by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Robert joins Dave and I for this week's podcast.  We recorded it last night, so no calls today.  We discussed some of California's interesting primary races tomorrow as well as the budget.

As always, you can listen live at the Calitics Radio Show homepage, stream it there later or download the podcast at iTunes.

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.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

I'm not normally a fan of "America's Finest Blog," written by Chris Reed, the Right-of-Atilla-the-Hun editorialist at the San Diego Union Tribune. But Reed had an interesting interview with Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who apparently is spending time making the rounds at editorial boards promoting his political agenda instead of helping victims of California's wildfires.
 
Here's what the Poiz had to say about the non-disclosure of contributors to his effort against reforming term limits.
 
"I would rather all 501(c)4s disclose" the source of their money, he said. Poizner said he has "no idea" who gave the $1.5 million to U.S. Term Limits.
 
"I would rather"? Come on, Poiz. You're bankrolling the campaign. If you're trying to be Mr. Squeaky Clean here, ask your cohorts to reveal who's matching your big bucks. Since you're rolling around with an organization whose leader was indicted, the least you could do is get them to clean up their act.

There's more...

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

There is an inherent ironyin the fact that four-years after Arnold Schwarzenegger was swept intothe governorship, in part due to the dysfunction of the budget process,the budget is now in worse shape than ever, due in part to Arnold's ownpolicies, writes Dan Walters in today's Sacramento Bee. It's emblematicof some of larger problems in Schwarzenegger's tenure—grandiosegestures that sell well politically (like cutting the car tax) but havesevere policy implications (a larger than ever debt).

The combination of impasse in Washington over the State Children'sHealth Insurance Fund and projected shortfalls in Sacramento could place health coverage for thousands of California children in jeopardy,according to the Bee. Even if the Governor and Democratic leaders reachagreement on a health care plan for the state, it would not kick inuntil 2010, so some interim funding is needed.

The former director of the state Department of Motor Vehicles has spent thousands of dollars in legal fees to make a point about $5,000in unemployment benefits, arguing that former Gov. Gray Davis was sucha micromanager that he hardly had the chance to do his job, the Beereports. For the record though, it was Schwarzenegger who actuallyfired the guy.

There's more...