Author: John Wildermuth

The Legislature swings back into action today with a lineup of issues that promises to be just as divisive as the budget battle that tied up the Assembly and state Senate for weeks before last month’s summer recess.

Back then, the fight was all about the budget. This time, it’s about water, prison reform, energy, jobs, political reform and taxes. And, yeah, the state budget.

With the clock ticking on his time in office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is desperate to put the budget in the rear-view mirror and move on to something else. But Republicans and Democrats already are scuffling over the agreement that purportedly solved – or at least papered over – the problems in California’s financial plan.

The $1 billion in local highway money the state didn’t get in last month’s budget agreement could be a target again when the Legislature comes back from its summer recess next week, Darrell Steinberg, the Democratic leader in the state Senate, suggested Wednesday.

Steinberg, joined by local Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, was at a neighborhood health center in San Francisco’s Mission District, talking about his suit to recover nearly $500 million Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger blue-penciled from state health and welfare programs before he signed the budget revisions.

"We could go back to (the highway money),” he told the crowd of doctors, nurses, patients and various care providers. "That’s one way to do this.”

Wednesday’s decision by the state’s largest gay rights group to wait until 2012 before trying to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage makes perfect political sense. The problem is, for many people, marriage equality is anything but a political issue.

Equality California backed up its announcement with a 32-page report showing why it would be a bad idea to put a gay marriage amendment on a 2010 ballot. The poll numbers haven’t budged since the last election, raising the $40 million to $50 million needed for a successful campaign will take time and political consultants, polled by Equality California, agreed that November 2012, with President Obama running for re-election, will bring out the voters most likely to support a same-sex marriage initiative.

The reaction to that tightly reasoned argument could be seen on the Equality California blog.

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown says that former state Controller Steve Westly and Orange County Rep. Loretta Sanchez could be getting ready to jump into the Democratic race for governor.

Steve Maviglio, a veteran Democratic operative, tosses names like state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, state schools chief Jack O’Connell, San Mateo County Rep. Jackie Speier, former Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick and, what the hell, former state Sen. John Burton into the mix.

On the GOP side, there’s talk that Ventura County Supervisor Peter Foy and someone, anyone from the conservative reaches of Southern California will join a Republican primary that now features a trio of pro-choice moderates from Silicon Valley.

These are the dog days of summer and the political Hot Stove League is in full swing. But just like those proposed sports radio trades of a .250 utility man for a big-time slugger or a 20-game winner, the speculation is for entertainment value only.

Democrats couldn’t ask for a better title than “Steinberg vs. Schwarzenegger” for the lawsuit challenging the governor’s right to blue-pencil nearly $500 million in health and welfare spending from last month’s budget revision deal.

It’s short, snappy and leaves no doubt that Darrell Steinberg, the Democratic leader in the state Senate, is willing to stand up to California’s movie star governor to protect the safety net for the state’s most vulnerable residents.

That’s stirring stuff that will likely show up in plenty of Democratic Party fund-raising pleas this year. But, win or lose, the suit’s not going to make much difference to a tapped-out state.

Even if the case is decided quickly and even if a judge rules that the line-item vetoes were illegal, where’s the $489 million to restore that funding going to come from?

Over his decades on California’s political scene, it’s always been a trick to tell when Attorney General Jerry Brown is joking and when he’s dead serious.

Still, it’s hard to imagine that Brown, who can be one intense guy, didn’t have at least a hint of a grin when he released his take on the latest fund-raising numbers in the Democratic race for governor.

As of June 30, Brown had $7.3 million in his campaign war chest, compared to $1.2 million for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the only official Democratic candidate for governor. Even more tellingly, Brown only spent $253,181 in that same period, while Newsom burned through $1.5 million.

Those numbers, Brown said, show that his campaign is “exercising the fiscal discipline desperately needed in government today.’’

Try being a politician and saying that with a straight face.

It was Christmas in August for Democratic legislators Tuesday as a trio of federal judges gave them the gift of political cover.

The order to cut California’s prison population by more than 40,000 over the next two years – and the short, 45-day window to come up with a plan – will ease of pressure on Democrats facing some ugly political choices later this month.

There wasn’t a Democrat in the Assembly or state Senate who was looking forward to coming back to Sacramento to face a raucous debate on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan for slashing the prison budget through a combination of early releases and sentencing changes.

Taking 27,000 inmates out of the prisons – and releasing many of them back into their communities – was guaranteed to bring out the loud chants of “soft on crime” from conservatives, local police chiefs and plenty of everyday voters.

California’s economy may be hurting, but Republican Meg Whitman is doing everything she can to pull the political consulting industry out of the doldrums.

In the first six months the former eBay CEO – and political newbie – spent more than $2 million on political consultants and nearly $500,000 on polling for her likely run for governor.

It’s not as though she can’t afford it. Whitman, who was one of the 400 richest people in America back in 2007, had $4.9 million in her campaign war chest on June 30 and put another $15 million of her own into the “exploratory” campaign effort last month. Add to that the $2 million-plus she’s raised from donors in the past month and it’s obvious she can bring in all the outside experts she wants.

Still, you have to wonder if there are any questions left to ask after spending that much on polling. And if Whitman already has pumped out a couple million for consulting fees nearly a year before next June’s GOP primary, what’s the final total likely to be?

When a newspaper asked the 2010 candidates for governor how they would handle California’s budget mess, Attorney General Jerry Brown begged off, saying through a spokesman that he wasn’t an official candidate for the state’s top office.

The once and possibly future governor should try telling that – with a straight face – to the 100-plus donors who already have given him more than the $6,500 maximum for the June primary for attorney general, the campaign he’s still “officially” planning.

Although the official campaign finance figures for the first half of the year aren’t due until Monday, it’s clear that Brown is raising serious money for his all-but-guaranteed governor’s campaign despite being bound – for now — by the much lower contribution limits of a down-ballot race.

That’s terrible news for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the only announced Democratic candidate for governor. If Brown is smoking Newsom in fund-raising now, how much worse will it get when the attorney general actually announces he’ll seek a third term as California’s governor?