The Citizens Redistricting Commission is taking a page from Inspector Clouseau, the bumbling and incompetent French detective in the Pink Panther movies whose crime investigations always suffer from his own ineptitude. After a corrupt process of selecting a line drawing specialist which I detailed in my post last week, it now turns out that the law firm they hired as their Voting Rights Act “experts” is equally tainted.

The law creating this commission is quite specific: Section 8253 of the Government Code provides: “The commission shall require that at least one of the legal counsel hired by the commission has demonstrated extensive experience and expertise in implementation and enforcement of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. Sec 1971 ff).”

The commission put out bids in order to engage a firm to do this. The choice narrowed down to two well known law firms, Nielsen Merksamer and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. But then Nielsen Merksamer was conflicted out because it is a “lobbying firm” (not unusual for public law firms). I wrote at the time that the real agenda here was to hire as VRA counsel one George H. Brown who served with Commissioner Maria Blanco on the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, a far left bunch of activist attorneys who pass their time with immigrant asylum issues and assuring convicted felons the right to vote. Brown was part of the Gibson Dunn bid along with well known Republican attorney Daniel Kolkey.

With a June election to extend the 2009 tax increases
now officially kaput, and legislative leaders and the Governor
committing to not place the measure on a June ballot by a majority vote, state leaders are entering
uncharted territory in their quest to resolve California’s fiscal crisis.

What are the fallback options to address another $15
billion or more in budget solutions by the new Prop 25 deadline, which is June
15 or legislative pay is cut off?

Here are my thoughts on a Plan B, and for good
measure Plans C and D:

Plan B: A gimmicky or worse budget approved by the
Legislature by June 15. Legislative Democrats have created the specter of an "all cuts"
budget, even prevailing on the Legislative Analyst to prepare a list of cuts to illustrate the shape
and extent of another $13.5 billion in spending cuts. But an all-cuts budget is
either a myth or a euphemism. More likely will be a revised plan that avoids
most of the worst cuts, whacks some earlier untouched areas, like K-14
education and corrections, but that papers over the gap using tried and true
methods of the past decade.

The small business community is frustrated and angry about the business and political climate in California, if my experience yesterday is a guide.

At the request of California National Federation of Independent Business executive director, John Kabateck, I had the privilege of moderating a panel on Employer and Labor relations in the current political environment at NFIB’s yearly conference.

However, it was before that panel began that I saw the concern of small business in the questions from the attendees directed at Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway, state senator Anthony Cannella, assembly members Shannon Grove and Henry Perea, and especially senate pro tem, Darrell Steinberg.

Questioner after questioner blasted the state for undercutting business. Many of the business owners complained of laid-off workers, lost profits, and even watching other companies leave the state.

The monthly state job numbers released last Friday showed
a dramatic increase in payroll jobs in California. Payroll employment jumped by
96,500 jobs. This increase amounted to more than half of all jobs created
nationwide.

How real is this increase? What caused it? What have been
the causes of previous recoveries in California employment following major
recessions?

With Governor Jerry Brown declaring the end of budget
negotiations there is plenty of uncertainty of how the budget gap of over
$15-billion will be resolved. Two main avenues get all the buzz: A majority
vote scheme to put tax measures on the ballot or seeking a November ballot
initiative. I believe the second approach is most likely.

Elsewhere on this site, Loren Kaye discusses the possibility
of seeking a majority vote to place taxes on the ballot and the hurdles in the
path of that approach. Perhaps the governor or Democrats in the legislature
might try to test the legal obstacles along that path by filing a lawsuit
themselves and search for a friendly judge to get a ruling on the majority vote
approach. Possible–but unlikely.

The November ballot approach is much more likely, especially
if the state’s economy improves. If the state brings in more dollars than
projected, the budget can be massaged past the end of the fiscal year and
initiatives would be filed for November in an attempt to secure even more
revenue. Look for the new state revenue figures as a portent of this approach.

Some cuts will have to be made and schools are the likely
target. However, cuts to schools could well play into the hands of those promoting
a November tax initiative. With the school year starting a short two months
before the election, news of the cuts will be fresh in the minds of
voters. 

You can’t have a game when only one team wants to play.

Since the Republicans don’t want to play in the effort to build a realistic state budget, Gov. Jerry Brown Tuesday called off the game.

That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who was paying attention Friday evening when Republicans released their list of requests/demands for what they needed before they would give Gov. Jerry Brown the votes to put his tax extension plan on the June ballot.

It was a Christmas list that included every proposal California Republicans have dreamed of for the past decade, along with changes they wanted made to the list of painful spending cuts Brown had browbeaten his unhappy fellow Democrats into passing.

How frantic are
Democrats in the Legislature to place a tax measure on a special election
ballot? If negotiations with legislative Republicans break down for good,
Democrats might just be desperate enough to assert new legal authority that
would bypass existing constitutional protections.

As I’ve noted earlier, the Constitution grants the
Legislature three mechanisms by which they can place a question before the
voters:  proposing a general obligation bond or constitutional amendment,
each of which requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, or proposing an
amendment to a statute that was approved by voter initiative, which requires a
simple majority vote of the Legislature. The latter two mechanisms could be
used to present to the voters the tax extension question. The Governor has
proposed and is still supporting a constitutional amendment, ACA 2 in the first extraordinary session.
However, legal scholars have construed the initiative amendment authority to be
quite narrow, and Democrats in the Legislature seem to be backing away from
that route to the ballot.

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.

In August 2009, I wrote a column for Fox & Hounds entitled
"Reach out, Republicans, or lose!"

In that article, I wrote that California Republicans can
yell and scream all they want on the issues of taxes, socialize medicine, and
corporate bailouts. But unless the California Republican Party is able to
persuade significant numbers of Latinos, Asians and other people of color to
register in their party and/or vote for their candidates, it will not elect a governor or
any statewide official in 2010 and could very well lose additional seats in
congress and the state legislature.

Well, that wasn’t Chicken Little talking and that is exactly
what happened.

If Republican leaders and elected officials – the few that
are left – don’t quickly wake up, 2012 could very well see the sky again fall
on the California Republican Party.

We all know the facts.