Budget Vote Trading

California Penal Code Section 86 is explicit about the legality of a lawmaker trading their vote for some other action: 

“Every Member of either house of the Legislature, or any member of the legislative body of a city, county, city and county, school district, or other special district, who asks, receives, or agrees to receive, any bribe, upon any understanding that his or her official vote, opinion, judgment, or action shall be influenced thereby, or shall give, in any particular manner, or upon any particular side of any question or matter upon which he or she may be required to act in his or her official capacity, or gives, or offers or promises to give, any official vote in consideration that another Member of the Legislature, or another member of the legislative body of a city, county, city and county, school district, or other special district shall give this vote either upon the same or another question, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years and, in cases in which no bribe has been actually received, by a restitution fine of not less than two thousand dollars ($2,000) or not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000).     Read more »

More

A Nicely Articulated Budget “No” Vote

(Editor’s Note: The following is a well-conceived statement released February 13 by Sen. Bob Dutton, a Rancho Cucamonga Republican. It outlines why he won’t be voting for the current proposed budget which, incidentally, the California Chamber of Commerce, a traditional GOP ally, has urged lawmakers to support. Of note, is Sen.    Read more »

More

Budget Vote Scheduling

Attention: Editors & Interested Media

Budget Vote Scheduling

— For Planning Purposes Only — 

As you know, because of the two-thirds vote needed for passage of a state budget, the “aye” votes of at least three Republicans in both the Assembly and the Senate will be required. Tax increases, temporary and/or permanent, will be part of the budget package.     Read more »

More

Save the California Conservation Corps

That’s what the four governors who preceded Arnold Schwarzenegger — two Democrats and two Republicans — are urging the GOP governor to do. 

Schwarzenegger’s budget released December 31 would eliminate the state conservation corps July 1, to save $17 million, a fraction of the state’s $42 billion budget shortfall. Its responsibilities would be transferred to local corps.    Read more »

More

Deja Vu All Over Again

For the second time in its 60-year history, California’s unemployment insurance fund is insolvent – this time in a big way. 

In 2004, a $214 million loan from the federal government coupled with an improved economy pulled the fund out of the red and allowed benefits to continue to be paid to out-of-work Californians.     Read more »

More

Rumor du Jour: Budget Vote February 3

A budget vote February 3 is the latest rumor du jour rolling through the state Capitol. 

Allegedly the spending reductions – and tax increases – have been agreed to and the focus of continuing budget talks is the shape of the so-called “economic stimulus” legal changes sought by Gov. Schwarzenegger and his GOP allies.     Read more »

More

Proposition 98 and the Budget — Who’s Right?

A central part of this year’s budget negotiations is funding for schools and the intricate workings of Proposition 98, the voter-approved 1988 initiative whose formulas dictate the level of state financial support for public education. 

Gov. Schwarzenegger is proposing schools receive $6.6 billion less during the current school year –  $2.5 billion in actual cuts plus $4.5 billion in deferrals and transfers the administration says are aimed at not harming classroom instruction.     Read more »

More

How To Destroy the Majority Vote Budget

Democrats know that should their majority vote budget get signed into law, it’s going to be challenged in court and probably on the ballot. 

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has already announced it will sue. 

They’ll need to take a look at the state constitution first. 

A good starting point is Article XIII A, a section of the constitution that should be familiar to the group since its namesake helped add it to the constitution as 1978’s Proposition 13.     Read more »

More

Your Tax Dollars At Work

News Item: State of California Faces $28 billion Revenue Shortfall Absent Corrective Action, Legislative Analyst reports. 

Lawmakers came to Sacramento December 4, took their oaths of office, followed by celebratory lunches or gatherings then blew town. 

But they did take action: They introduced 90-some bills, resolutions and constitutional amendments. 

In the Senate, it’s new leader, Darrell Steinberg, placed the first measure across the desk of the upper house’s 2009-2010 session: A spot bill declaring the Legislature’s intent to offer universal health care for California’s kids.     Read more »

More

SALT II It Ain’t But…

Recently, California’s Capitol had the privilege of moderating a panel comprised of GOP Assemblyman Roger Niello of Sacramento and Assemblyman Jared Huffman, a San Rafael Democrat.*

Since it was the 67th Annual Conference of the California Water Association a fair amount of time was spent discussing water – or the state’s lack thereof – and assessing the cut of Huffman’s jib given his appointment as the new chair of the lower house’s Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee.    Read more »

More