California News of the Week: Bill Deadlines, Budget Cuts, and Assembly Leadership Struggles

As predicted, the latest projections for the coming year have blown an additional 1.5 billion hole in the budget shortfall. While the legislature last week cut and accounted about $2 billion out of the shortfall, the news this week essentially puts the deficit back to its $14 billion figure. While the Governor and the Republicans continue to chant their mantra of "no new taxes" and the Dems respond with "everything must be on the table," a short but heroic figure has come forward in the form of the little known but mighty Legislative Analyst, Elizabeth Hill.

Going back several weeks ago, the Governor proposed a 10% across-the-board set of cuts, including sharp cuts in education, early release of prisoners, further reduction in welfare assistance, reduced payment to healthcare providers of the poor and closure of state parks. The Republicans refused, yet again, to close the yacht loophole, (now referred to by the ever-more-creative Democratic PR machine as the "sloophole"), while at the same time bemoaning most of the cuts. So the stalemate from the Reps is: No pay increases for the services, but don't close the state parks, let prisoners out early and don't cut education. This of course, creates a non-starter for attempted budget discussions.

Entering into the fray to break the deadlock is Ms. Hill who is the first to step forward and announce that the emperor has no clothes. In a press conference this week, Ms. Hill called the Governor's across-the-board proposal inadequate and instead, has proposed her own plan for closing the budget shortfall.

While her office is advisory to the legislature and has no ability to implement anything at all, for the past 18 years Ms. Hill has presided over the Legislative Analyst's Office, which is designed to provide fiscal analysis to the legislature from an unbiased and non-partisan perspective. In her years with the LAO, she has gained the respect and admiration of both sides in this ever-increasingly hostile and partisan Sacramento (and national) environment.

Last week when we called for real leadership to emerge among the elected leaders of our state, little did we realize that this leadership would come from a long-time civil-servant who stands close to a foot shorter than our action-hero Governor Schwarzenegger. Enter stage center: Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill. Courageously she has taken on the Governor and all sides, while calling on the legislature to take a "balanced approach" to the current and consistent budget crises caused by our predictable boom-and-bust cycles that devastate our state's future.

Among her recommendations is to close tax loopholes in order to generate at least $2.7 billion for the public, sparing no one political point of view in the process. She challenged some of the Governor's proposals for saving money and called for the end to at least a dozen current tax breaks which no longer serve the purpose for which they were intended. Her gutsy attempt to break through the political hype and posturing was met with predictable Republican sound-bites that simply don't address the honest-to-goodness issues and priorities of California. Their response also ignores the fact that, with a 2/3 vote requirement for a budget, we've cut taxes on a variety of special interests during those fat years as well.

For more on Hill's proposed plan, click here for the LA Times article, and here for George Skelton's story on this gutsy outstanding public servant.

Protecting those important yacht owners

We reported last week that this tax loophole, the "sloophole," had yet to be closed even though the matter was brought up for a vote in the Assembly, having passed the Senate earlier. After it failed, the Speaker promised to renew the request in a vote taken this past week, hoping that in the meantime the public outrage might yet wake up the out-of-touch strident right-wing which was holding up this fair and modest measure that would bring the wealthy just a little more in line with the rest of us who have to pay our fair share on the purchases we make. However it was all for naught as the measure failed a second time. There is apparently little or no shame in the ideologically driven right-wing of the Republican Party. Yet again the poor, their doctors, and our children are taking a bath because of the budget crisis. While continuing to howl at the prospect of prisoners getting out of jail early, the Republicans continue to be unmoved as our children are foregoing resources for their education and their important needs are reduced. Is there any wonder that their party is in such disarray? Even their State Convention came and went this past weekend with barely a blip on the radar screen---and not even a nod or appearance by the Republican State Governor or by the expected Republican Presidential Candidate, John McCain.

Final legislative offerings as the deadline for new bills expired this week

A whopping 4500 bills have now been "put-across-the-desk" (submitted) this legislative session. With money being so tight, there are very few legislative offerings that introduce new programs or expand services. Instead, measures that will ban smoking at state-owned beaches, allow Indian casinos to extend gambling recreation, suspend learner's permits or driver's licenses to truant students, and over 20 measures dealing with immigration have all been thrown into the State's legislative hopper, just to name a few examples. For more on the multitude of offerings, click for stories at the Contra Costa Times, the Sac Bee, and the Mercury News.

Hannah-Beth Jackson is a former Assemblymember who served in the California Assembly from 1998-2004. She Chaired the Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety, the Committee on Natural Resources as well as the Legislative Women's Caucus.

After term limits and redistricting forced her out of office, she helped start Speak Out California and serves as its President. Speak Out California is a progressive internet site envisioned by California's progressive leaders to effectively craft the issues and messages that will encourage public participation in bringing new ideas and vision to California's political landscape.