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• Cutting Children’s Health Coverage Will Only Make California’s Budget Situation Worse
• Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey’s Endorsement of Mark Leno for State Senate Says a Lot on a Number of Levels
• The Ballot Initiative Process in California Doesn’t Have to be Junked: It Can Be Reformed
• What if California Had a Normal Government by Which It Addressed the Budget Deficit?
• Sierra Club California Thanks Governor, Attorney General, and Air Resources Board for Upholding Clean Air Rules—Says to Automakers: Don't Be "Climate Chickens"
• The "Year of Health Reform" in California: Take Two--Lessons for the Next Attempt
• Budget Confusion in California: How Big a Gap Do You Want It to Be?

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The California Progress Report is published by Frank D. Russo, a longtime observer of and participant in California politics.

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Cutting Children’s Health Coverage Will Only Make California’s Budget Situation Worse

By Judy Darnell
State Advocacy Director
United Ways of California

When the May Revise is released, there is sure to be some bad budget news for everyone. But, even in tough budget times, the Legislature and Governor must set priorities and a top priority must be children’s health. Our leaders should work to ensure that this year’s budget decisions do not result in more children losing health coverage because it not only hurts kids, but will also make our state’s bottom line even worse.

While all the details of the May Revise are not yet known, current budget proposals put the health of more than 500,000 California children at risk and would increase the ranks of uninsured children by 60%. Two flawed policy proposals are responsible for these troublesome numbers.

First, current budget proposals would require families to fill out burdensome paperwork four times a year to retain their eligibility for Medi-Cal, rather than annually as is the case today. This unnecessary requirement would create a paperwork morass that is far cry from the annual reporting requirements of private health plans. These are eligible kids – the only reason for the Quarterly Status Reporting (QSRs) is to disenroll children from their health insurance. In fact, it is estimated that these stringent requirements would result in 471,500 eligible children being dropped from their health insurance simply because parents wouldn’t be able to keep up with the paperwork.

We could learn a lesson on unnecessary reporting from the State of Washington, who chose to address their 2002 budget crisis by instituting 6 month reporting requirements for children receiving Medicaid. In just two years, several million dollars were spent on the new administrative requirements. This was due in part because the state had to hire 160 new full-time employees to process the additional paperwork caused by the more stringent requirements. Those costs were for reporting twice a year in a much smaller state than California. Our cost to do quarterly reporting will surely be higher here. Washington ended up rescinding their bi-annual reporting requirements in 2005.

Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey’s Endorsement of Mark Leno for State Senate Says a Lot on a Number of Levels

By Frank D. Russo

The endorsement yesterday by popular Marin and Sonoma County Member of Congress Lynn Woolsey of San Francisco Assemblymember Mark Leno for the Third Senate seat speaks volumes of where the race now stands and what it means. In fact, it may be the deciding factor in this three way primary contest.

In giving Leno her support, Woolsey, an eight term Congressmember, cited Leno’s commitment to issues that matter most in the North Bay part of the district: "Mark Leno has built a strong record on behalf of the issues the people of my district care deeply about. I am proud to announce my support for him today. We can count on Mark to go to Sacramento and provide progressive leadership on the issues we all care about—a cleaner and more sustainable environment, universal, single-payer health care, better schools and access to affordable higher education."

In the 3rd Senate District Democratic primary, Leno faces incumbent Carole Migden and former Assemblyman Joe Nation. The district includes all of Marin County, southern Sonoma County, and the eastern portion of San Francisco. In the June primary a plurality rules. This is the election. The results will determine who holds this seat for at least the next four years as this is a heavily Democratic district.

Woolsey’s endorsement will obviously boost Leno in the part of the district north of the Golden Gate Bridge, where she has proven to be very popular with primary voters—having beat back a challenge from the more conservative Democrat Joe Nation in the last election by a two-to-one margin in both Marin and Sonoma Counties.

But it also sends a strong message to the voters in San Francisco itself.

Congresswoman Woolsey previously endorsed incumbent Senator Migden for re-election--and she is not backing out of that previous commitment. But the fact that Migden’s best Marin endorsement is also coming out for Leno is a recognition that this is a two person race with only one progressive in the hunt. Migden has faltered and now in all polls is now running third. Woolsey wants to keep the seat for the progressives.

Take a close look at the words she used yesterday and how she framed the election: "I tell my colleagues in Washington that I have the greatest district in the country. Marin and Sonoma Counties are home to some of the warmest, most passionate people that I know, who care deeply about bringing bold progressive change to our communities, our state, and our country. We need a State Senator who shares our progressive values and will work hard to continue the record of legislative achievements and activism that our district has been known for.

The Ballot Initiative Process in California Doesn’t Have to be Junked: It Can Be Reformed

By Robert M. Stern
President
Center for Governmental Studies

After studying California’s ballot initiative process for 20 years, the Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) recommends a comprehensive set of 48 reforms in its new book Democracy by Initiative: Shaping California’s Fourth Branch of Government. These reforms would strengthen all aspects of the state’s ballot initiative process (Full Report, Appendix A, for complete list of recommendations). These recommendations would give California the most flexible, innovative and responsible initiative process of any state. Key recommendations include the following:

Inflexibility

Problem: Ballot initiatives are too inflexible. Proponents cannot correct mistakes once circulation begins, and they cannot withdraw initiatives before the election even though the legislature may have enacted an acceptable compromise. The legislature cannot make amendments to fix problems after an initiative’s enactment. As a result, many initiatives are poorly drafted, sow confusion among voters and require years of additional initiatives to amendment them. The legislature is blocked from effectively participating in the process.

Recommendation: CGS recommends that initiative proponents be empowered to negotiate compromises with the legislature. If the legislature enacts acceptable legislation to address the problem, proponents may then withdraw their initiative from the ballot—thereby simplifying the ballot, avoiding a waste of voters’ time and engaging the legislature in the process. If the legislature fails to enact acceptable legislation, proponents may place their initiative on the ballot, together with any amendments that are consistent with the purposes and intent of the initiative CGS also recommends that the legislature be allowed amend, by a two-thirds vote (or less if the initiative so specifies), any statutory initiative (but not constitutional amendment) after passage, so long as the amendments are consistent with the initiative’s purposes and intent, and the amendments are in print ten days before the final vote. Legislators and initiative proponents should be given a meaningful opportunity to work together to improve state policymaking. The amendability provisions recommended in the report would encourage initiative proponents and legislators to negotiate compromise legislative solutions, thus avoiding costly initiative elections and reducing the overall number of initiatives on the ballot.

Money

What if California Had a Normal Government by Which It Addressed the Budget Deficit?

By Lenny Goldberg
Executive Director
California Tax Reform Association

What if California had a normal government by which it addressed the ever-growing budget deficit? Think about majority Democrats negotiating with a Republican Governor over a budget and taxes, as occurs in various partisan configurations in almost all other states. The outcome would be painful but achievable: a combination of increased tax revenues, efficiencies, and cuts would be negotiated. Over time, both the recessionary deficit and the structural deficit would be addressed.

That outcome would also reflect the views of a majority of Californians, who might then have a lot more appreciation in poll results for both the Legislature and the Governor.

The truth is this: There are many billions in potential revenue which are on the table which do not have a negative economic impact, particularly compared with massive cuts in critical services.

With all the discussion about how "impossible" California's deficit is to address, we forget that the constitutional straightjacket of the two-thirds vote is not how government normally operates. Add to that term limits, in which legislators have no time to become trusted by and comfortable with their constituents until they run for a new seat-and a partisan seat at that, whether by geography or reapportionment--and one can see that the bi-partisan effort necessary to get a budget and revenue becomes even more difficult.

Finally, there's the dead-end politics, hopefully changing.

Since the Newt Gingrich-Grover Norquist takeover of the Republican Party in 1994, even having a rational discussion of revenue is very difficult in the context of an ideology in which the explicit goal is to starve government and make it disappear.

That's hardly what the public wants, as evidenced by the failures of the Bush Administration and the oft-stated preferences of California voters. And it's not likely that many Republicans in the California legislature share that view either.

There have been bi-partisan solutions in the past, even with the two-thirds vote. Like Gov. Schwarzenegger, many Republican legislators have been pragmatic problem solvers.

Sierra Club California Thanks Governor, Attorney General, and Air Resources Board for Upholding Clean Air Rules—Says to Automakers: Don't Be "Climate Chickens"

By Bill Magavern
Director
Sierra Club California

Yesterday, members of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers met with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, as part of their campaign to thwart our state’s pioneering greenhouse gas emissions standards.

Sierra Club California thanks Governor Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Brown and Air Resources Board Chair Nichols for bravely and staunchly upholding California’s clean car rules. Sierra Club California's "Climate Chicken" made a brief appearance at the Capitol, urging the automakers to cross the road to better.

Putting the brakes on California’s Clean Car Law AB 1493 (Pavley) rules won't lower the price that families pay at the pump, and it won't reduce global warming pollution. Only cleaner, more efficient cars will.

Here's why even Climate Chickens should support the Clean Car Law:

Climate Chickens Are Larger Than Life, and California’s plan creates even bigger reductions in greenhouse gases than the Bush Administration’s proposed fuel economy standards. If all 50 states were to take on the greenhouse gas goals, 1,323 million metric tons of greenhouse gas would be removed by 2020.

California’s Climate Plan Saves More Than A Little Chicken Scratch. The greenhouse gas standards may mean consumers must pay a little more up front for their cars, but they’ll get their money back within about 1-3.5 years, according to California Air Resources Board estimates. The upgrades actually will reduce these vehicles’ operating costs, resulting in savings to drivers.

Climate Chickens Crave The Easy Life. And the greenhouse gas standards start out easy too. In fact, the first phase can be met using technology that’s already in some of today’s cars. Not just hybrids, either – some advanced starter technology, idle-stop technology, upgrades to the electrical system and other smart moves would make cars cleaner.