With the looming
budget deadline hanging over the heads of legislators this week, it got me
thinking about one of my father’s favorite "dad-ism’s," "Early is on time, on
time is late, and late is unacceptable". Simple. Elegant. Words to live by in
any situation.

With Wednesday’s deadline nearly upon us, it is looking like our State
Legislature is aiming for unacceptable….Again. Lets face it, lawmakers routinely
fail to pass the budget on time. When I asked one voter if he knew when the
last time the budget was passed on time he stated, "it feels like it has been
forever."

A people’s revolution came into play with the passing of Prop 25 that allowed
voters to reform a horribly broken budget process.  Not only did it aim to
stop gridlock by permitting a simple majority to approve the budget, but
— and here is the part I really like — it held the legislators
accountable by placing a pretty hefty set of consequences if they didn’t meet
the deadline.  Lawmakers would lose a day’s pay for each day the budget is
late. They cannot pay themselves back once they do finally pass it.

With the term limited mayoral run of Antonio Villaraigosa
coming to an end next year, a number of possible candidates are lining up to
test the waters in a quest to become Los Angeles’ next mayor. Two potential
major candidates are successful businessmen: developer Rick Caruso and
investment banker Austin Beutner.

I had an opportunity to see both men in action last week.
Beutner attended a small gathering of the Valley Vote Board of Directors while
Caruso was also in the San Fernando Valley speaking to a couple of hundred
members of the United Chambers of Commerce.

Both Caruso and Beutner have spent some time in government.
Caruso served on Los Angeles commissions including the city’s police
commission. Beutner worked as Mayor Villaraigosa’s deputy mayor for economic
and business policy, but also worked for the U.S. State Department in Russia
helping the former Soviet Union transition to a market economy.

Old men are warning us about a war that has already started.

Across the
spectrum, people from Gov. Jerry Brown to Mr. Fox, proprietor of this web site,
say that if there is no budget deal, we will see a "war of all against all" in
this state.

Hasn’t that
war been going on for at least a generation?

In the
1970s, court decisions on school finance, Prop 13 and the post-Prop 13 bailout
of local governments centralized decisions about tax and spending in
Sacramento. That meant everyone was competing in the same place for the same
pie.

On Friday, the Citizens’ Redistricting Commission revealed their draft maps, the first glimpse the public has had at the maps that the fourteen-member commission has drawn over the last several months.

Looking at the maps, average voter analysis may extend as far as trying to discover which district their house has been drawn in to. Others might look to find out who will represent their parents now, too.

But in local government, where the webs of influence can be dramatically altered by being drawn into new districts, or being divided from other communities of interest, the stakes are much higher.

Meridian Maps went live on Friday, providing a single-source host of not only the maps published by the Citizens’ Redistricting Commission, but it also has several other groups’ proposed maps, including ones drawn by the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans for Fair Redistricting; the California Institute for Jobs, Economy, and Education; and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The consulting firm Meridian Pacific, which hosts Meridian Maps, was widely quoted in news outlets across the state on Friday, as reporters were looking to better understand how these maps were drawn, and what their implications are.

As the budget deadline bears down on Jerry Brown, he obviously has no intention of being truthful with Californians. In his latest masking of reality, Brown says: “We have a plan, and it’s a very good plan,” Brown said. “It will put California’s finances on a firm footing for many, many years to come.” In truth, Brown plan includes a 27% increase in spending purportedly financed by $58 billion in new taxes over 5 years. That’s not economic firm footing – it’s more like financial quicksand.

Let’s be clear about the state of the California budget. There is no need for a tax increase and any such tax rate increase will only hurt future budgets. Several weeks ago, Republicans gave Brown a no tax increase budget that preserved education funding. Brown said no.

Why? Two simple reasons. First, he wants more money to pay for his 27% increase in spending. That’s right, all of Brown’s scare tactics and demands for taxes this year have nothing to do with this year’s budget – they have to do with his completely irresponsible desire to increase spending by $24 billion dollars over the next three years alone. Neither a single independent nor Democrat voter I have spoken to about that spending increase believes that is the right thing to do. Instead of making videos, perhaps Jerry Brown should level with California voters about his spending increase.

Pew Research Center released a survey last month which was encouragingly called “Beyond Red vs. Blue.” Encouraging, that is, for the growing number of Americans eager to find a way out of the partisanship which has come to dominate public policy making at nearly every level of government.

The study—an 150 page analysis—was quickly digested by reporters eager to get a leg up on the latest political trends just as the Republicans held their first televised Presidential debate in South Carolina which, notably, holds both an early primary and an open primary in which independents are allowed to vote.

“Voters More Complex than Red/Blue” wrote ABC political director Amy Walter. “The Misunderstood Independent,” echoed Aaron Blake and Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post.

The fifth study of its kind conducted by Pew since 1987, the survey aims to give a broad overview of the character of the electorate and sorts Americans into eight cohesive groups based on values, political beliefs, and party affiliation.

For the past few weeks, a Los Angeles class action
law firm has been advertising for a Government Affairs Director. Now I know you
are wondering, why would we care, but personally, I thought it was a little
funny – a class action law firm looking for a government affairs director with
3-10 years of experience. And I might add that they are paying this position
$70,000 – $110,000 a year. Not bad. I even thought about applying…. kidding.

On one level I guess we should be thrilled that
someone is actually hiring people in California. But seriously, there has not
been any class action reform in this state for years. More than four class
actions are filed every day that California superior courts are in session,
according to the Civil Justice
Association of California. Not a day goes by, it seems, that there
isn’t another class action notice in the mail telling you that you will receive
a free DVD rental while the lawyers will get millions.

As the calendar moves toward the Legislature’s June 15 deadline for passing a budget and the June 30 expiration of billions of dollars in temporary taxes, pressure is building on Democrats to cut a deal with Republicans, on mostly Republican terms.

Republican leaders have already said they would go along with calling a special election on the taxes if Democrats will accept a series of reform the GOP lawmakers are pushing.

If a handful of Republicans will also vote to extend the taxes from July 1 until Election Day, they will be able to extract maximum concessions from the Democrats.

But if June 30 comes and goes and there is still no deal, much of that Republican leverage will disappear.

The meetings of the California Division of Occupational
Safety and Health usually aren’t one of the state’s hottest tickets, but boy,
was Tuesday an exception.

In one of those only in California events, Cal/OSHA
officials held a public
hearing to discuss requiring actors in porno films to use condoms.

Or, as the state bureaucrats would
have it, "each employer having any employees with occupational exposure as
defined by subsection (b) of this section shall establish, implement and
maintain an effective Exposure Control Plan which is designed to eliminate or
minimize employee exposure and which is also consistent with Section 3203."