Steve Wiegand: Six months, little accomplished in Capitol

This is Steve Wiegand's last column on this page. Look for his byline in July as he takes on a new reporting assignment.

Now that we've wasted the first half of 2008, it would seem timely to reflect on what hath been wrought so far this year by the people you elected to the Legislature and Governor's Office.

I could sum it up in one word, "nothing," or two words, "doodley-squat," depending on whether you consider that two words.

However, this would leave 14.44 inches blank from here to the bottom of the page, so let's push on with a month-by-month retrospective.

Or at least how I remember things:

JANUARY: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes handling the state budget crisis by closing Sutter's Fort, leaving the doors unlocked on the state's prisons and bilking old, poor, blind people out of their cost-of-living increases. Then he goes to Redding East Rotary Club to have his photo taken.

Lawmakers counter with a plan that revolves around stealing credit cards from state officials in New Mexico. Oh, and they kill the guv's effort to reform health insurance.

FEBRUARY: Governor and Democrats put aside their differences and help California get started on voting early and often this year by staging the presidential primary on Feb. 5. The idea is that Californians will play a vital role in determining the nominees by moving the primary from early June.

It proves to be a less-than-brilliant move, since leaving the primary in June might have made California the most important state in the nation in terms of deciding the down-to-the-wire Democratic nomination.

Voters do take the opportunity to demonstrate they are not as dumb as believed, by rejecting a ploy by Democratic legislative leaders to change term limits and hold on to their jobs.

The governor visits a Carlsbad biotech company to have his photo taken.

MARCH: Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill announces her retirement, effective this fall. Hill's dispassionate, insightful and unswerving nonpartisan counsel over the years has been a major annoyance to elected officials, who nonetheless pretend they will miss her.

The governor visits a women's prison in Corona to have his photo taken.

APRIL: Two members of the state salary-setting commission propose cutting pay of legislators and constitutional officers. The idea is abandoned in favor of simply freezing salary levels and giving officials free admission to Sutter's Fort.

Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, estimates the state's budget deficit has grown to a gazillion dollars, and says he might or might not, no, wait, does not, well, maybe, consider tax increases.

The governor then visits the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to have his photo taken.

MAY: Still-Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez proposes a ballot measure dealing with legislative ethics and redistricting, hours before a rival group files signatures for its redistricting initiative. Several legislators fracture their jaws trying to maintain straight faces while discussing Núñez's sincerity.

Schwarzenegger's new budget proposal relies on Californians doubling the lottery tickets they buy, and someone buying Sutter's Fort.

The governor visits a wildfire near Santa Cruz to have his photo taken.

JUNE: J. Clark Kelso, the federal court-appointed prison medical czar, demands the state fork over $7 billion for building new facilities for inmates, and also $8 worth of prescription-strength Tylenol.

The governor goes to Cancún, where he is photographed on the beach wearing a black bathing suit described in one Web site caption as "man panties."

Trust me. There is no way anything in the next six months can top that.

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