Author: Daniel Weintraub

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision ordering California to reduce its prison population by 30,000 over the next two years has sent shockwaves through the Capitol as legislators and the Brown Administration struggle with how the state will comply.

Some are hoping that the ruling, and the attention it is getting, will give new momentum to Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to extend about $11 billion in temporary tax increases that are expiring this year. Brown wants to use some of that money to reimburse counties for taking control of inmates who have short sentences or have been returned to prison for violating the conditions of their parole.

Voters, the thinking goes, will be more likely to approve the tax hikes if they think one of the consequences of not doing so will be the release of dangerous felons to the streets.

Setting aside the question of whether such releases really need to happen, is this really an issue that can drive voter sentiment?

Maybe. But it depends on how it is framed.

The revised budget Gov. Jerry Brown released Monday does not
seem any more likely to win Republican votes than the governor’s original plan.

Brown is still pushing to extend billions of dollars in
expiring taxes, except now he wants the Legislature to vote directly on the
taxes rather than simply scheduling an election. 

The election would come later, and voters would be asked to
ratify the Legislature’s decision.

But if Republicans wouldn’t vote for an election on taxes,
why would they vote for the taxes themselves?

That’s a tough sell for Brown. Making it even tougher,
ironically, is the $6.6 billion increase in the state’s revenue projection for
this year and next.

Days before Gov. Jerry Brown releases his revised budget proposal for the coming year, Republicans in the state Assembly have offered their own outline they say would balance the budget without renewing temporary taxes that have expired or about to do so.

Republicans are clearly hoping to corner Brown and Democratic lawmakers by making education funding the centerpiece of their plan. They say they are proposing the same level of spending Brown has already offered for education, and no further cuts to the state’s universities.

Brown is widely expected to say that unless the state extends the temporary taxes, deep cuts to schools are inevitable. With their plan, Assembly Republicans will claim that education spending can be protected without extending the temporary taxes.

The Republican plan also spares $500 million in local public safety funding and scraps Brown’s proposal to shift an array of services to cities and counties.

Gino
DiCaro of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association calls me out here  for not being understanding enough
about the plight of his bosses in the California manufacturing sector.

His
beef is with a recent piece  in which I pointed out that
employment growth in California last year actually outpaced the nation if you
remove the effect of government layoffs and ongoing problems in the
construction industry, which was particularly hart hit by the collapse of the housing
market in California.

A new poll released
Wednesday has good news and bad news for Gov. Jerry Brown.

The good news is that
his public approval ratings have rebounded slightly since March, according to
this survey by the Public Policy Institute of California. About 40 percent of
adults now view him favorably, compared to 34 percent a month earlier.

More good news: a
majority of Californians still like the idea of a special election to vote on
the budget, and they say they like Brown’s plan to balance the budget with a
mix of cuts and taxes.

Then there is the bad
news, for Brown.

The voters don’t like
some of the taxes in the package he is advocating, even if they are tied
explicitly to maintaining funding for the schools.

The budget compromise struck last week by President Obama and Republicans in Congress deals a major blow to plans by community clinics in California and across the nation to expand in order to serve people who will be newly eligible for subsidized health care when the federal health reform takes effect in 2014.

The agreement will take $600 million from the anticipated growth in funding for community clinics, which were expected to play a major role in providing care as part of the federal Affordable Care Act, passed last year and under assault by Republicans in Congress.

The deal shaves that money from $1 billion that had been set aside for the expansion of community health centers, according to Carmela Castellano-Garcia, president and chief executive officer of the California Primary Care Association.

Of the remaining $400 million in that fund, $250 million is already committed, leaving just $150 million to finance new expansions for the health centers. Three hundred and fifty health centers have already applied for a piece of that money.

A new Field Poll on federal health reform has found that Californians support the law by almost exactly the same margin as they did on the day it passed more than a year ago: 52 to 37. Despite a vigorous debate before and after the bill’s passage, a federal election that centered on the issue, and two federal court ruling finding parts of the law unconstitutional, public opinion here is pretty much frozen in place.

One big reason for that is that peoples’ opinion about the law seem to have as much to do with who they are than what the law would do. Democrats and ethnic minorities – both more numerous in California than elsewhere – support the law in large numbers. Republicans oppose it.

It probably is not a surprise that people who say they have benefitted from the parts of the law that have already been implemented like the law the most. But strangely, those who say they have benefitted are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans.

If you’re already skeptical about the state’s ability to cut billions of dollars from projected spending levels, the new contract Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has negotiated with public safety employees will not do much to win your confidence.

A review of the deal by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s office shows how far it will likely come from achieving the 10 percent savings that Brown and lawmakers pledged to make it the next round of state employee contracts. The analyst believes the contract will actually increase costs this year, save just 2.8 percent next year and then start adding to the state’s payroll costs again the year after next.

The contract is for Unit 7, the public safety workers who protect state lands and buildings, issue licenses and permits, and conduct investigations. They include California Highway Patrol dispatchers, DMV examiners, Department of Justice agents, park rangers, and Department of Mental Health police. They also include fraud investigators for the automotive repair program.

Attitudes toward immigration have traditionally swung with the economy. When times are good, people feel good about pretty much everything, and less threatened by immigration and its potential effect on them. When times turn bad, folks tend to look for scapegoats, and they either blame immigrants for the economy’s problems or express fears that immigrants will be bad for the country and the state.

California saw this in 1994, when voters approved a measure that sought to end public benefits for undocumented immigrants, and again in 2003, when then-Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain a drivers license, and the backlash against that law helped drive him from office in a recall election.

But the connection between the economy and public attitudes toward immigration may be moderating. Two recent polls suggest that Californians remain fairly sanguine about immigrants and immigration, despite high unemployment and a big and persistent budget deficit.

A Field Poll last week found that nearly half – 47 percent – of registered voters said that recent immigration was having no effect on California’s quality of life. Thirty-nine percent said immigration was making things worse, and 10 percent said it was improving the state’s quality of life.