California Senate prepares to vote on plan to end fiscal crisis

Los Angeles Times ^ | February 19, 2009 | Jordan Rau, Evan Halper, Patrick McGreevy and Michael Rothfeld

[calcowgirl]

1:58 AM PST

Reporting from Sacramento -- Aiming to end a three-month impassse, the California Senate prepared to vote early this morning on a deal Democrats and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reached with a GOP holdout to resolve the state's fiscal emergency.

Under the deal, Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria agreed to provide the final Republican vote needed to pass a spending plan with billions of dollars in tax hikes. In exchange, Democrats would rewrite election rules that Maldonado says are stacked against moderates like himself.

(snip)

Throughout the day, negotiators stayed focused on Maldonado and GOP Sen. Dave Cox of Fair Oaks, both of whom had have indicated they might be persuaded to cross the aisle and vote with Democrats to pass the budget. Legislative leaders and Schwarzenegger's aides pored over wish lists from both senators.

After lunching on salmon and swordfish with Schwarzenegger at an Italian restaurant a few blocks withfrom the Capitol, Maldonado emerged enthusiastic.

"The governor is on board with my constitutional amendments," Maldonado said, referring to his request that state election law be changed to help moderate politicians such as him and to penalize lawmakers when the state's budget is late.

"If everybody is happy with the drafts, we'll have a budget for the state of California," he said.

But some Democrats said Maldonado's call for "open" primaries, in which voters can cross party lines, in which candidates of all parties would compete in the same primary, followed by a runoff of the top two vote-getters, was too significant to be pushed through in a budget deal. Some also accused Maldonado, who is in his last term in the Senate, of trying to leverage his budget vote to make a future statewide run easier.

(snip)

[calcowgirl]

Long article but a pretty good recap of the last 48 hours of this debacle.

Gotta love Cox — he tried to get Arnie’s global warming law repealed. No takers.

According to a lot of twittering folks in the capitol, there are a many changes to the various tax portions of the budget bill currently being worked in the Assembly. The Senate is expected to vote on a package around 4AM (per estimate by Chuck DeVore)

[Drago]

Should we even bother to call Maldonado? I did it a couple of days ago, but it is late, and I might disturb the family yelling at his office staff! ;-)

[calcowgirl]

I called again and the woman seemed to want to know more about me than what I had to say (Abel must be taking names of his enemies, LOL)

There is only one good thing I’ve read. The open primary he is pushing for won’t go on the ballot until a year from June, effective 2012 (if it passes). That’s too late to help Abel in a Controller run in 2010. Sweet!

[wita]

Will the tax hikes cause an increase in the exodus from CA that will equal or reduce the result of the tax increases?

and the most important question, or two, has the spending gone down, and is the State of CA reducing the number of folks on the state payroll?

[calcowgirl]

Of course! — and — Of course not!

But you knew that, huh? ;-)

[freekitty]

Fox says there was a moderate Republican that crossed the aisle. What a coward.

[calcowgirl]

They haven’t voted on the tax bill yet, but Maldonado did get rolled in exchange for self-serving changes to elections, or at least he got it on the ballot. They’ve voted on about 15 bills in the Senate so far, they all passed. They are now debating the tax increases. The other Republican to cross the aisle sounds like Ashburn who went on and on in his speech about how Ronald Reagan increased taxes.

The one Democrat who said he wouldn’t raise taxes, Correa, is now speaking. But it sounds like he is justifying why he will vote for it.

[HoosierHawk]

Moderate Republicans are oh so "courageous."

[palmer]

After lunching on salmon and swordfish with Schwarzenegger at an Italian restaurant a few blocks withfrom the Capitol, Maldonado emerged enthusiastic.

The rest of you can add some hamburger helper to your canned tuna. Good luck, CA.

[NormsRevenge]

Moderate Republicans are oh so "courageous."

--

Funny, the word Jackass comes to mind for me. ;-)

afp

[RC2]

Hey Arny....don’t ever drill for oil. It might get rid of California’s problems. Wouldn’t want that would we?