Capitol and California

A high-ranking state prisons official said Friday he will plead guilty to charges of drunken driving.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." That, as any alert schoolchild knows, is one of the more famous lines in the Declaration of Independence, signed back in 1776. They just don't write 'em like they used to.

For just the second time since the Great Depression, California began paying some of its bills with IOUs Thursday, as this year's version of the state's annual budget battle dragged on.

Murderers are more likely to be sentenced to death in conservative California counties, particularly in the southern part of the state, according to a Bee analysis of recent data from the state attorney general's office.

With California's budget gap growing by millions each day, Thursday marked a roller coaster of Capitol emotion that veered from optimism about prospects for a deal to eruption of a new fight over school funding.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger blasted lawmakers for debating an anti-cow tail-docking bill amid the budget meltdown, Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, took umbrage:

State finance officials set a 3.75 percent interest rate and an Oct. 2 redemption date this morning for the IOUs that begin going out this afternoon, while legislators and the governor continue to wrestle with the state's budget problems.

Causing the state to issue IOUs could lead to a comprehensive budget deal. Or it might just further wreck California's reputation and credit rating.

San Francisco is ordering residents and businesses to compost food scraps and biodegradables, or risk fines for not properly sorting their garbage.

State Controller John Chiang has some advice for Californians peeved about the IOUs he's about to issue: Don't blame me.

A California financial company on Wednesday agreed to repay $2 million to New York state's giant public pension fund after one of the company's former partners was implicated in paying a kickback to secure investment deals from the fund.

"No excuses, but there are clear reasons why the budget isn't done yet. We are living through a historic economic crisis that has resulted in people and government having less money. Since I began as leader of the Senate, the combined budget deficit has amounted to almost $60 billion. This fiscal reality, combined with the extraordinary two-thirds requirement to pass a budget, is the reason the job is not done yet."

Day one of the 2009-10 fiscal year brought no agreement on a plan to close what is now estimated to be a $26.3 billion state budget deficit. Here are some of Wednesday's key developments:

California is on the brink of issuing IOUs and state workers will take a third unpaid furlough day in July after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers appeared near failure to strike a budget compromise late Tuesday.

As legislators battled over the state budget Tuesday, an independent commission voted to slash lawmakers' per-diem payments, car allowances and medical and other fringe benefits by 18 percent.

It was supposed to be a dry public hearing on a "notice of proposed regulations," a meeting to let citizens speak about technical aspects of how lethal injection is administered to condemned inmates.

While rank-and-file state employees face as much as a 14 percent pay cut through furloughs, California Highway Patrol officers could well get a raise. The CHP contract adjusts pay based on salary levels at five local law enforcement agencies in the state. The results of this year's survey are expected out soon.

The Capitol's budget game has evolved into a predictable pattern of political moves, one of which is a late-blooming demand for something not directly tied to the budget as a price for its enactment.

With the clock ticking toward a midnight deadline, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic lawmakers remained at odds Tuesday evening over a deal to help the cash-strapped state avert IOUs.

With the state poised to issue billions in IOUs in lieu of cash this week, California's budget crisis could create serious headaches for some private vendors and local governments.

The quest to balance the state budget remained mired in sharp rhetoric and fruitless votes Monday, as the clock ticked nearer to California running out of cash and paying its bills with IOUs.

Recession-wracked Michigan is looking west to its poor sister – California – for a budget boost.

While waiting for the state Senate to convene Monday, the California Channel, a public affairs television service, filled in by broadcasting a recent conference on the burgeoning movement to fundamentally overhaul California's dysfunctional state government.

Democratic state senators passed a package of budget-balancing bills today that didn't require Republican support - and don't have gubernatorial support.

Democratic legislators trotted out a stick-and-carrot approach to closing the state's budget gap Sunday night, negotiating with the governor on one floor of the Capitol while voting for a package of cuts and taxes on another.

Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a likely 2010 candidate for governor, takes on Iran today. He'll order insurers in California to disclose investments they may have in foreign companies that do business with Iran in the oil or weapons industries. As of Jan. 1, California-based companies have been prohibited from direct investments in Iran.

The state Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board meets today to discuss the budget situation and what to do about enrollment in the Healthy Families program.

California's cost of guarding, feeding, clothing, medicating and supposedly educating its nearly 170,000 prison inmates and supervising 110,000 parolees is about $10 billion a year. And it's very easily the fastest-growing segment of the deficit-ridden state budget over the past decade.

Once seen as the model of public employee labor sophistication and clout, California's prison officers union is struggling amid the state's financial meltdown and a sour relationship with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

They think of themselves as street-theater activists who are willing to get in the face of the powers-that-be to bring equity to the state's school funding system.