjustment. As if on cue, state Controller John Chiang is providing new evidence that the 2009-10 budget is leaking red ink. During the first quarter of the fiscal year, state revenues came in more than a billion dollars under the budget's...

Several DMV offices closed, but state government escaped largely unscathed Monday from a Columbus Day contract dispute that had union leaders threatening to shut down operations. Government officials said the day was largely uneventful. "Of our 168 field offices, 164 opened and stayed open," said DMV spokesman Mike Marando. While some offices in San Francisco scaled back services, he said, "This was largely a non-event." Service Employees International Union Local 1000 offered a different assessment, saying eight Department of Motor Vehicles offices in Southern California and the Bay Area were closed. They said an additional 45 statewide opened late because...

California voters have never thought less of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature, according to a Field Poll to be released today. Despite that, a strong majority of poll respondents favor the governor's move to call a special session of the Legislature to deal with California's water crisis and tax reform issues. "It's really a cry of desperation," said Barbara O'Connor, a political science professor at Sacramento State University. "It's ironic. Voters don't like them, they don't trust them, but they want them to come back to Sacramento and solve their problems." Only 27 percent of poll respondents approve...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers failed to reach final agreement on ways to solve the state's water problems Sunday, but the governor nevertheless released scores of bills after concluding some progress had been made. Schwarzenegger's action reversed a threat last week in which he vowed to kill "a lot" of the 704 bills on his desk unless he and legislators reached an agreement. The governor said progress in closed-door talks was enough so that he is calling a special session on water, and discussions could continue. It was not announced when the session will start. "While we still have a...

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- California's state controller is warning that disappointing tax receipts will push the state into a bigger budget deficit than expected. A report released Friday by Controller John Chiang says state revenue is about $1 billion short of what lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger expected when they reached a budget deal during the summer. The report says the biggest dip is in income tax, with receipts down about 11 percent.

Someday, some way and somehow, California will overhaul the way it finances services because the current system is unsustainable. We cannot continue to depend on a few thousand high-income Californians as the core of the state revenue structure. Their taxable incomes are increasingly erratic, and sooner or later, many will flee California's high marginal tax rates to states such as Florida, Nevada or Texas that have no income taxes. Did Tiger Woods, the first billion-dollar athlete, relocate from California to Florida because of better weather or nicer golf courses? Somehow, one doubts those were his motives. Getting his mail in...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger threatened publicly Thursday what he has hinted privately for days: He will veto many of the 700-plus bills on his desk unless a water deal is struck this week. "I made it very clear to the legislators and to the leaders that if this does not get done, then I will veto a lot of their legislation, a lot of their bills, so that should inspire them to go and get the job done," he said. Schwarzenegger's threat came at the end of remarks to the Association of Community College Trustees' Leadership Congress in San Francisco. Hours...

We'll see on Monday how much pull the state's biggest public employee's union has - with its own members. The fight over whether Columbus Day remains a paid holiday for state workers "has become the hill that our union is willing to die on," said Angela Morales, a job steward for Service Employees International Union Local 1000. Yvonne Walker, president of the local, has told the 95,000 employees she represents to treat Monday as a paid day off. It's not, says Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Department of Personnel Administration. On Tuesday, DPA's Julie Chapman fired off a letter to the union...

Golfers call it a "mulligan" or even more colloquially, a "mullie," but the rest of us would say it's a "do-over" when things don't go as well as hoped and we make a new stab at getting it right. Capitol politicians and various interest groups are pursuing mulligans on many of the specific provisions of the state budget that legislators ultimately adopted in July and that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger later signed after slashing nearly a half-billion dollars in spending. "This has been a very tough budget, probably the toughest since I have been in office here in Sacramento," the governor...

There's still no love lost between Supervisor Chris Daly and Mayor Gavin Newsom. Daly, making a guest appearance Monday at the Board of Supervisors' public safety committee to support Supervisor David Campos' amendment to the city's sanctuary ordinance, said Newsom should be "held accountable" for releasing a confidential legal memo that said Campos' amendment violated federal law and would invite a legal challenge to the entire sanctuary policy. Daly downplayed the memo, saying it outlines a worst-case scenario and "exaggerates the legal risk involved." But he also said Newsom had provided a road map to anyone looking to challenge the...

When the Legislature adjourned on Sept. 12 after pulling one of its tiresome � figuratively and literally � all-nighters, it had passed more than 700 bills and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supposedly had a month, as the state constitution dictates, to sign or veto them. But the Legislature delayed sending most of the bills to Schwarzenegger until late in the month and now, with less than a week remaining before the Oct. 11 deadline, virtually nothing has emerged from the governor. Why? The Legislature stalled on sending the bills to Schwarzenegger, fearing he'd make good on veiled threats to hold them...

Sacramento - -- The California Supreme Court has left intact a lower court's ruling that the state illegally raided money intended for local public transit projects, a decision that could leave the cash-strapped state on the hook for up to $3.6 billion.The lawsuit is one of several facing the state over its spending plans, which have repeatedly relied on accounting gimmicks such as the transfer of funds from one state account to another.Losing the lawsuits would exacerbate the state's fiscal problems - a $7 billion to $8 billion shortfall is already expected for next year - and lawmakers are expected...

As major Capitol business and labor groups denounced a tax overhaul package released Tuesday by a blue-ribbon commission, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger essentially embraced the plan, whose key components would flatten the state's income tax and install a new form of consumption tax on businesses. The Republican governor said he would sign the plan if it landed on his desk in its current form, although he acknowledged that lawmakers should have the chance to analyze and "tweak" the proposal. Schwarzenegger called a special legislative session on Tuesday to deal with the package, and he said he wanted lawmakers to act on...

In what is being touted as the world's biggest dam-removal project, an agreement was reached Tuesday to remove four dams on the Klamath River and restore a 300-mile migratory route for California's beleaguered salmon. The tentative agreement was reached after a decade of negotiations among 28 parties, including American Indian tribes, farmers, fishermen and the hydroelectric company that operates the dams and distributes the water. The plan would set in motion one of the most ambitious efforts in U.S. history to restore the habitat of a federally protected species if it receives final approval by the parties in December, as...

That proposed ballot initiative to legalize marijuana in California for people 21 and older - and let local government tax the sales - has a good chance of passing. People are no longer outraged by the idea of legalization, and truth be told, there is just too much money to be made both by the people who grow marijuana and the cities and counties that would be able to tax it. Unlike the 1970s, when Mayor George Moscone first moved to decriminalize pot, marijuana is no longer about hippies. Thanks to medical marijuana, pot has moved from the alleyways to...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to sign a bill Friday establishing March 30 as "Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day" despite vetoing an identical proposal two weeks ago because he said lawmakers hadn't delivered major deals on water, prisons and renewable energy nor confirmed his priority appointments. "This bill does nothing to address any of these issues," Schwarzenegger said in his Sept. 8 veto message. "I look forward to considering this measure when these other major issues are addressed." Two weeks later and with the end of regular session behind us, lawmakers haven't delivered the major deals on water, prisons and renewable...

Voters' distrust of the people they elect has been around as long as voting itself. But armed with a 98-year-old constitutional weapon, California voters repeatedly have parlayed that distrust into making laws on their own - and greatly complicated the state's budget process. "There's not a lot of faith in Sacramento or in the process," said Robert Stern, president of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies and an expert on California's initiative system. "I think the initiative (process) expresses that lack of faith ... but it quite literally adds another layer to finding good solutions." It's a layer that has...

While both the political will and a desire to compromise may be lacking, there is no shortage of proposed solutions to various aspects of state government's financial woes. In addition to a special commission on tax reform appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders, two reform groups have put forward suggested fixes to the tax system and budget process. And earlier this month, legislative leaders announced formation of a two-house committee charged with finding ways to make the system more efficient. Here's a look at some of the ideas being floated: • Shift more of the personal income tax...

While 15 states require supermajority votes for tax hikes, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, only two – California and Arkansas – also require supermajorities for budget approvals. Opponents of California's two-thirds approval requirement contend that the rules hamstring the state's ability to raise revenues in times of need, are the primary cause of new budgets being late virtually every year, and allow a relative handful of lawmakers to wield an inordinate amount of influence over the state's finances. "It is wholly unreasonable for the largest state in the union, with the eighth-largest economy in the world, to...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will file a court-mandated plan today to ease prison overcrowding that appears to defy demands by a panel of three federal judges, the latest salvo in a long-running feud between state and federal officials over California's corrections system. The federal judges last month ordered the state to reduce its prison population by 40,000 inmates over the next two years in response to lawsuits alleging that overcrowding has led to unconstitutional and inadequate levels of medical and mental health care. Schwarzenegger's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation intends to file an inmate reduction plan with the court today, but...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday will submit to a panel of three federal judges a plan that would reduce the inmate population at California’s overcrowded prisons by substantially less than what the court has ordered, a move that a top prison administrator acknowledged will place state officials at risk of being held in contempt. Although the final plan will not be submitted until late Friday, administration officials have briefed other parties involved in the court proceedings on its major elements. They said exact projections of how much the prison population will be reduced have not yet been calculated,...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently has been captivated by recent news stories about a conservative filmmaker who exposed misdeeds at ACORN, the national organization that serves low-income residents and has been involved in controversial efforts to register Democratic voters. The Republican governor sent a brief memo Wednesday to Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown asking him to investigate ACORN's activities in San Bernardino. Two conservative activists have posted videos of their visits to ACORN offices around the country in which they posed as a prostitute and a pimp seeking advice. In San Bernardino's ACORN office, a volunteer who claims to be a...

I would not go see the film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" because I found more cruelty than humor in deliberately exposing unwitting civilians to the easy ridicule of smug sophomores. Now the right has its own Borat-style entertainment. Equipped with a video camera, conservative activists James O'Keefe, 25, and Hannah Giles, 20, sought the answer to this question: "What if a 'prostitute' and her alleged law school boyfriend walk into ACORN seeking housing for an underage brothel to fund his future congressional campaign?" The answer, they discovered, was that some of the...

A state worker who applied for a disability pension claiming that anxiety, chronic pain, and fatigue left her virtually unable to leave home or lift a coffee cup to her lips has been arrested after she was videotaped bowling in Elk Grove. Lisa Trevino-Angelo, 38, was arrested without fanfare and charged by the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office on Aug. 8. She will be arraigned Thursday. The former Department of Motor Vehicles personnel specialist faces a misdemeanor count of filing a false claim and one count of making false statements and submitting false information to get benefits from the California...

Berkeley has finally come up with an answer to the question posed by the annual parade: How Berkeley Can You Be? The answer is: Very Berkeley - as long as you don't sell beer off the back of floats, toss candy to kids or walk naked down University Avenue. Those restrictions, plus some unexpected permit fees, ended the 13-year run of the How Berkeley Can You Be? parade and festival, a bacchanalian romp through downtown that featured everything from flame throwers to Nobel laureates to motorized couches. Daunted by the new restrictions, organizers have decided to cancel the event, slated...

Hoping the end of the regular legislative session will provide a breather from hot-button issues around the Capitol? Don't hold your breath. The Commission on the 21st Century Economy meets in Berkeley today to continue tinkering with its recommendations for overhauling the state's tax system. At last week's meeting, commission members cast their plan as a "general approach" that will most likely merit more scrutiny and changes from the Legislature. That's a bad sign for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wanted lawmakers to take up the panel's plan with an up-or-down vote during a special session he's said he'll call later...