Sacramento: September 2008 Archives

Arnold Schwarzenegger is vetoing hundreds of bills passed at the end of the 2007-2008 legislative session, many of them with little rhyme or reason and with a generic veto message, at a record clip of 47.8% of those sent to him in September.California Progress report.

This has occurred in the five days starting on last Wednesday in the telescoped time frame the Governor has to act, with many vetoes occurring at obscure times, such as the announcement made Friday evening 6:54 p.m.--in middle of Presidential debate of 27 vetoes and what some have dubbed the "Saturday Night Massacre" announcement of 99 bills being signed and 95 being vetoed. This was then exceeded last night with an announcement of signatures approving 64 bills and vetoes of 131.

Former Gov. Pete Wilson on Saturday urged his fellow Republicans not to make light of a recall drive against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. AP in the Sacramento Bee.

He told delegates at the California Republican Party's fall convention that they should take the threat from the state prison guards union seriously, even if it isn't likely to succeed.

"I hope that I don't have to tell you what an ill-considered idea that is. We did it once; we did not do it lightly," he said, referring to the 2003 recall of former Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, an election that sent Schwarzenegger to Sacramento. "It is something that should not be taken lightly. It is an extreme measure."

The state budget that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed this week cut about $129 million from Los Angeles County programs - or $34 million more than expected, county officials said Thursday.Troy Anderson in the Daily News.

The cuts, focused on welfare, health and juvenile justice, come as those programs are seeing increases in demand.

The budget will cut $33 million from Medi-Cal, $8 million from probation camps, $10 million from mental health and $6 million from alcohol and drug programs, according to a memo by county Chief Executive Officer Bill Fujioka.

California Republicans who consider themselves the party's conservative "conscience" will consider bucking their own party's governor this weekend to endorse the proposed recall of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sacramento Bee

The board of directors of the California Republican Assembly will gather during the state party's convention in Anaheim for the recall vote.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't known for mincing words. But earlier this month, as California's budget stalemate inched from serious problem toward full-blown crisis, he gave an interview to a German publication that was surprising in its candor -- and certainly didn't help his cause. Mike Zapler in the Mercury News.

At the same time he was trying to win Republican votes for his compromise budget plan, the GOP governor described members of his own party as, essentially, a band of ideologues.

"Think about the Republicans from California that are running the party," Schwarzenegger told Der Spiegel magazine. "I have almost no contact with them. None. Because they're just so out there."

Days later, Schwarzenegger made a rare appearance before the Assembly Republican caucus. Its members wore name tags to the meeting -- a half-joking response to the governor's remarks.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed the state's $143 billion spending plan after the longest budget deadlock in state history. Mercury News.

The governor's signature, which comes on the 85th day after the start of the fiscal year, frees up billions in payments to medical clinics, nursing homes, daycare centers and contract vendors.

It won't, however, finish the budget battle. That will be up to voters, who will be asked to tie up the agreement's loose ends during a special election next year

Throughout the state's record-setting budget impasse, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger often said his goal was to bring structural reform to California so elected officials don't simply keep "kicking the can down the alley." AP in the Daily News.

They kicked the can anyway.

After three months of debate over tax increases, elected officials this year are resorting to accounting tricks and cuts to health care and education to fill the state's $15.2 billion shortfall. The result means partisan fighting will resume in January when the governor unveils the 2009-10 budget.

SACRAMENTO - The Legislature approved a compromise state budget Friday after ceding to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's demands for budget reform and receiving his approval for the plan to end the state's record three-month stalemate.

The $143 billion budget plan would allow California to resume payments to schools, medical clinics, day care centers and state vendors that haven't been paid since July 1, the start of the fiscal year. Legislators had to bridge a $15.2 billion budget deficit. AP in
the Daily News.
He said he was pleased legislative leaders agreed to stronger controls on the state's rainy day fund and gave him the authority to make spending cuts during the year. But he added that he wanted more reforms to prevent the state from spending more than it takes in.

He said he could sign the package as early as Monday, though there might not be much fanfare.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders averted a historic budget veto Thursday, agreeing to a compromise spending plan that includes the governor's demands for budget reform and scraps some of the borrowing gimmicks he opposed. AP in the Daily News.

Facing a veto threat from Schwarzenegger of the spending plan they'd approved just days earlier and uncertain whether they could muster the two-thirds vote of the state Legislature required to override it, the four legislative leaders met with the governor again and agreed to many of his demands.

They emerged from a midafternoon meeting saying they would change the $143 billion spending plan the Legislature approved two days earlier.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was set to become the first California governor in decades to veto a state budget, rejecting the Legislature's spending plan Tuesday for failing to meet his reform demands and solve the state's persistent fiscal problems. Daily News.

The announcement set in motion a historic showdown with the Democrat-controlled Legislature, which has said it is prepared to override the governor's pending veto.

Schwarzenegger's announcement that he would veto the budget came after a record-long stalemate that forced the state to delay billions of dollars in payments to schools, medical clinics, day-care centers and state vendors.

The fate of California's record budget standoff is up to one man now. Sacramento Bee.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must decide, with a stroke of his pen, whether to sign a budget deal passed early today by the Legislature - and he has threatened a veto.

A marathon session of the Legislature ended at 2:30 a.m. with the proposed compromise receiving the necessary two-thirds majority to pass the Assembly, 61-1, and the Senate, 28-12.

The state controller says California's payroll computer program is so antiquated it would take six months to reconfigure it to change workers' pay. Sacramento Bee.

State personnel officials acknowledge the 70-year-old 10-step hiring system means it can take three years for a qualified applicant to land a state job.

No one even knows how much gasoline is burned up each year by the state's vehicle fleet.

This is apparently one tough state to run.

Legislative leaders said today they at last have a compromise deal on an 11-week-late state budget that calls for no tax increases, no borrowing from local governments or other state special funds -- and which makes no one happy.Sacramento Bee.

Emerging from a weekend meeting in the office of Senate GOP leader Dave Cogdill, the quartet declined to give specific details of their compromise plan, saying they wanted to talk to their respective caucuses first.

But they said the plan closes the $15.2 billion gap in the $103.4 billion budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 with $9 billion in spending cuts. The rest of the gap will be patched by closing tax loopholes and "accelerated revenue collections," an accounting term for collecting some one-time revenues in this fiscal year rather than the next. The leaders indicated that while balanced, the budget anticipates at least a $2 billion hole in next year's budget.

California's legislative Republican leaders are backtracking on plans to attend a two-day, lobster-and-golf campaign fundraiser in Nevada early next week, as the state's record-setting budget impasse continues. Sacramento Bee.

Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines and Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill are listed as the co-hosts of the "Republican Leadership Invitational" early next week, a Nevada golf tournament where big donors will be asked to fork over up to $15,000 to the California Republican Party.

But after Democrats raised questions about the event, spokesmen for both leaders said they won't go.

SACRAMENTO -- Months of bickering over the state budget have seriously damaged the state Legislature's public standing: A record few Californians approve of its performance, according to a new Field Poll. Mike Zapler in the Mercury News,
Even President Bush enjoys higher ratings in California than state legislators.
Only 15 percent of registered voters gave positive marks to the Democratic-controlled Legislature in the poll conducted this month. Seventy-three percent disapproved of its performance, and 12 percent had no opinion. The approval ratings are the lowest in the quarter-century of Field Polls surveying voter opinion of the Legislature.
The Legislature's abysmal ratings aren't exactly surprising given the drumbeat of bad news out of the Capitol this summer, said Larry Gerston, a San Jose State University political science professor.

Joining with the frustration felt by more and more residents, the Valley Industry and Commerce Association said it was time for state legislators to end their posturing and get to work.
"With the state budget now 73 days over-due, the Government Affairs Committee of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association (VICA) unanimously recommended that its board of directors adopt the position that the California Legislature be required to stay in session 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until they pass a budget.
"Lawmakers should not be allowed to leave the Senate and Assembly floors until a budget is passed and given to the governor to sign," said VICA Chairman Greg Lippe. "It is outrageous that we are 73 days into the fiscal year without a budget."
The business gorup said there are millions of dollars in unpaid state bills affecting schools, hospitals and small businesses.
"It is extremely frustrating that the Legislature has failed to perform its most important responsibility," said VICA Past-Chair Fred Gaines, who made the motion. "The fact that there is no sense of urgency among our leaders is even more disgraceful."

Compiled by the Sacramento Bee

Since you are probably as sick of reading all the budget rhetoric as we are of writing it, here's a rundown on the standoff. In cold, hard numbers:

70: Days into the 2008-09 fiscal year without a state budget.

$4.25 billion: Payments that state Controller John Chiang couldn't make in July and August because of the missing budget.

$7.6 billion: Payments that will go unmade in September if there's no budget.

$1.1 million: Amount that state lawmakers will earn this month, more or less (though they won't be paid until after a budget passes). This doesn't include per diem.

0: How many times California lawmakers and the governor have taken this long in years past to finish a budget.

873: Number of bills that state lawmakers have passed but not sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

342: Senate bills being withheld.

531: Assembly bills being withheld.

0: Number of bills Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said (on Aug. 6) that he would sign before there was a budget.

1: Number of bills Schwarzenegger has signed so far. (He broke his pledge in order to sign AB 3034, which amended the high speed rail measure on the November ballot.)

10,300: Temporary employees the governor laid off by executive order.

$6.55: The federal minimum hourly wage -- and the amount Schwarzenegger wants to pay state workers to conserve cash during the budget crunch.

0: State workers who have been paid the federal minimum wage.

85: Days since the state constitutional deadline (June 15) to pass the 2008-09 state budget.

125: Days until the constitutional date (Jan. 10) that Schwarzenegger must present the 2009-10 budget.

0 percent: Chance that Senate Democrats will pass the GOP budget plan, which is expected to be put up for a vote at 2 p.m. today.

It's been a long, uncertain summer for Antonia Rivas.
Troy Anderson and Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.

Like many small-business owners who count on state government as a major client, the Reseda child-care provider has been struggling to make ends meet as the Sacramento budget stalemate has delayed billions of dollars in payments statewide.

Rivas, director of Antonia Rivas Licensed Family Child Care, estimates the state owes her at least $17,000 since July 1.

And soon, she will be forced to make a stark choice:

One day after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger criticized legislators for contjning to draw their daily $170 per diem, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said that she will no longer accept the payments when the state is without a budget.
Her statement:
"If stopping per diem payments is what it takes to focus the Governor his attention on getting the votes for the budget, I'm happy to do it," said Bass. "The notion that Assembly Democrats aren't working overtime to get the budget passed is ludicrous. We've had budget votes, negotiated in good faith, and have a responsible, balanced solution that protects education and the safety net."
`"What the Governor needs to focus on is his ability to use his political muscle to get votes from his own party to pass a budget," said Bass. "Democrats have worked with him and have compromised as far as we can. It's time for him to stop the finger pointing at the Legislature and roll up his sleeves and show some leadership."

As we continue to wait for a state budget, the Legislature is waiting, too. The Senate and Assembly are holding an estimated 850 bills at the Assembly and Senate desks, waiting to send them to Gov. Schwarzenegger. Capitol Weekly.
The governor has threatened to veto any bills that come to his desk until a budget is passed. But the clock is ticking. Any bill passed by the Legislature and sent to the governor must be acted on by Sept. 30 to take effect by January 2009. The governor has until November 15 to act on any bill containing an appropriation or with an urgency clause.
As the hands of time continue to turn, here's a look at some of the bills acted on in the final days of the Legislative session. We've focused much of this list on bills or subjects we've written about over the last legislative session, but feel free to email us and let us know which bills we've missed.

The mayors of the state's nine largest cities, protesting new plans on how to balance the overdue state budget, called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other leaders Wednesday to avoid taking money from cities that would jeopardize basic public services.Daily News.

A letter, signed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the other mayors, urged the governor, Senate and Assembly leaders not to enact proposals to directly reduce funding or defer reimbursement of state-required costs.

"Today's uncertain economic climate has placed severe burdens on our own budgets and we have already made sacrifices through our own budget process," the letter reads. "If the state passes additional costs through to our cities, our ability to deliver basic services, including providing for public safety, will be at risk."

The Assembly and Senate wrapped up their legislative sessions Sunday after debating and voting on more than 100 bills, but none of them was related to solving the state's $17.2 billion budget gap. The gap includes $2 billion in reserves. S.F. Chronicle.

But while the bills have been approved, they and many others now hang in limbo, since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vowed not to sign any legislation into law until legislators approve a budget.

Schwarzenegger will have until the end of September to sign or veto measures.