by wu ming [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Well, at least for another year. The Sac Bee reports that the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, chaired by Yolo County's own Lois Wolk (D- Davis), just killed SB 27 until next year. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) would have established a committee to build a peripheral canal diverting water around the Sacramento Delta for export south, although it called it a "conveyance" in a modest feat of bureaucratic obscurantism.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Robert Cruickshank

Here in the dog days of April, as the state awaits the governor's May Revise, frustration seems to be setting in over the budget. The real political battles will begin in earnest after the May Revise, but the jockeying for position has been going on for some time, including in the state's media. Unsurprisingly, the media wants to spin the budget crisis as a failure of all Sacramento politicians, when in fact the current impasse is the responsibility of one group alone: the Republicans.

As an article in yesterday's Sac Bee would have us believe, there is "scant support for budget changes." But a deeper look shows that while Democrats have already proposed budget fixes, such as closing the yacht loophole and creating an oil severance tax (as exists in nearly every other state), it is the Republicans alone that have blocked meaningful budget action.

And why have they done so? Republicans want us to believe that any revenue solution is economically damaging. From the Bee:

“However, Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto, the GOP's incoming leader, said the state should not take away credits at a time when the economy is struggling.

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

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Governor Schwarzenegger has vowedto oppose conservative attempts to once again get an initiative on theballot to constitutionally ban gay marriage in California, reportsthe Sac Bee. In keeping with his previous vetos of such a ban, hestated, “Well, first of all, I think that it will never happen inCalifornia because I think that California people are much furtheralong on that issue, and number two, I will always be there to fightagainst that because it will never happen.”

On the other hand, as Calitics notes, Arnold was speaking in front of the Log Cabin Republicans,a gay Republican group.  The governor still has a long way to go beforeproving his credentials on the issue, as he’s also twice vetoed billsthat would legalize gay marriage.

It’s official: the salmon season has been canceled,packing a wallop to Califonia’s $150-million commercial salmonbusiness, reports the LA Times. Federal regulators adopted a ban onsalmon fishing this year due to concern over the markedly decreasedsalmon population.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is telling the ICE to back off the local economy, reports the LA Daily News. In a letter to the ICE,the mayor said that responsible businesses which depend on undocumentedworkers for labor should be left alone, and that the agency shouldconcentrate on raiding companies that are suspected of mistreatingworkers instead.

Assemblyman Alberto Torrico  (D-Newark) has withdrawn his bill that would have prevented state pension funds from investing in private firms partly operated by foreign governments with human rights abuses, reports the Sac Bee. The bill was opposed by both CalPERS and CalSTRS, as well as Governor Schwarzenegger.

Meanwhile, the Assembly  Education Committee has passed a bill that would require school textbooks to discuss the history of Hmongs, reports the Sac Bee. The bill, introduced Assemblyman Juan Arambula (D-Fresno) was opposed by three Republicans on the panel.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Economic forecasters at the University of Pacific have found that the Californian economy is in a recession, in contrast to the findings of the UCLA Anderson forecast, reportsthe Sac Bee. In the terms of numbers, UoP forecasters stress that it’sjust a quibble, with the economy getting only slightly worse in thelast quarter.

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the invasion ofIraq. Bob Mulholland of the DNC is celebrating it at the CaliforniaProgress Report by noting that the Iraq War has lasted longer than WWII. (He means US involvement in WWII, but give it a little more time.) Herightly lambasts McCain for his claim that Iran and Al-Qaeda areintimately connected, but the suggestion that McCain’s starting tosuffer from dementia or Alzheimer’s is a low blow.

Photo courtesy of the AFP.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the defeat of Proposition 93,which would have extended term limits for state legislators, will proveto be an unfortunate distraction from addressing the budget crisis and other issues facing the state. Jockeying over who will succeedlame-duck leaders in the Assembly and the Senate began as soon as 53%of voters rejected the measure.

The Sac Bee, nevertheless, is excited about the prospect of the first Senate President Pro Tem from Sacramento in over a century, should frontrunner Sen. Darrell Steinberg gain the position. A “nice guy” who’ll fix the levees sounds like a win-win for Sac.