[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Key bills and issues we’ve been following during the past week and beyond

By Hannah Beth Jackson

by cali_girl_in_texas [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Many in the California Democratic Party circles may not know this, but in 2008 there is a real possibility of gaining 2/3 majorities in the State Senate and State Assembly. The fact that a two-thirds vote in both houses is required to pass the annual budget and to override gubernatorial vetoes could serve as a compelling reason to vote against the term-limits initiative.

Using my extraordinary math, statistics, and HTML skills, below I included with each list of incumbents are the margins that each district voted in the 2002 Governor's race (2002G: Davis vs. Simon), 2004 Presidential race (2004P: Kerry vs. Bush), 2004 Senate race (2004S: Boxer vs. Jones), and 2006 Senate race (2006S: Feinstein vs. Mountjoy) and the average of these and the registration margins, which I will call the Partisan Factor (PF).

Check out the discussion here.

Numbers are below the flip:

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

There's a certain irrelevancy to all of the back-slapping out of Sacramento for their presiding over a "fiscally sound budget" when you read stories like this:

Sales of houses and condominiums in the most populous Southern California counties fell 29.9 percent from the previous month and 48.5 percent from a year earlier, DataQuick Information Systems said on Tuesday.

The report covers the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura and showed a total of 12,455 new and existing homes and condos sold in September, the lowest since the company began recording the data in 1988.

Without being alarmist... aw, hell, I'm going to be alarmist.  The real estate market was the only thing propping up the state's economy.  There's an attempt to try and trade one bubble for another and re-create the dot-com speculation circs 1998, but that'll only go so far, too, and that crash will be just as vicious as the first one.  And looming strikes in almost every aspect of the entertainment industry in LA will make life difficult as well.  It's through little fault of state government, but you can see a pretty clear path to recession now.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

By the time he put his pen down less than two hours before the midnight deadline, Governor Schwarzenegger disposed of 964 bills dropped on his desk by the legislature this year. He signed 750 of them and vetoed 214--meaning that 22%--between one-fifth and one-quarter of the measures that ran the gauntlet and received majority votes or higher levels of support in both houses of the legislature--are dead for the year. The only exceptions to this are bills that may pass in the special sessions on health and water that are ongoing. Yesterday, the last day, he signed 80 bills and vetoed 72.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Local Action to Get Plastics Out of Ocean Continue

By Mark Murray
Executive Director
Californians Against Waste

The first year of the 2007-08 legislative session wrapped up in the early morning hours of September 12, and we can be very proud of the progress we have made in advancing waste reduction and recycling policy. Several priority bills made it out of both houses of the legislature and are now pending before Governor Schwarzenegger. Over the next 30 days our priority will be organizing support for all of the waste prevention and recycling legislation awaiting a Governor's signature, but we'll need your help.

Priority bills that passed the legislature and pending at the Governor's desk include:

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Conflicts of interest prompt legislation to give workers vote on pensions

By Leland Yee, Ph.D.
Assistant President pro Tem
California State Senate

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

California is at risk of losing a bunch of federal funding because our carpool lanes are so clogged. Caltrans is contemplating a list of unappealing options to lessen the traffic. Meanwhile, folks across the country, but especially in LA are leaving their houses earlier and earlier to try and beat the rush and make it to work in a reasonable amount of time. LADN:

Jammed by growing traffic congestion, motorists across the country - particularly in Los Angeles County and city - are leaving home earlier and earlier just to try to beat the rush and get to work on time.

In ever-lengthening commutes, last year one out of every eight drivers said they left for work every day by 6 a.m. - up from just one in nine six years ago, according to new census data released today.

In Los Angeles County, where one out of every eight commuters already left for work before 6 a.m. in 2000, the number rose to one in seven as congestion grew from 3.7 million drivers to 4.2 million.

This trend is having a negative impact on the quality of commuters lives as they spend an increasing amount of time away from their friends, family and community.