Once in a great while, the California legislature does something so brilliant, so wonderful, so exquisite that the only proper thing to do is stand back and applaud the majesty of their handiwork.

We saw one of these perfect legislative moments in the Assembly vote on Abel Maldonado’s confirmation as lieutenant governor.

What, you say? Didn’t the Assembly, by failing to provide 41 votes for or against Maldonado, fail to render a verdict, creating confusion over whether Maldonado was lieutenant governor? Well, as a technical yes, they failed to render a verdict, but in so doing, they rendered a verdict. And it was the right verdict.

Confirming or rejecting Maldonado would have been easy. But to appear to confirm and reject him at the same time was itself a choice. It was a reminder that heaven and hell aren’t the only choices. Purgatory is a possibility too, and it was the right home for this nomination.

When I go to the Hollywood & Highland Center, I park in the basement garage. It’s clean and secure, and if you get your ticket stamped by a merchant, it costs $2 to park for four hours. What a deal.

But the city of Los Angeles, which owns the garage, reportedly lost $989,000 running it during its 2008-09 fiscal year. For taxpayers, that’s a crummy deal.

This is one example of why it’s a great idea for the city to privatize that garage and nine others like it. The city has figured it could get $100 million or more by selling long-term leases on those garages, which would help it escape its financial crisis, at least for a while.

There are advantages beyond the up-front money. The city could step out of the debt service on those garages (which is a reason Hollywood & Highland lost money), it wouldn’t have to bother with operating and upgrading them, and – not insignificantly – it would put assets in the local private sector where businesses could grow and wealth could be created.

For this President’s Day, here’s a tale of California’s decisive role in one presidential election.

The 1916 election between Democratic incumbent Woodrow Wilson and Republican challenger Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes was one of the closest in American history. The voters of California would decide the man who would be president and, collectively, those voters were divided.

The election was held in the shadow of war in Europe. President Wilson argued for neutrality. He ran on the slogan: He kept us out of war.” Hughes, former New York Governor, and future Secretary of State and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, had won the Republican nomination as a compromise candidate to unite the moderate and conservative wings of the Republican Party.

With Hughes winning the big electoral vote states of the day in the Northeast and most of the Midwest, the race came down to the 13 Electoral Votes in the Golden State. California’s neighbor to the north, Oregon, had gone for Hughes, the only western state besides South Dakota to do so, and if California joined in, Hughes would be president.

This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

A few weeks ago, a statewide ballot initiative petition signed by a California voter named Michael Ni was delivered — quietly and without fanfare — to the clerk’s office in San Mateo County.

Strange as it may sound, this is no exaggeration: Ni’s John Hancock may reshape American politics forever.

Ni did not sign his name on a piece of paper. His signature was electronic. He wrote his name on the petition (a measure to legalize and tax cannabis in California) using the touch screen of his iPhone. The signature was then delivered to the county clerk on a flash drive, one of those small memory storage devices you use to back up files on your computer.

In doing this, Ni — the co-founder of a Silicon Valley start-up that has developed a technology for electronic signature-gathering — was seeking to challenge the rules that have governed the American political economy since the Progressive era.

Last April, I posted an article for Fox and Hounds noting the plummeting Republican registration in California, noting that not only was the statewide Republican registration of 31.1% a historic low, but for the first time there was not a single congressional, state senate or assembly district that had a majority Republican registration.

Needless to say, most Republican activists in this state at the time were in a rather funky mood.
Now, nearly a year later, President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have dropped considerably, a Republican won a U.S. Senate seat in very blue Massachusetts to succeed the late Ted Kennedy, and “tea baggers” along with their spiritual leader, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, have aroused passions among conservative activists throughout the nation, as well as California, that we have not seen in more than a decade.

Conservative passion may be on the rise, but according to a report recently released by the Secretary of State’s office, Republican registration continues to plummet, with statewide GOP registration falling below 31% to 30.8, while both Democratic and Decline to State (independent) registration slightly increased.

More importantly, Republican registration has continued to decrease in legislative districts that are expected to be target races this year.

Here’s a reminder for the seven Assembly members who didn’t bother to cast a vote Thursday on GOP state Sen. Abel Maldonado’s nomination as lieutenant governor:

The green button on your desk is for “aye” and the red button is for “nay.” But you’ve got to pick one of them. There’s no button in the middle for “both ways.”

The final tally was 35 Assembly members in favor of the nomination and 37 opposed. Since the “no” votes were a plurality, Democrats argue that Maldonado loses and the LG’s office stays vacant.

Not so fast, says GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who made the nomination in the first place. Since there weren’t 41 votes against Maldonado, his argument is that since the nomination wasn’t turned down by a majority of the Assembly, Maldonado is the new lieutenant governor.

Finally a reason to support a constitutional convention: To rewrite Article V Section 5(b) of the state constitution to make clear what it means by the phrase “refused confirmation.” If we can dump that murky phrase we would know if California had a Lt. Governor or not today.

Since there was no majority of the Assembly to reject outright the nomination does that amount to the Assembly refusing to confirm the nomination? Does that mean that Abel Maldonado is the Lt. Governor of California? The Governor thinks so. The Assembly Democrats don’t agree.

So as all issues must in the natural order of things the confirmation result has come down to the lawyers.

Whether you agree or not with Maldonado’s positions on tax increases, it seems Democrats in the Assembly have lost the right to criticize Republicans for refusing to compromise. Here’s a Republican who voted with the Democrats yet they stick to politics and punish him.

I received an alert from the ARB news service touting a recent employer citation and fine and was struck by a few comments in the article.

SACRAMENTO – The California Air Resources Board recently fined Rapid Harvest Company $16,500 for diesel emissions violations.

An ARB investigation showed Rapid Harvest, based in Salinas, Calif., failed to properly inspect their diesel vehicles in 2005.

Recently fined $16,500 for failing to properly inspect in 2005?! Where is the equity in this? I guess the fact that this employer apparently DID properly inspect their diesel vehicles in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, as one would assume due to the lack of any fine or penalty levied for those years, didn’t matter?

Nero, they say, fiddled while Rome burned. Are Los Angeles officials doing the same?

Civic leaders and columnists are lashing out at inaction by the city in the face of record deficits. The current deficit is over $200-million with a $485-million deficit forecast for the next fiscal year. Bond rating agencies have notified city officials L.A. bond ratings are on the verge of tumbling down if no action is taken to deal with the problem.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for 1,000 city jobs to be eliminated. The City Council put off action on job cuts for 30 days. The delay was imposed not to examine if these particular job cuts are the right ones to make but to stall making the cuts at all. And, what of these proposed job cuts? Is the mayor going after only public employees not covered by a recently negotiated contract? Are the cuts real or are some workers simply being moved to agencies funded by Special Funds instead of the General Fund?