[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By David Dayen
d-day

Congratulations, California! It's July 1, the start of the new fiscal year, and you don't have a budget, again. And if Mike Villines is to be believed, you won't have one for some time:

"We're doing meetings, but we're not making a ton of progress," Villines said on the final day of the 2007-08 fiscal year.

"The four legislative leaders are meeting regularly, but "a lot of it is building a rapport."

I hope they're playing that "trust" game where one of them falls to the ground and relies on everyone else to catch them, that's always a good one. Maybe they could swing a team building trip to Joshua Tree while they're at it!

According to Villines, those mean old Democrats are just irrationally sticking to raising taxes at a time of budget deficits between $15 and $20 billion dollars! Don't they know they could just stop funding public schools and everyone could go home for the summer?

In part, he blamed Democrats for sticking to a plan to raise taxes - $11 billion in the Senate and $6 billion in the Assembly - for stalling talks. He called such figures "totally unfounded and out of touch with reality."

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

A friend mentioned a pretty cool tool to me the other day, Cause Caller. Basically, it allows you to set up a wiki page that gives a user information about the cause and then helps with calling. It will call you and then call the office of a public official. Saves time and money, and gets people involved in their government. It's a really cool system.

So, I give to you the Save California: Really Fix the Budget Cause Caller.  It's backbone is a wiki page, so if you want to change something about it, just sign up for an account and do so. Call the Governor, or the legislative leaders. Want to add your legislator? Just sign up for the wiki and load them on there. It was getting a bit time consuming to load all those legislators, so I just went with the leaders so far.

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Today I'm headed out to the OC for the Democratic Party of Orange County annual convention, where I'm participating on a panel about Prop. 93 (and debating Tim Steed of the California Young Democrats).  I respect the opinion of those on this site and elsewhere who support Prop. 93.  I can't join them for the following reasons:

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

(Brian's Disclosure)

Today, in somewhat of a last-minute fashion, Common Cause of California endorsed Proposition 93, the term limits reform measure. Common Cause is one of many groups who are opposed to term limits in their current structure on principle grounds, but they wanted to get redistricting reform at the same time. Nonetheless, they have endorsed Prop 93, along with a heavy dose of pimping for their redistricting measure that has been endorsed by the Governor.

Check the press release over the flip.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

The PPIC's latest statewide survey is out, and it reveals an electorate desiring action on health care and term limits reform, but skeptical of our state's financial future.

Prop 93, the term limits reform, has the backing of 47% of likely voters, with 38% opposed and 15% unsure. While this is below the coveted 50% threshold, when the specifics of the initiative are laid out to voters, an even more promising picture emerges. 67% of likely voters support the reduction of maximum time spent in the legislature from 14 years to 12 years, while 58% of voters (including 60% of Republicans), support allowing a legislator to serve a total of 12 years in both or either chamber. And while 66% of likely voters think term limits are a good thing, 69% agree that changes need to be made to the system.