[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Barbara Owen
Professor
Department of Criminology
California State University-Fresno

Introduction

As California leads the nation in irrational prison policy, a new report calls for major reforms to reduce the prison population. Unlocking America: Why and How to Reduce America's Prison Population, is co-authored by nine leading criminology and penal experts from around the country and relies on a thorough review of recent research into crime and incarceration. Several of these authors have researched the California system which serves as a cautionary tale of political and policy missteps.

Under current sentencing policies, the state and federal prison populations will grow by another 192,000 prisoners over the next five years, according to the report. Such an increase will force the nation to spend an additional $27.5 billion in prison construction and operation costs over the five-year period, in addition to the $60 billion now spent annually on corrections. In California, the annual cost is quickly approaching $10 billion per year. Recent legislation has called for many more billions to be spent on prison construction.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

• Tuesday Hearing Brings Insurer and Provider Opposition to Consumer Protections
• Consumer Groups Say Delayed Care is Denied Care; Seek Stronger Regulations

By Anthony Wright
Executive Director of Health Access California

The Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) held another hearing this Tuesday, September 18, 2007 in Sacramento to seek public comment on their second proposed revision to the new regulation governing timely access to care.

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

(full disclosure: California Teacher's Association has hired me to do online outreach on NCLB)

x-posted on dkos

There are a lot of things wrong with NCLB, so why are George Miller and Nancy Pelosi insisting on adding new problems.  More specifically, adding a federal merit pay program for teachers.  First of all, studies have shown that merit pay just does not work.  It leads to divisiveness in the teaching ranks, makes hiring more difficult and tends to go to teachers in affluent school districts, despite promises to the contrary.  Just about every school that implements merit pay repeals it down the road.

by Sheri Divers [courtesy of Blog for America]

Seats are going fast at this year's DFA Training Academy in Atlanta and there is little wonder why. The DFA Training Academy has an incredible track record of success.  Big league victories like freshmen Congressman Jerry McNerney in California. Important state level victories like Iowa State Representative Elesha Gayman and Knox County Commissioner Mark Harmon in Tennessee all prove that the DFA Training Academy leads to success on any race anywhere. You don't want to miss this 2 day campaign training event on September 8 and 9.  

RSVP today: www.dfalink.com/gatraining

The DFA Training Academy is dedicated to empowering the grassroots with the skills to take our country back. Our comprehensive training is open to anyone looking to learn proven and practical campaign strategies and tactics. You'll learn how to frame your message, raise money, and run a successful grassroots campaign from professionals with decades of experience. 

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

This morning's Field Poll was full of headlines about Sen. Hillary Clinton's 30-point lead over Sen. Barack Obama and 39 point edge over John Edwards. But what's behind the headlines is what interested me. (Full disclosure: my boss at my day job, Speaker Fabian Nunez, has endorsed Clinton and I supported Edwards last time around).
 
What's particularly stunning is that Clinton leads -- and by substantial margins -- among EVERY category of voter. Obama's narrowest gap is among college graduates, where Clinton's lead is "just" 19 points.
 
Field consolidated African-American and Asian-American voters for some reason (small sample size, I suspect). Still Clinton holds a dominant 52-28 percent lead. And among Latinos, it's a blowout. Clinton has a whopping 63-14 percent edge, with Edwards on Obama's heels at 12 percent.
 
And to our friends at Calitics and Daily Kos, even ideologically, Clinton leads strongly among progressives: 47-22 among "strong liberals" and 44-18 over "moderate" liberals.
 
When paired against Republican candidates, Clinton also does substantially better than Obama and Edwards. For example, she has a 52-37 percent edge over Guiliani, 55-35 percent lead over Romney and Thompson, and 52-35 percent lead over McCain. Obama's lead is just 10 points over Guiliani, for example. Edwards does even worse, with just a five percent margin.

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I figured that Mark Leno (D-SF) would be in the lead, but I never though that the disparity would be this great.  Carole Midgen (D-SF) has raised a decent amount of money, but a bunch of it is for the general election, which really does her no good.  When you take away the general election funds and her debts, she is left with only $13k.  Do the same thing for Leno and he has $234k.

Leno is reporting raising almost $444,000, while Migden brought in $304,00.  Only 4.4% of Leno's funds are for the general election, but $163,750 of Midgen's totals cannot be used in the primary.  She has debts of $180,186.  Do all the math and that leaves her with only $13,014.  It is a shockingly low number.  I will fully admit that these numbers are from the Leno folks.  If they are wrong please let me know.

Naturally the Leno campaign is bragging.  Here is their press release:

Leno spokesperson Charles Sheehan says "Migden's campaign finances are in complete disarray, a fact that even her chief campaign consultant, Richie Ross, has openly admitted." Moreover, says Sheehan, while she "has refused to disavow using these illegal surplus campaign funds to pad her depleted accounts, we are confident that a current FPPC investigation into her numerous violations will block her from using that money."

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

The California state government has a problem, one that has existed for a number of years now. The state has a structural budget deficit that leads us to spend more than we take in. This problem really has its roots in the elimination of the car tax. Nothing was created to take its place. Now the deficit size depends on the relative strength of the state's economy and we need that revenue to pay the bills. That is a long term problem and one that the legislature has failed to address. Either there will need to be major program cuts, not a few million here or there, or tax increases. Despite Arnold's promises to solve this problem he has been MIA and the legislature has shown no signs of wanting to address it in a comprehensive way.

The result is that every year the legislature has to cludge together a budget that generally leaves an operating deficit. Here is Walters today:

With a stalemate in the Senate, Democrats are demanding that Republicans reveal the specific spending cuts they want to reduce the operating deficit to zero -- and that's not unreasonable. But by the same token, the governor and Democrats who want the current version enacted should be telling us how, in heaven's name, they would balance the budget without more spending cuts. If they want new taxes, they should say so.

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