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

Happy New Year! And welcome to Speak Out California's second year of weekly updates we've entitled, While California Dreams. We hope you have enjoyed our regular analysis of the highlights and lowlights of our state's political goings-on and look forward to providing you with our summaries and analysis in the coming year. But we can't do it without your help.

It takes your support and interest to keep us going. We hope you will contribute to our efforts and help us expand our readership. There are two simple things you can do. The first is to click here and contribute to Speak Out California. The second is to you can and send our link on to other like-minded progressives!

With the election season fast approaching, we need your help to keep our progressive message and analysis front-and-center in the political debate. Our goal is to keep California's voters informed as to what is happening. We need your help! Thank you and let's keep working for a productive and progressive year ahead.

So now for the news...

It is certainly hard to believe that we've rounded the corner of 2007 and are heading fast and furiously into 2008, but with a Presidential primary election only days away, the political pulse of California has quickened dramatically over what is normally a slow-starting time of year.

But this year starts off quite different from most. First off, we will have three elections to contend with in this year alone. The first is virtually upon us and includes not only choices for President, but a number of expensive and hard-edged ballot measures. While the election is technically 30 days away, with absentee ballots about to hit mailboxes throughout the state, the election essentially starts now.

Even though our state's solons have yet to return to Sacramento, there is much talk about the budget mess, the as yet unresolved health care measure pieced together at the end of the year and the still left unfinished water storage and delivery crisis. For many pundits the year looks like it will be a series of crises and they may very well be correct. With the budget seriously out-of-whack for the umpteenth time and the economy looking like a national recession is headed our way, we face an enormously difficult year in this state.