[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

You probably heard already that Karen Bass made history yesterday whenshe was sworn in as the first African-American woman speaker inCalifornia history, as the Los Angeles Times reports. She is to be commended and congratulated, but not envied: the months ahead for the Assembly will not be easy.

How quickly Arnold has changed his tune. Administration officials told the Sacramento Bee that the Governor will release a budget that borrows from state lottery income, but does not short-change our schools or close down 48 state parks.Speaker Bass has already called the plan "risky," so we'll see how farit goes.

Before you can say "no-tax pledge," the LA Times reports that Arnold has an alternative to the lottery proposal: a sales-tax increase. The Governor deserves credit for his willingness to bend with thetimes, although it is difficult to be so optimistic about the GOPcaucus.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Mark Paul
Senior Scholar
New America Foundation

As usual, California faces a budget crisis. And just as predictably, Californians are mired in budget confusion.

How big is the crisis? a conscientious citizen might ask. The answer is: As big as you want it to be. Just take your pick. An "$8 billion budget shortfall," reports the San Jose Mercury News. "A $10 billion gap," says the Sacramento Bee. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger uses a more technical description: "$20 billion out of whack," he recently said.

This cacophony of numbers and nouns is a big piece of California's budget problem. Not only does California routinely fail to balance its budget, it can't even talk straight about its finances.

In normal accounting and common understanding, a budget is balanced when spending doesn't exceed revenues in a budget year. If revenues are greater than spending, the difference is a surplus; if spending exceeds revenues, the difference is a deficit. Revenues are the proceeds of taxes, fees, and interest on investments.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

The Capitol's ever-dwindling press corps is losing its top investigative reporter. Kimberly Kindy of the San Jose Mercury News/News Media Group, is taking a job at the national political desk of the Washington Post.

That's a dream job for any journalist. It will suit Kindy well.

Kindy, who moved to the Mercury News after the Orange County Register downsized its Sacramento bureau, has penned stories that have shut down a state agency, changed policies and led to new laws. Her most recent series of the Schwarzenegger Administration's fumbling of the state's vehicle fleet's attempt to improve fuel efficiency tied the administration in knots. When I was working for Governor Davis, Kindy also had us tearing our hair out with a series of stories on day care providers.

Always tough, always fair, Kindy should have a field day at the Washington Post, with its resources and its prestige. But the Sacramento press corps will lose one of the only reporters it has that has the leeway to go beyond the daily press conferences and day-to-day goings on in the Capitol.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By David Dayen
d-day

With just over a month to go until the June primaries, and six months to go until Election Day, there's a lot going on all over the state in the Congressional races. Of the 19 seats in California currently held by Republicans, 17 will be contested in the fall, and some strongly so. And we now have a full 34 Democrats with the election of Jackie Speier early in the month, and only one of them is a serious challenge. We also have the first quarter of 2008 fundraising numbers, which will raise some eyebrows. You can track these races yourself with the 2008 Race Tracker wiki.

A note: I'm mainly getting my numbers on cash-on-hand competitiveness from the Swing State Project. Fundraising information comes from the FEC.
Here we go...

DEMOCRATIC SEATS

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Getting this one in under the wire.  On the last day of April, with just over a month to go until the June primaries, and six months to go until Election Day, there's a lot going on all over the state in the Congressional races.  Of the 19 seats in California currently held by Republicans, 17 will be contested in the fall, and some strongly so.  And we now have a full 34 Democrats with the election of Jackie Speier early in the month, and only one of them is a serious challenge.  We also have the first quarter of 2008 fundraising numbers, which will raise some eyebrows.  You can track these races yourself with the 2008 Race Tracker wiki.

A note: I'm mainly getting my numbers on cash-on-hand competitiveness from the Swing State Project.  Fundraising information comes from the FEC.

Here we go...

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Governor Schwarzenegger, along with officials from 17 other states, has signed a pledge urging Congress to quickly adopt legislation on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, reports the San Jose Mercury News. Together, California, Arizona,Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maine,Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,Oregon, Virginia and Washington represent more than half the populationof the US.

The Governor’s toughness on climate change is always applauded, but histoughness on other issues is a different story. As this short piece inthe Merc notes, his proposed budget cuts for education would reduce spending to $5.6 billion below the state requirement for education spending.

California’s unemployment rate has spiked to 6.2% , the thirdhighest in the nation, reports the LA Times. The downturn inconstruction, however, could receive a boost from the $40 billioninfrastructure bonds that are starting to come online.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has gone back to sticking with strict neutralityin the race between Senators Obama and Clinton, based on her statementat the California Democratic convention that “both of them are great”,reports the San Francisco Chronicle. (The third of the 66 Californiasuperdelegates have yet to choose their candidate, however, wereperhaps hoping for a tip.) Maybe it’s because of that letter from thebig, bad Clinton donors?

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), on other hand, has freely expressed his opinion that Hillary Clinton should drop out of the racefor the good of the Democratic party, reports the LA Times. Accordingto Leahy, “"Sen. Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason,to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to."

Californians have (slightly) decreased their consumption of gasoline two years in a row,which is unprecedented behavior outside of a serious recession, reportsthe SF Chron. According to Daniel Sperling, head of the UC DavisInstitute of Transportation Studies, "The time of gasoline-useincreases is probably over.”

Photo courtesy of Dai Sugano of the San Jose Mercury News.