The Conversation

California's attempt to reform health care in 2007 is becoming a harbinger for the debate over health care reform now unfolding in Washington. Reform failed here because it was determined that the proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez did not really reform health care. Rather, the initiative simply shifted unsustainable costs onto the government. Without a credible way to control costs, no reform package will succeed in Washington.

• Californians are more likely to be uninsured than residents of all but six states. About 20 percent of Californians lack health insurance at any one time during the year. For the nation, the average is 17 percent. California has 6.5 million uninsured.

Two groups are offering competing visions for how best to overhaul the state's government, its budgeting, election laws and more.

The weather forecast says 100 degrees. The politicians are wrestling over the state budget. It must be summer in Sacramento.

So it begins.

OK, everybody seems to agree. California's government is dysfunctional. Now what do we do?

As California struggles to wrestle its budget back into balance, an ever-louder chorus of critics suggests there is an easy answer to the state's troubles: End all services to illegal immigrants.

How much of the state budget goes to services for illegal immigrants? No one knows for sure. But the best estimates of spending on schools, prisons, welfare, health care and general government yield a total of about $5 billion per year from the state's $91 billion general fund.

From the time the first pioneers from the United States crossed the plains and the mountains to enter what was then Mexican territory, California has been a state of migrants and immigrants. It is also a state that has a history of tensions among ethnic and racial groups. Some of these tensions have been expressed in acts of violence, others through public policy.

Controversy over immigration and immigrants has a long, if not illustrious, history in the Golden State. Agitation over immigration into California of Chinese, who were viewed by critics as racially and culturally inferior and "un-assimilable" into decent society, led Congress to pass a series of infamous laws known as the Chinese Exclusion Acts.

In the third year of drought, California is facing water cutbacks that will force farmers to fallow their fields, and residents and industry to live under new regulations limiting how much they can use. In today's Conversation:

The question now arises: Is the record-setting, federally mandated reduction of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water exports to the Bay Area, the Central Valley and as far south as San Diego the result of a third year of diminished precipitation in Northern California, or is it the result of political or man-made factors?

In the fight over the future of California's water resources, San Joaquin Valley agribusiness interests have long tried to reduce the struggle to a simple, but false, comparison between fish and people. Now, with federal biologists documenting the decline of the salmon and suggesting a menu of possible fixes, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has joined this Big Farm chorus.

The Bee's Daniel Weintraub moderates "The Conversation," where you can discuss this week's issue: Is there anything the governor can do to get the state's finances under control?

Last week's decision by the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8 was hailed and criticized around the country as an important development in the ongoing legal and political battle over the definition of marriage.

Last week's resounding verdict from the voters came as little surprise to anyone in the Capitol. It was clear long before the election's votes were cast and counted that Californians were not going to pass a series of ballot measures needed to ratify a bipartisan compromise enacted in February to help stabilize the state budget.

As I waited in the green room with three other guests before a forum last week on Capital Public Radio, the odd politics surrounding Proposition 1A became clearer than ever.

The National Basketball Association's plan for a dense urban village near the shore of the American River, anchored by a modern state fairgrounds and a new arena for the Sacramento Kings, reflects an intriguing vision for the future of a space that is woefully underused today.

If this new vision presented by the NBA is their idea of the future for the Cal Expo site, I am disappointed and feel cheated.

The National Basketball Association has proposed to redevelop Cal Expo with hotels, restaurants, shops and office space, generating revenue to pay for a new arena for the Sacramento Kings.

The State Fair has been at the Cal Expo location for more than 40 years. We have several buildings that do not meet seismic safety requirements. We have ongoing Americans with Disabilities Act issues that require us to spend about $100,000 a year on continuing ADA improvements. We have a backlog of about $45 million in deferred maintenance which we can't get to.

Despite the latest hoopla to convince the public it's a done deal, I believe most Sacramento County citizens have seen enough to be able to reasonably predict where the NBA's Cal Expo proposal is headed.

We take newspapers for granted. They have been so integral a part of daily life in America, so central to politics and culture and business, and so powerful and profitable in their own right, that it is easy to forget what a remarkable historical invention they are.

I was in San Francisco recently, sleeping above a quiet residential street. At sunrise, I heard a sound like nail guns: "POW!" "Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow!" It echoed up the street, and as a vehicle drove past, I realized that it was the free daily Examiner being delivered to every house.