Don’t think that because the Big 5 announced agreement on the budget that it is a done deal. I ran into a Democratic Assemblyman at a book festival over the weekend as I was plugging my mystery novel, Lincoln’s Hand, and he told me he had just been briefed on the budget. He said it was ugly for both sides and he wasn’t sure he could vote for it.

A Wall Street Journal article reports similar remarks from other legislators. This budget drama is not over.

And, neither is the drama over Meg Whitman’s housekeeper, Nicandra Diaz Santillan. The two dramas could be linked in looking at the "big picture" of California’s problems.

I heard a story once about a rookie NFL quarterback who in his first game was blindsided by a wily veteran defensive end. As he lay on the ground the veteran reached out his hand and helped the rookie to his feet, and said to him "Welcome to the NFL, kid."

This week promising political rookie Meg Whitman got blindsided by wily veteran political operatives. They are not likely to help her to her feet but the message is the same. "Welcome to the NFL, kid."

There is only one way to beat this bunch of special interests that will do anything to cling to their power the public be damned.

In this partisan time, there’s one reform all Californians should agree on.

We need to change the way we do candidates’ debates.

In this political season, the debates for California governor and U.S. senator have been too rushed. Their overall length of  these debates – 60 minutes – is too short given all the different topics that debate organizers want to cover. And the time for candidate responses to questions (usually between 30 and 90 seconds tops) doesn’t allow for much more than a very hurried recital of talking points.

In the Governor’s race, the primary jobs discussion in the final month should be about the next 4 years and beyond, and strategies for job growth and sustainability.

However, the Whitman campaign continues to make Jerry Brown’s governorship from 1975-1981 a main issue, including the claim that it was a time of job loss and unemployment. As someone involved in job training during that time, I didn’t recall it that way, and dug up the payroll job growth during that time and the terms of subsequent governors. The research showed a 1.9 million job growth during Brown’s governorship-a larger share of the national job growth than any subsequent time.

A few days ago, Marc Lifsher of the Los Angeles Times wrote of a new study by an economist at Claremont McKenna College that is being pushed by the Whitman campaign as evidence of Brown’s employment  failure. Claremont McKenna is one of our leading colleges in California. The study was conducted by the Lowe Institute of Political Economy. 

On the core charge – that Meg Whitman employed an undocumented immigrant – she has nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty of Californians have done so, knowingly and unknowingly. If this makes her a hypocrite, so what? Immigration law is so thoroughly divorced from the human reality of California that most of us are hypocrites on this issue.

No, Whitman’s problem is how she has reacted to the story. The trouble is not just that she’s had to change her story, most disastrously in insisting neither she nor her husband ever got a letter from the Social Security Administration that he appears to have received. Her righteous attitude — the sense she exuded in Wednesday’s press conference that she didn’t and couldn’t have done the wrong thing – has turned this into a morality play about Whitman’s character. This is bad news for Whitman in two ways.

It’s hard to emerge as the hero of such plays.  And the whole story is off message — voters don’t really care about Whitman personally. They care about what she might be able to do for them as governor.

Proposition 23 to suspend the greenhouse gases law until unemployment drops dramatically has split the business community. Early this week, the California Manufacturer and Technology Association president, Jack Stewart, argued on this site that Proposition 23 must pass to preserve jobs and battle the high costs associated with the law. Other business groups including the California Small Business Association and the California chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business join him in this concern.

On Wednesday in Burbank, a press conference, which included business representatives, delivered the message that Proposition 23 must be defeated to create jobs.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was supposed to anchor the media conference but took a pass to continue budget negotiations. Greg Lippe, former board chair of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association (VICA), a business association powerhouse in the San Fernando Valley, led the event noting that "420 individual businesses, chambers of commerce and business associations" opposed Proposition 23 because they felt the measure would kill economic development and jobs.

Cross-posted at CalWatchDog.com

It’s not so unusual to hear people making disparaging comments about
one another at the Capitol. However, it was shocking to hear the
executive director of the California Budget Project call the research
of Professor Charles Swenson, PhD, the "most error ridden, sloppy piece
of research I’ve ever seen in my life," when she referred to his
analysis of Proposition 24.

Ross testified in favor of passing Proposition 24 the initiative
that seeks to stop several business tax breaks slated to go into effect
in 2010 and 2012. The three tax policies Proposition 24 would reverse
were passed last year by the legislature.

Cross-posted at NewGeography.com

In 2008, California voters approved Proposition 1A to allocate $9.95
billion of the state’s money to a high-speed rail system. Just two
years later, many of these same voters are yelling and screaming at the
High-Speed Rail Authority to revise their plans. Why have Californians
turned against this project so quickly?

Initially High Speed Rail seemed like a wise investment. The California
High-Speed Rail Authority posts a video on its website of President
Obama outlining the benefits of high-speed rail systems. However, by now
this video seems a bit dated. In this April 2009 speech, Obama claims
that not only would high-speed reduce travel time and emissions, but it
would also decrease gridlock and save or create 150,000 jobs. It would
be faster, cheaper, and easier. As if that were not enough to convince
you, he goes on to say that the project is "on schedule and under
budget."

The
California Voter Foundation (CVF) debuted the Fall 2010 edition of its
California Online Voter Guide to help Californians prepare to vote in
the November 2 election.  The guide is online at www.calvoter.org.

California voters face a long and complex ballot.  With eight statewide
offices on the ballot, one U.S. Senate contest, nine statewide
propositions, plus legislative, congressional and local races, a
typical voter will confront at least twenty voting decisions this
election."

To help with that daunting task, CVF has produced a new edition of its nonpartisan California Online Voter Guide, serving as a "one-stop shop" to help voters sort through the state and federal contests.