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.

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.

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 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.

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.

It's been over a year since Governor Schwarzenegger decided to join the decades-long debate on health reform, and I'm actually quite pleased that he's indicated he will continue to focus on health reform in the years remaining in his administration. It may not have been clear to the Governor, but we always knew that the sheer magnitude of the needed reforms would take more than just one year to achieve. Any success to be gained on his "second try," however, will require a very different approach, both in terms of policy and in terms of politics.

Predictably, a number of interests in Sacramento have attempted to characterize the failure of the Governor's and the Speaker's bill as the victim of uncompromising single payer proponents on the left and powerful insurance companies on the right, as though the Governor's plan was "just right" in a three-bears, middle of two-extremes, spin. In fact, the Governor's plan appropriately fell because of the Governor's own reluctance to make the difficult policy decisions necessary for the plan to be in any way affordable to the state as well as to businesses and individuals, but which would have stirred up strong opposition from insurance companies.

Simply put, insurance companies will not support any plan that would prevent them from continuing to raise premiums 2-3 times faster than wages, limits that must be imposed in order for any long term financing to work. In the positive column, the Governor's plan included a number of reforms needed, if insurance companies were to be retained, that would have regulated (read wrestled) them into good behavior. It required insurers to accept all patients, to spend a minimum amount on actual care, and to refrain from singling out sick patients for unaffordably high premiums.

Unfortunately, it contained nothing that would have made premiums affordable for the vast majority of Californians, all of whom would have been required by the law to buy health insurance. The "subsidies" contained in the plan were only for very low income families (not a bad thing) and, except for those at the very poor end of the scale, would have partially subsidized premiums but left families to pay whatever co-pays and deductibles were set by the companies.

It's also worthwhile to refresh everyone’s memory that labor unions and health care advocates who ostensibly "supported" the Governor's compromise plan did not register a support position with the Senate Health Committee, but rather indicated they supported the bill only if it were amended. The requested amendments, which were lengthy and substantive, were rejected by the Governor and the vaunted "support" was actually no support at all.

As usual, California faces a budget crisis. And just as predictably, Californians are mired in budget confusion.

How big is the crisis? a conscientious citizen might ask. The answer is: As big as you want it to be. Just take your pick. An "$8 billion budget shortfall," reports the San Jose Mercury News. "A $10 billion gap," says the Sacramento Bee. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger uses a more technical description: "$20 billion out of whack," he recently said.

This cacophony of numbers and nouns is a big piece of California's budget problem. Not only does California routinely fail to balance its budget, it can't even talk straight about its finances.

In normal accounting and common understanding, a budget is balanced when spending doesn't exceed revenues in a budget year. If revenues are greater than spending, the difference is a surplus; if spending exceeds revenues, the difference is a deficit. Revenues are the proceeds of taxes, fees, and interest on investments.

But not in California. Here, state leaders (and the press) variously and promiscuously refer to the state's budget problems as a "shortfall," a "hole," a "gap," and a "deficit." Sometimes they actually mean to talk about the annual deficit. More often than not, though, they are referring to an amalgam of the state's cash reserve at the beginning of the current year, a current year deficit, a projected budget year deficit, and the desired reserve for the budget year. As UCLA Prof. Daniel Mitchell, who's campaigned tirelessly (and, alas, so far unsuccessfully) for budget transparency, points out, California's bad habit of talking about this "shortfall" confuses a stock (your savings account) and a flow (your paycheck), obscuring the true size and nature of the state's deficit. Most households understand that if they earn $50,000 a year and spend $100,000, making up the difference from their savings, they don't have a balanced budget. California doesn't. Even if it spends more than it collects in taxes, California counts the budget as balanced if has sufficient cash reserves to make up the difference.

To understand how badly confused California is, just imagine what national budget discussions would be like if the same loose terminology were used in Washington. News reports would be talking about Washington's "$5.5 trillion budget shortfall": the $350 billion deficit for the current year and the projected $200 billion deficit for the 2009 budget year, all topped off by the $5 trillion of outstanding public debt rung up by Congresses and presidents since they powdered their wigs and buckled their knee britches.

This week, some important policymakers went back to preschool as they joined kids for circle time in a Sacramento classroom. Before practicing their ABCs with the children,
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, Senator Darrell Steinberg and Assemblymember Dave Jones highlighted a preschool reform package that included some of their favorite letters and numbers: SB 1629 and AB 2759.

Senator Steinberg is the author of SB 1629, the Early Learning Quality Improvement Act, which would establish a Commission to create a state Early Learning Quality Improvement System. This includes a quality rating scale to help parents make informed decisions about programs for their children, and a graduated funding model to help existing and future preschool programs reach and maintain higher levels of quality.

"If we want all California children to have a chance to succeed in school, we need to make sure that the neediest children get high-quality preschool," Senator Steinberg said. "SB 1629 will create the roadmap for transforming our preschool programs into the high- quality experience our children deserve."

Assemblymember Jones is the author of AB 2759, the California State Preschool Program Act, which would consolidate and streamline the state’s existing Title 5 child development programs for preschool-aged children – State Preschool, Full-Day State Preschool, Prekindergarten and Family Literacy, Prekindergarten and Family Literacy Full-Day and General Child Care and Development Programs – to create the California State Preschool Program.

“These two bills will help increase the availability of preschool programs and reduce administrative costs and burdens so that funding gets to where it's most needed — to provide more quality preschool for our kids,” Assemblymember Jones said.

The two preschool reform bills, which are co-sponsored by Superintendent O’Connell, Children Now, the California Child Development Administrators Association and Preschool California, are the beginning of a transformation for preschool and early education in California.

The fact that the legislation requires no general fund expenditures gives us something we can do even during these challenging budget times to lay the foundation for future investments in high-quality preschool once new funds become available. Both bills have moved out of the education committees and will be acted upon by the appropriations committees in the coming days.

By this time, I hope you've heard about Prop 98. But that's not the case everywhere, so much attention has been paid to getting the word out about the really negative effects that Prop 98 would have upon California. A great group of people came together to talk about the Landlords' Scheme to eliminate rent control, tenant protections, and affordable housing regulations.

Several folks came with cardboard boxes to make the point that many people living in rent controlled units would be forced to the streets. Many units would be converted to luxury condo conversion projects and housing supply in San Francisco would dwindle further. Affordable housing is already tough enough to come by (just look at Craigslist if you don't believe me), the last thing we need is Prop 98 eliminating much of the affordable supply.

You can watch the entirety of the rally on YouTube, but some of the comments leapt out at me. Some people expect that these propositions won't really affect their lives, but Prop 98 is very different. From June 4, 2008, landlords will have carte blanche to do what they please to tenants. "Just Cause" eviction will be a thing of the past, and renters will have to prepare for an onslaught. As Ted Gullicksen of San Francisco Tenants Union said, "San Francisco would become a city not just for the wealthy, but for the very, very, very wealthy. ... San Francisco would lose its character and its diversity."

It is not all that surprising that landlords' would try this, really. After all, they are businesses trying to maximize their shareholder and/or owner's pocket books. Heck, this is a great investment for people like Sam Zell, who stands to make $15 Million from a Prop 98 win. The problem is that they are using deceptive means to overturn the will of the people. The people in several cities across California have determined that they favor rent control. And practically every locality has chosen to require a "just cause" for eviction (as well as some state regulations).

• Laws and regulations to control emissions of greenhouse gases from oil refineries and power plants in accordance with the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 could be prohibited since they may transfer an economic benefit from the polluter to the manufacturers of cleaner technologies.

By Ron Shepston
Democratic Candidate
California 42nd Congressional District

We can talk about "unity" -- but the meaning of that word varies depending on the reader. I want to drive home the meaning for you, to tap into the energy and synergy that comes from people striving for a common goal. In the netroots, I'm sure a lot of people will assume that I mean unity of the Presidential candidates.

That is part of it. Click here to sign our pledge for unity.

That picture above is Misha, me & Dave in front of Democratic Party Of Orange County banner. We will be adding LA and San Bernardino Counties.

But we want to go further than that. We want to take this beyond gimmicks. We want to take this beyond cliche'. As my friend Dallasdoc says "Think movement".

This campaign has never been about me. It's been about all of us coming together to change the face of American politics to make the changes we know need to be made.

When we first started to talk about using the power of the netroots the idea was to unite around an existing candidate. We looked and looked but couldn't agree. We knew the best choice would be a true netroots candidate. We wanted someone who came from the netroots first. But that desire was much more than symbolic. Someone from the netroots had a certain mindset and was driven to learn and know the truth. Despite what Markos said this was beyond partisan politics. We called it reality-based. It still is though now we recognize that reality has a distinct liberal/progressive bias.

Ask any Green Energy Warrior what it will take to win the war, and the answer is likely to be “technological transformation.” The feed-in tariffs in Europe and the renewable portfolio standards in the US focus on independent generators to prompt this change, implicitly believing the existing utility industry is too set in its ways to adapt quickly enough.

For utility-scale technologies, this judgment hinges on credible assumptions about willingness to incur technological risk and the inherent inertia of government-supported monopolies. For smaller technologies like distributed generation, the presumption is even stronger because the existing utility business model seems so widely divergent.

Which makes Southern California Edison’s proposal to install and own 1-2 MW photovoltaic systems on leased warehouse rooftops so potentially revolutionary. Little power plants. Connected directly to the distribution grid. No transmission required. Utility rate base. Within the insular precincts of transformative utility regulators, this feels like the grail.

The California Public Utilities Commission has poked and prodded its regulated utilities for several years to make just this type of investment in renewable generation, as opposed to simply purchasing the output from independent generators. The rationale is that an affirmative business motivation by the regulatee to implement the regulator’s policy preferences is more enduring — and more scalable — than begrudging compliance with fiat.

But the move has prompted apprehension among some of the pioneers in the solar industry, who fear unfair competition and discriminatory treatment from a ratepayer-subsidized behemoth. They argue that there is nothing about solar energy that suggests it is a natural monopoly and point to the well-documented history of cost overruns and technological stultification associated with rate based investments.

California Senate President pro Tem Don Perata issued a statement and took questions from reporters shortly after 5 p.m. today on the steps to the state Capitol. The Sacramento Bee has an article on this with a few more details. Sacramento sources indicated last week that the polling for the race was not too favorable for the recall succeeding.

Perata issued the following statement regarding the campaign to recall Republican State Senator Jeff Denham:

"Like all of you, I've been worried a lot about the economy - falling home prices, rising gas prices - and how hard it's getting for people to find a job.

I've talked with both Treasurer Lockyer and Controller Chiang about the state's cash situation - and the need to do everything we can to reach an agreement on the budget.

A long stalemate is the last thing we need. Without a budget - we run out of cash - the richest state in America gone broke!

We won't be paying our bills - and we won't be giving our schools, our emergency rooms and our police the resources they need.

So I met with Republican Leader Dave Cogdill - and I asked him how we could clear the decks and start making some progress. One issue kept coming up. The Denham recall.

So today - in the spirit of putting politics aside to solve problems - I'm ending the recall campaign.

You're bound to ask, so let me tell you - there was no deal, no quid pro quo.

This is my call - and my best judgment about how to stop the long, slow slide into another long stalemate.

I hope it pays off. Because the same old rhetoric won't get the job done.

Let me also say this to the people who have devoted so much time and effort on the recall: thank you. You've already changed things for the better.

The vote we couldn't get last year to close the tax loophole for yacht owners - we got that vote.

The vote we couldn't get to help homeowners facing foreclosure - we got that vote.

You put everyone here on notice - and I don't think people are going to forget that anytime soon."