Social Justice Magazine
Although I have to admit I found it a bit creepy, the stuffed remains of Roy Rogers’ beloved steed was displayed on a Rose Parade float honoring Roy’s 100th birthday. Dangerously wobbling at the front of a somewhat over-the-top float, this Trigger, though dead, looked fat and healthy. The state budget Triggers, on the other [...]
Given the breathless tone of the several press reports on the “great California water reform package”, you would have thought the Legislature had parted the waters, rather than simply passing five water bills.
I knew from experience that Sen. Poochiaign’s votes had consistantly indicated animosity to civil rights statutes regarding gender, disability and sexual orientation.
“Why do they keep sending me budgets I won’t sign?”, the Governor asked, after saying no, once again, to any proposal but his own, cuts-only solution. And, since he had all the guns, no one in the Legislature asked in return, “Why does he keep refusing our budgets?”
Immediately after the election, the Governor announced that the “voters had spoken” and that the defeat of Prop 1A “clearly” meant that Californians stood adamantly against any new taxes or fees. He must have been reading the leaves in the bottom of his tea cup in order to come to a favored conclusion, however, because [...]
Yesterday, the California Supreme Court ruled on the validity of Proposition 8, the measure adopted by California voters last November to add a new section 7.5 to Article I of the California Constitution, as follows: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”. The measure was challenged by a [...]
It seems pretty obvious that, whether the propositions pass or fail, they create a significant, but different, problem for the state. The total monies brought into the current budget by all the propositions together is about 6 billion dollars. However, over $5 billion of that revenue comes from the sale of the lottery. This makes [...]
While the disciplined Assembly stood by in mid-February, waiting for the Senate to get its game on the field, the Senate speechified on the Floor and slept in the Big White Building. As in the familiar children’s game of musical chairs, the Governor and Senate President pro Temps Darrell Steinberg were simply looking for that [...]
On Thursday, December 18, frustrated with their inability to attract any Republican votes through long negotiations, both the State Assembly and the State Senate decided on an entirely different tack. They would pass a series of majority-vote bills to cut and change the current, 2008-09 budget. Though such a move would not get the state [...]
The 2008-09 budget which was passed in September of last year ( two and a half months late) contained several overly optimistic (I would say wildly unsustainable) assumptions concerning revenue: First, it assumed the sale of over $3 billion in revenue bonds, but no one wanted to buy California bonds. Second, it “borrowed” from over [...]
Literally from the first moment I walked into the California Legislature, and, probably, for years before that, my colleagues “across the aisle” (that is, Republican colleagues) have unceasingly advocated for the elimination of any and all state oversight boards. Pressed to articulate their reasons, they cite the usual mantra of “waste”, and insist that it [...]
Though he’s not yet confirmed, it looks like former Senator Tom Daschle will be joining President Obama (I so like saying that) in his Cabinet, heading up all the agencies that provide resources and oversight for America’s health and healthcare dollars. In addition, he will wear another, related, hat: heading up the new White House [...]
This is my fifth essay for 2008. I interrupt my presentations on the current budget crisis to report on a confidential analysis of SB 840, my legislation creating a single payer health insurance system, requested by anonymous members of the Assembly [the requesters' names are not revealed, as a matter of course, by the Legislative [...]
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