Cross-posted at NewGeography.com.

In the future, historians may likely mark the 2010 midterm elections as the end of the California era and the beginning of the Texas one. In one stunning stroke, amid a national conservative tide, California voters essentially ratified a political and regulatory regime that has left much of the state unemployed and many others looking for the exits.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s call for a special legislative session to deal with a portion of the budget deficit will probably produce nothing more than rhetoric. Finding six billion dollars to cut out of the budget won’t be easy given that the legislature passed the unbalanced budget 100 days late packed with gimmicks that quickly fell apart.

Will this brand new legislature suddenly find solutions that evaded the previous legislature — over the holiday season no less?

Certainly, the majority Democrats would like to smooth the way for Governor-elect Jerry Brown and at least put this current year’s budget in balance before the new governor has to challenge the monstrous debt he inherits. But, that almost certainly means cutting to the bone programs that the Democrats do not want to cut and, in fact, found ways to fund after Governor Schwarzenegger chopped spending with his line item veto.

Cross-posted at CalWatchdog.

Less than a month ago, on Oct. 18, Moody’s Investor Service issued a report calculating California’s situation as “at least $12 billion in future budget gaps.”

Now, the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report calculating a deficit of $25 billion — double the Moody’s number:

Our forecast of California’s General Fund revenues and expenditures shows that the state must address a budget problem of $25.4 billion between now and the time the Legislature enacts a 2011-12 state budget plan. The budget problem consists of a $6 billion projected deficit for 2010-11 and a $19 billion gap between projected revenues and spending in 2011–12.

Obscene salaries, conflicts of interest, lavish travel
expenses . . . I am still on the "Local" page of the paper, right?  I didn’t accidentally flip to
"International"? Nope.  This really is
about local government in California.  At
least other parts of the world have an excuse. 
They are still learning this whole democracy thing.  But California is the birthplace of
progressive democracy, the home state of sunshine laws.  How do these things happen here?

They happen because transparency only works if people are
looking. If the recent scandals teach us anything, it is the importance of
keeping our eyes open.  

The decision that led to scandal in the City of Bell may
have begun behind locked doors in some smoke filled room, but it was approved
by ballot.  The problem was that less one
percent of Bell’s residents voted on a measure to detach the city from state
restrictions on municipal compensation.  It was a decision that impacted every resident
of the city.  And it occurred, in large
part, because citizens were disengaged.

Cross-posted at RonKayeLA

At the height of his power when the leadership of LA still was driven by a vision of greatness for the city as well as greed for themselves, Tom Bradley pushed through a 1978 Charter measure that barred the use of public funds to support the 1984 Olympics because he knew it was the only way the people of the city would support it.

It was a great Olympics by any measure, hugely profitable, a grand spectacle and dire warnings about traffic gridlock never materialized because trucks were banned from freeways during rush hours and major companies staggered their work hours.

Oh, what happy days those were!

It’s been a long downhill slide ever since as the commitment to public benefits has disappeared from the agenda of politicians and the civic and business leadership, resulting in thwarted demands from the people for major reforms from Valley secession to devolution of power through a borough system.

Cross-posted at CalWatchdog

The Nov. 2 election was almost a total wipe-out for California Republicans. They even lost the 28th state Senate District to incumbent Jenny Oropeza, who died two weeks earlier.

At the state level, they were smashed in every race except attorney general. Republican Steve Cooley barely leads as counting goes on. Yet he should have easily beaten opponent Kamala Harris, the far-left Democratic district attorney from San Francisco who opposes the popular death penalty.

Is there any hope for this party regaining its running legs? Or should it be led to the elephant graveyard like in one of those old Tarzan movies?

I will not concede.

It does not matter that I spent $140 million and am still a dozen points down in the exits. It does not matter that by waiting I am making myself look out of touch. I want to see results from the Secretary of State’s office. And then I want to wait a few hours more.

It does not matter if every media organization in the country has declared the incumbent U.S. Senator the winner – and me the loser. I will lash out at the media for calling the race, saying that “it was maybe not a smart thing to do.” And I will not be the least bit ashamed or apologetic the next morning, when I meet the media.

It does not matter if my party lost a record number of seats in the House of Representatives under my direction. It does not matter that the entire middle of the country thinks that I’m the devil. I will continue to lead my party, no matter what it does to my party.

Amid the shock over the Legislative Analyst’s Office announcement yesterday that California is staring down the barrel of a 25 billion dollar deficit, hangs the question: Wouldn’t it have been good for the voters to have had this information before the election?

Certainly, part of the deficit calculation made by the LAO was created by the voters with their decisions on ballot initiatives. The LAO reported, for instance, that passing Proposition 22 to protect local revenue opened an $800-million hole in the state budget.

However, there is plenty of budget analysis that was certain before the election and could have been reported before Election Day.

Like many in California, I hold the Legislative Analyst’s Office in the highest regard. And I understand that even if this report were made before the election it might have been lost in campaign rhetoric. But, the legislature is only one of the governing bodies at work in California. The voters making decisions on ballot measures are also policy makers.

For a journalist, there’s nothing quite like a really big disaster – the sinking of the Titanic, the explosion of the Hindenburg, the Meg Whitman campaign for governor. You can spend weeks or months or years sifting through the wreckage and pinning the blame. It’s a joyous exercise for reporters.

Let’s take the most recent of those historic calamities, Meg 2010. Now, this was a campaign with problems, including having too much money for its own good. Its strategic mistakes were numerous. The heavily staffed campaign offers many rich targets for balme.

But there is one specific criticism that should be re-examined before it becomes conventional wisdom: that Whitman could have escaped damage from the revelation that her housekeeper, Nicky Diaz Santillan, was an undocumented immigrant by putting the story out herself, shortly after she learned of the situation in June 2009. Handled this way, goes the media wisdom, it might have been a one-day story.
Nonsense. This would have been big news – and a serious problem for the Whitman campaign — whenever it was released.

Let’s imagine that Whitman had imbibed this media wisdom and had announced the news about the housekeeper on some August day in 2009. Let’s say that, in a speech on immigration, she would have mentioned that she had to fire herhousekeeper, whom she would not name, when she learned she was undocumented. Would the reaction really have been so different?