The question we dealt with in deciding the Fox and Hounds Daily Second Annual Black Bart Award winner as Californian of the Year was: Is the obvious choice always the best choice? A strong argument was made that an unexpected player who changed the course of California politics might be an appropriate choice. In this category, Nicky Diaz Santillan had strong support. Meg Whitman’s former housekeeper certainly upset the Whitman strategy and changed the course of the gubernatorial campaign.

However, even if Diaz Santillan had never shed one tear in front of a camera or found her name in one newspaper, the odds are Whitman would have lost the governor’s race, anyway.

Governor-elect Jerry Brown was mentioned by all three of our writers as a nominee for Californian of the Year. He is the winner of the Second Annual Black Bart Award.

Cross-posted at CalWatchdog.

California’s Democratic leaders would have you believe that our state’s budget has been cut to the bone. They contend that the state’s never-ending budget deficit—currently estimated at more than $28 billion over 18 months—is the inevitable result of an unusually bad economy, and that more revenue is needed to avoid devastating service cuts. This is a false choice—there remains fat to cut in California’s budget, if politicians are willing to overcome union objections to doing so.

Governor-elect Jerry Brown (D) held a budget briefing earlier this month and fiscal conservatives took heart that the new governor was dealing forthrightly with dismal budget realities.

However, there’s no mistaking that Brown and his Democratic colleagues featured at the briefing (Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Assembly Speaker John Perez, Controller John Chiang and Treasurer Bill Lockyer) view higher taxes as the prime solution to California’s problem. Perez, a former union organizer, said as much at the meeting. Steinberg, a close union ally, repeatedly voiced his concern about the effect of budget cuts on the state’s public employees.

The briefing was designed to show that California can no longer afford the sort of one-time budget-balancing gimmicks tried in the past. That much is true. There are no more revenues to shuffle around redevelopment agencies, no more federal revenues that will backfill gaping holes in the budget, no more opportunities to accelerate the collection of personal income and corporate taxes. In fact, Brown’s presentation noted that 75 percent to 85 percent of the predicted savings from short-term budget solutions over the last three years did not materialize.

When the Boston Red Sox ended their long World Series drought in 2004, Sports Illustrated recognized the long suffering Red Sox Nation – the entire fan base – as its sports person of the year. In that spirit of selecting a large group as deserving, I would like to consider the Voters of California as Californian of the Year.

In the November elections, the voters set down markers that are making seasoned cryptographers scratch their heads. Not only did the Voters stop the Republican national wave across the country, they established the Democrats as nearly unchallenged leaders in this state.

The voters, of course, were not in lockstep with the Democratic Party. They opposed a number of ballot measures that the party supported, especially the redistricting measures.

More glaringly, the voters continued to handcuff the instincts of the newly elected leaders by shooting down tax increases and making it harder to raise fees.

Is there method to the voters’ madness, political scientists ask?

The late, great New York Times columnist William Safire made a habit of writing a year-end column he called Office Pool. In it, Safire offered, multiple-choice style, a series of possible news events that could take place in the year ahead. At the column’s end, he let you know which ones he thought actually would occur.

Safire’s focus was Washington, though he delved into culture and sports too. Here we do California Office Pool, for the second year. My picks are at the end. (Last year, I picked the Ron George resignation but got very little else right). Be sure to make your predictions, and clip n’ save (or bookmark and save) so we can see how we did at the end of 2010.

1. At the end of 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown’s chief of staff will be:

A. Anne Gust Brown, unofficially with no one holding the title
B. Anne Gust Brown, officially
C. Jim Humes
D. Gray Davis
E. Susan Kennedy
F. Gavin Newsom
G. Tom Quinn

No this is not a new song by Lady Gaga. This is a another honor, or should I say dishonor, bestowed upon the Golden State. The American Tort Reform Association releases an annual Judicial Hellholes report. This year California ranks second on its list of Judicial Hellholes. This year’s report focuses on six areas in the nation that are known for uneven justice.

This year, the top honor goes to Philadelphia, Pennslyvania. The City of Brotherly love is also in a love affair with trial lawyers I guess. Litigation tourism is being viewed by some as a form of economic stimulous. Punitive damages over $1 million in Philadelphia have reportedly tripled.

In second place is California, particularly Los Angeles and Humboldt counties. In Los Angeles, a $208.8 million verdict for a single asbestos claimant, the largest such award in California history, is a prime example. Humboldt county hosted a $677 million class action verdict against a nursing home provider for occasionally falling below staffing levels required by state regulators, even though no injury was claimed by the plaintiffs. These in addition to extortionate disability access claims against small businesses and expansive liability have placed California as a judicial hellole.

Let’s start with the person who is not my Californian of the
year: Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. For a guy in his mid-20s who isn’t even from
California, Zuckberg has gotten too much attention already.

But that
doesn’t mean that the Californian of the Year (an august title that comes with
a cash prize of nothing) can’t be a young person, or come from the technology
world, or be an immigrant to our state. California is a place where different
people and different cultures are married together, so my four runners-up are
like a marriage gift.

– Something Old: Jerry Brown and his
(much younger) wife Anne pulled off the political feat of the year, turning
back Meg Whitman’s $160 million campaign.

– Something New: The Democratic
consultant Jude Barry and the founders of the Silicon Valley start-up Verafirma
developed and pushed an electronic signature technology that could open up
politics by making signature gathering for initiative petitions and voter
registration easier and cheaper. The state’s political elite, which doesn’t
want a more inclusive and inexpensive politics, is fighting back, particularly
its labor movement, which foolishly put on Barry on a list of the banned.

Arnold Schwarzenegger entered the governor’s office with little interest in
ideology and partisanship. The voters of California have expressed time and
again that as a whole, they, too, look down on avid partisanship. According to
polling, voters indicated they wanted a governor just like Arnold Schwarzenegger. But as he leaves office, Schwarzenegger’s poll numbers are in dismal territory and bi-partisan, non-ideological leadership seems an ocean away on a ship that is never going to dock.

I recall California’s premier historian, Kevin Starr, recognized
Schwarzenegger’s potential when he first came into office as perhaps another
Earl Warren — a man who could secure support and allegiance across party
lines. Starr talked of Schwarzenegger as a member of the “California Party,”
that is, someone who focuses on state issues without concern for the
political necessities that make up the planks of party platforms.

Schwarzenegger’s current popularity rating with the voters certainly could reflect that he didn’t fix the budget and other problems, as he promised to do as a candidate. But, the fact that those fixes did not occur also means the people were not so wild about following Schwarzenegger on his different crusades.

An earlier version of this
essay appeared in City Journal
Online.

Sometimes the local government staff I have the great pleasure of
working with say the darndest things. 
Prior to giving a speech on civic participation for a group of city and
county employees just north of San Francisco, I chatted with a county volunteer
coordinator about her job. "It sounds like fascinating work," I offered, "you
must interact with a lot of different people on a variety of projects."

For a second year, Fox and Hounds Daily will offer the Black Bart Award
as Californian of the Year. As with last year, veteran California political
writers and analysts, John Wildermuth  and Joe Mathews, will join me in nominating a
Californian of the Year; and a couple of honorable mentions, if the writer
chooses.

There are no specific criteria to follow in making the selection. Each
author will explain his reason for making his choice. Then we will try to reach
consensus. Perhaps, the selection took one courageous act, or a dastardly deed
that had great repercussions, or performed heroically in difficult
circumstances.

Last year’s award winner was then state senator Abel Maldonado,
recognized because Maldonado’s actions and ambitions seemed to dominate the conversation
over the course of the entire year from his February budget vote, to his
maneuvering for the top two primary to his November nomination for Lt.
Governor.