[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Beth Capell

Wednesday morning, without taking testimony, the Senate Budget Subcommittee chaired by Senator Elaine Alquist, with Senator Alex Padilla concurring, voted to eliminate funding for the drug discount program.

At noon time, I came back to the office and looked at the blog post by my colleague, Hanh Quach, with that wonderful picture of Governor Schwarzenegger signing the bill, framed on either side by supporters including Anthony Wright, Health Access executive director, and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, who stepped down from that position a week ago yesterday.

I found it hard to believe that only a week after Nunez had stepped down as Speaker, the Assembly would just agree with the Senate and eliminate funding for the drug discount program that every article on his tenure as Speaker cited as one of his major accomplishments.

At 1:30pm, I found out I was wrong. The Assembly Budget Subcommittee convened and we discovered that they too planned to eliminate funding, in the technical language of the legislature, “conforming” to the Senate action. Things can move quickly around the Capitol.

I noticed that somehow the drug companies had found out that they were about to win a delay in this program that they had fought so hard to stop—I saw several of their lobbyists in the back of the hearing room.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Jim Metropulos
Sierra Club California

Environmentalists and California’s legislative leaders are disappointed with the direction the Building Standards Commission has chosen to take with its recent amendments to the 2007 California Building Standards Code, and with its draft Green Building Standards.

At a meeting May 6 in Natomas, the commissioners will hear comments on the rules, just before adopting them. Sierra Club California will join other environmental groups in denouncing the voluntary standards.

Instead of adopting strong, industry-wide rules that would put California at the forefront of green technology, the BSC tinkered with a few energy conservation and public housing rules and let most commercial and residential builders off the hook. If adopted, these rules would already be considered outmoded by those cities and counties that have put much stronger standards in place – and could discourage the growth of genuinely green construction companies and suppliers.

As global warming looms and energy prices spike, it’s the wrong time for “business as usual” at the BSC. Adopting tough standards now will provide a strong foundation for the 2010 building code change.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez will outline a compromise package today that includes redistricting reform, a budget-time fundraising ban, and a revised attempt at tweaking term limits.

The redistricting component features an independent 17-member "hybrid" commission. No legislators will serve on the panel, with the majority picked randomly from a screened pool with no legislative influence and eight others picked by legislative leaders. Unlike the Voters First initiative that may appear on the November ballot, this proposal requires diversity in every step of the process and puts the Voting Rights Act first and foremost among the criteria in selecting districts. There's also a host of transparency and public input provisions.

The term limits provision is similar to Prop 93, but excludes the provisions that protected many incumbents that drew criticism. It reduces the maximum amount of time a person can serve in the Legislature from 14 years to 12 years, allowing  a legislator to serve all their time in one house.

There's also a fundraising blackout period prohibiting campaign contributions to legislators and the Governor from May 15th until the budget is enacted.

The proposal will be included in two pieces of legislation: ACA 1, which includes the bulk of the proposal, and AB 3069, which contains a statutory provision relating to the new redistricting commission.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

I almost choked on my Cheerios this morning reading this report on yesterday's May Day rallies in the LA Times:

"At a May Day news conference, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce President Gary Toebben said the government should concentrate its limited resources and enforcement efforts on those companies with a clear history of exploitation of workers.

Toebben was joined by Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., which released a study showing that tens of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue could be lost if continued raids force businesses to flee the state.

The study analyzed three industries thought to employ high numbers of immigrant workers -- fashion, food processing and furniture manufacturing -- and found that about 10,000 businesses created nearly 500,000 direct and indirect jobs and produced $18.3 billion in wages in 2006. If 15% of those firms left the region would lose nearly 75,000 jobs, the report found.

"We can't afford any more of these raids," Kyser said, adding that recruiters from Washington state and elsewhere have begun aggressively courting businesses to relocate. ..."

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by Lucas O'Connor [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I'll let folks draw their own conclusions and pick their own fights for the most part, but I thought this poll was pretty interesting (favorable/unfavorable/net):

California Nurses Association/Nurses: 53/15/+35

California Hospital Assn./Hospitals: 33/30/+3

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: 40/40/0

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez: 20/29/-8

Chamber of Commerce/Business Groups: 25/36/-11

News Media: 28/46/-18%

Republican State Legislative Leaders: 22/48/-26

Health Insurance Companies: 16/55/-39

I will throw a few rather obvious ones out along with one that may be less so. One- people don't care much for politicians. Two- they care even less for the media, which is interesting as the media keeps cutting back on news coverage. Three- they HATE insurance companies, which makes me wonder why anyone keeps trying to keep them in the equation.

Also, CNA's numbers are pretty darn impressive. Some of that is that people just like nurses I would imagine. But average Californian on the street, if they have an actual opinion of CNA proper, it's likely to be an opinion on single-payer. Which makes me think that, given the opportunity, people might be pretty supportive of single-payer.

by Robert in Monterey [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

(Cross-posted on the New America Foundation). 

It shows more than a little chutzpah for the California Labor Federation to demand that Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez return a pile of campaign cash he is sitting on: $4 million that came from the state Democratic Party. Labor interests, as much as any interests in California, have helped create the governing system in which achieving any difficult policy requires politicians to defend their policies at the ballot. Politicians without a store of cash soon find it difficult to govern, because it's hard for them to credibly go to the ballot without a big, scary pile of greenbacks. It would be wrong if Nunez used the money for his own political career, as labor leaders say they fear. But he needs the money -- and ought to use it -- not for politics, but to govern.

Labor is really angry at Nunez because they don't like the way he's governed recently -- particularly in two policy areas. But the story of those policy areas shows precisely why he needs the cash.

There's more...