While California Dreams: A Weekly Update on the Goings-on in Sacramento

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Key bills and issues we’ve been following during the past week and beyond

By Hannah Beth Jackson

Efforts to try to get a water bond on the ballot were supposed to dove-tail with the health care proposal being hashed and hacked out by both houses of the capitol this week. Unfortunately, both have broken down to the point that the leadership, short of mopping up the floor with failed expectations and efforts have instead, called off a possible vote of the legislature for the coming week. While Speaker Nunez has sounded the alarm for his troops to be ready to return to Sacramento this coming week for a vote on the health care bill and the senate was rushing to announce an agreement on the water distribution and storage measures, it all seems to have fizzled, at least for the time being. So there will be no floor session in the Assembly- the members have gone from a certain date to the completely amorphous "call of the speaker". Just a call could happen in a week, in a month or not at all.

It seems that the devil in these details just isn't willing to make the final concession to seal the deal. And in the health care debate, that unacceptable point of contention revolves around the big hole in the health care safety net that just seems to get worse with each new compromise suggestion. For water, the problem is tied to the storage- canals to deliver water to Southern California and control the flow of money to approved projects. We're talking some significant differences and difficult choices. For our prior discussion on the basics of this debate, check out our update from last week here.

Democrats call for a third special session to address the sub-prime mess

Perhaps on the belief that three's charm, and that something can get accomplished on the third time around, several Dems met in Sacramento on Friday calling for the Governor to call a third special session to address the sub-prime fiasco that is wreaking havoc on California homeowners and our economy as a whole. As the rise of foreclosures is taking its toll on the economy, officials say the weak real estate market is largely to blame for the steep decline in state revenues. Whatever the real reason, there is little question that the current lending practices have helped create the situation where we have massive defaults on loans that are threatening our state's economy and costing the state billions of dollars in revenue.