Davis housing

Doug Paul Davis has been thinking about how best to increase the housing supply and lower the cost of housing in his hometown of Davis. His idea for smaller homes built more densely is a good one. His idea for booting renters, not so good, if you care about the poor and the working poor.

Don't trust anyone over 60?

Fleischman's advice for the Seante Republicans: don't make a deal based on the governor's pledge to use his line-item veto to balance the budget, because any such promise will surely be offset by secret pacts between Susan Kennedy and Don Perata. An excerpt:

"We're proud of all of you. Beware of promises made by those that are anxious to move on to regulating California to death in the name of battling 'global warming' and who want to tax working Californians in the name of massively increasing the government's role in health care."

Senate moves to aid Calif. on Pavley bill

The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works committee voted today to require the Bush Administration to issue a decision by Sept. 30 on California's request for a waiver to allow the state to implement the Pavley bill requiring vehicle manufacturers to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from the cars they sell in the state. Here is a report from the committee.

(Electoral) college aid

Should California divide its electoral college votes to reflect the state's popular vote by congressional district? Steve Maviglio says a ballot measure to do just that is a Republican plot to steal a share of California electoral votes the size of Pennsylvania.

And we thought he didn't like to plan that far ahead

Uh-oh. Democrats have been complaining that Schwarzenegger is spending too much time basking in the glow of their passage of AB 32, the global warming bill. Now he's accepted a new invitation to talk about his (and thier) achievement -- before the United Nations. He'll speak there at a conference Sept. 24. Here is a story from the Business Journal.

Comparing the health plans

CalHealthReform.org has updated its comparative analysis of AB 8, SB 840 and the governor's health reform proposal. The 24-page report is the best one-stop shop I've seen for those trying to compare the pros and cons of each of the plans.

Guv backs GOP on AB 32 lawsuits

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared today to endorse a Republican effort to block Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown from using AB 32 to challenge proposed developments around the state.

“I support the idea,” Schwarzenegger said in response to a question at a press conference he held on the budget.

Republican lawmakers have argued that Brown’s lawsuit against San Bernardino County, alleging that its general plan would encourage more global warming, could potentially block the county from receiving funds from Prop. 1B, the $20 billion transportation bond voters approved last year.

“We promised the people of California when we passed the bonds that we are going to start building,” he said.

But Schwarzenegger said he did not support holding up the budget to get a deal on the issue. He said Republicans should vote to pass a budget and work on the environmental issue separately, at a later time.

What is a 'real' Republican?

GOP activists have been accusing Schwarzenegger of being a RINO -- a Republican in name only -- in part because of his environmental policies. But today's PPIC poll suggests that the governor might be more in line with the party than are the conservatives who control its heirarchy.

Some examples of where Republican voters stand, according to the poll:

On the state law requiring automakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new models by 2009:

Favor: 71 percent
Oppose: 26 percent

On the law (AB 32) requiring California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020:

Favor: 65 percent
Oppose: 26 percent

On the idea of requiring automakers to significantly improve the fuel efficiency of the cars they sell:

Favor, even if more costly: 71 percent
Favor, but not if more costly: 10 percent
Oppose: 14 percent

On spending more government money to develop renewable energy:

Favor: 79 percent
Oppose: 18 percent

On one major issue -- offshore oil drilling -- Schwarzenegger is at odds with rank and file Republican voters.

By a margin of 60 percent to 34 percent, Republicans favor more offshore oil drilling. Schwarzenegger opposes it.

And by a margin of 55 percent to 37 percent, Republicans favor building more nuclear power plants. Schwarznegger, as far as I know, has not staked out a position on that issue.

YouTube Deluge

In this WSJ commentary, FCC commissioner Robert McDowell says that YouTube alone uses as much broadband bandwidth today as the entire Internet did in 2000. Amazing.

Term limits measure headed for ballot

Backers of a measure to modify California's term limits law say they are submitting 1.1 million signatures to qualify the proposal for the ballot. That's 400,000 more than the number of valid signatures required...

CalPERS investments gain 19.1 percent

CalPERS earned an estimated 19.1 percent return on investments for the 12 months that ended June 30, 2007, the highest gain in nine years, the pension system announced this morning. Assets in the retirement fund now total $247.7 billion. The percentage gain more than doubled the overall CalPERS assumed rate of return of 7.75 percent, which is required to fund retiree benefits. Total assets increased by $36.5 billion over the year.

Budget musings

According to Don Perata, the budget package approved by the Assembly overnight includes about a half billion in tax cuts, for research and development, Hollywood film makers and jet fuel. The budget also has an operating deficit, meaning it proposes to spend more in the next 12 months than the state will take in from taxes. Yet it cuts taxes further. Republicans will argue that these tax cuts will actually increase revenue to the state. But narrowly targeted breaks for special interests are a terrible way to set tax policy. The best way to increase revenue is to have a tax system that is fair and simple and encourages all kinds of economic devleopment, and to have a kindergarten through university education system that helps Californians get ready to work, invent, create and invest in the future of the state.

It's not clear yet whether the Senate Republicans have made the tax cuts a condition of their agreement to the budget package. It's possible that the Assembly Democrats voted for the cuts only because they assumed they would die in the Senate.

It also appears, by the way, that Democrats are voting for the transit cuts the governor proposed on the assumption that they will be declared illegal by the courts. That's a nice way to get out of town with a budget Republicans would support, while assuming that the judicial branch will blow a hole several hundred million dollars wide in it before long.

Beware the "slashers"

The LA Times reports this morning that Republicans have proposed to "slash" aid to the schools by $400 million and the Democrats say that will happen, essentially, over their dead bodies. The school lobby is deeply disappointed in the Republicans for considering such a thing.

Nothing against my friends at the LAT, since the Republicans deserve to be slapped when they whisper this stuff in private rather than explaining it to all in the light of day, but a little more context might help here. It sounds as if the Republicans might be talking about adjusting the Prop. 98 estimate for the coming year. That estimate is tied in part to the state's revenues. In May, Schwarzenegger increased the Prop. 98 number for 07-08 to reflect higher projections for tax revenues in the coming year. Then before the ink was dry on those numbers, the actual tax collections started coming up short, to the tune of $800 million already in just May and June.

The Democrats' budget "slashed" about $400 million from the schools to reflect those lower revenues in the current year, but kept with Schwarzenegger's assumption for the minimum in the coming year. If you assume that the lower than expected revenues in May and June will be continue in soft collections in the rest of 2007 and 2008, you would also expect the Prop. 98 minimum to be a bit lower. I'm guessing that is what the Republicans have suggested.

Now let's look again at the "slash."

When the budget was approved last summer, the schools stood to get $55.1 billion from state and local taxes, a ten percent increase over the amount originally budgeted the year before -- despite essentially zero growth in enrollment.

The governor's May revision increased the current year amount by $371 million to reflect the higher revenues, and proposed $57.6 billion for the coming year.

The Democrats' plan approved by the conference committee backed out that extra $371 million for this year.

If, indeed, the Republicans are now proposing $400 million less for next year, that would mean the schools budget would grow from $55.1 billion to $57.2 billion, an increase of $2.1 billion, or just under 4 percent.

K-12 attendance, by the way, is expected to decline by about 28,000 from this year to next.

Defining marriage

The sponsors of two marriage-related ballot measures have been given the green light to begin ciculating petitions for signatures, according to the secretary of state. One is a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman, a proposal that appears to be a backstop in case the courts rule that the current ban on gay marriage violates the state constitution. The other measure also defines marriage in the same way but goes further, banning marriage-style rights for domestic partners. To qualify, both measures need to collect about 694,000 valid signatures by Dec. 26.

Budget vote skedded

Democrats have scheduled a budget vote for Wednesday. No one expects the plan passed by the conference committee to pass. But this is the first step in the Democrats' strategy to smoke out the Republicans, who are insisting on a balanced budget but won't say publicly how they intend to get there.

The other piece of the Democrats's strategy is to try to lay blame on the governor for the Republicans' resistance. To the casual viewer at home, that might make sense. They're all in the same party, right? But everyone in the Capitol knows that Schwarzenegger has very little ability to sway their votes, not only because they don't see eye to eye ideologically, but because Republican members don't generally need and want much from the governor other than the occasional snapshot. He might actually have more clout with the members of the Democratic caucus, because they want stuff that he can sign or veto.

Found money?

Like the $15 billion deficit bond Schwarzenegger proposed shortly after taking office, his lease-the-lottery idea has the feel of something that the Democrats and more than a few Republicans will find difficult to resist. Even as they take shots at it and insist that they don't like to use gambling, and gamblers, to support essential state services, lawmakers can't ignore the possibility of $30 billion or more in found money. Today, as reported elsewhere on this site, Speaker Nunez is saying the lottery idea might fetch $3.5 billion a year in revenues above and beyond what they would need to guarantee to the schools. And that number just happens to match the amount that Schwarzenegger has penciled into his universal health care proposal from taxes on doctors and hospitals, taxes that no one at this point believes have a chance of passing in the Legislature.

Sales tax revenues show surprising drop

A $300 million shortfall in June tax revenues came from a surprising dip in sales tax receipts. Most of the focus is usually on the income tax, which outperformed expectations in June, or the bank and corporate tax, which also held its own. But the sales tax, which had met expectations for 11 consecutive months, suddenly slid, down 7 percent from June of 2006 and 10 percent below projections for the month. Department of Finance revenue-watchers say it is too soon to tell whether this was a reporting blip, a one-time decline or a sign of deeper weakness in the economy.

You can read the monthly report here.

UCLA: more people insured in 2005 than in 2001

A bit of good news out of the UCLA center for Health Policy Research this morning. The center's annual report on the uninsured in California found that the percentage of the population below the age of 65 without insurance declined from 21.9 percent in 2001 to 20.2 percent in 2005.

In 2005, about 6.5 million Californians were without coverage for all or part of the year. Had the percentage uninsured remained unchanged from four years earlier, another half million people would have been without coverage.

The percentage of people with coverage through the workplace declined during that period, from 57 percent in 2001 to 56.2 percent in 2005. But that slack was picked up (and some of it might actually have been caused by) Medi-Cal and the Healthy Families program for poor children. Those programs increased their share of the population covered from 13.7 percent to 15.8 percent.

Private, individual coverage, meanwhile, also grew, from 4.8 percent in 2001 to 5.5 percent in 2005.

I can't seem to find a number in the 100-plus page report that says how many people had insurance in California in 2001 and in 2005.

But we can do a little guestimating from the numbers that are there.

The report says that in 2005, 6.5 million were uninsured, so that means that about 25.7 million people had insurance that year, not counting the Medicare population.

The state's total population, meanwhile, grew by about 7 percent between 2001 and 2005. If the non-Medicare population grew at that same rate, that means the non-Medicare population was about 30.2 million in 2001. And of those, 78.1 percent had insurance, either private or through the government.

That means 23.6 million Californians had insurance coverage in 2001. And 25.7 million had it in 2005. So, the percentage insured crept up a little bit, and with the state's steady population growth, the raw number insured grew by roughly 2 million. Not bad.

As we've been saying here, the state has problems with its health care system.

But how many people do you think realize that we have added 2 million folks to the ranks of the insured just since 2001?

UPDATE: A reader notes that the numbers are even more interesting if you go back a ways further. According to the same series of reports, in 1994, 23 percent of the state's population was uninsured, and 57 percent were covered through an employer. The number without insurance was 6.6 million. And so, in that period, California added about 6 million residents while the number of uninsured declined. It's my recollection that the percentage covered by employers grew during the dot-com boom, then declined again during the recession earlier in this decade, leaving it back where it started a decade ago.

'We're No. 8!'

Steve Levy reports that the latest numbers show that California remains the eighth largest economy in the world.

Talking tough

Matt Jones says the budget deadlock is all about Republican caucus leadership challenges, or at least fear of same.

"Seas apart" on budget

Speaker Nunez on the state of budget negotiations:

"It's July the ninth, we're nine days into the new budget year, one would think that it would be appropriate at some point between now and the first of December the governor would call a big five meeting so that his leadership could begin to make a difference in the stalemate between the democratic and the republican leadership on the budget. I don't think it's divulging private information from our meetings that the republicans are asking for two billion dollars in cuts over and above the governor's may revision. I think Dick Ackerman expressed that a couple days ago. It's a pretty big gap right now. I guess you could articulate it by saying we are seas apart on this budget."

Latest voter reg numbers

The Assembly Republican Caucus staff has produced a mildly interesting update on voter registration numbers statewide and by Assembly district. The numbers are based on a county by county survey of registrars reflecting voter registrations by the end of June. Key findings:

--Statewide voter registration is currently at 15,568,121, a 130,110 decrease since January of 2007.

--Republican registration: 5,265,408, a 121,362 decrease since January. Republican registration accounts for 33.90% of all registered voters in California.

--Democrat registration: 6,568,719, a 96,341 decrease from the beginning of this year. Democrat registration accounts for 42.10% of registered voters in California.

--Decline to State: 2,920,355, a 32,760 decrease since January 2007. 18.7% of California voters are registered as Decline-to-State.

--“Other”: 823,754, an increase of 128,818 since the beginning of the year. 5.30% of California voters are registered as “Other”.

--Republican voter registration, by raw number, dropped in thirty of thirty- two Republican-held Assembly Districts.

2 Republican AD’s showed an increase in Republican voter registration:

AD 36, Sharon Runner (R) +756

AD 29, Mike Villines (R) +358

--Democrat voter registration, by raw number, dropped in forty of forty-eight Democrat-held Assembly Districts

2 Democratic AD’s showed an increase in Republican voter registration:

AD 31, Juan Arambula (D) +497

AD 30, Nicole Parra (D) +296

5 Republican AD’s where republican voter registration decreased the most:

AD 64, John Benoit (R) -5,765

AD 33, Sam Blakeslee (R) -4,971

AD 66, Kevin Jeffries (R) -4,883

AD 65, Paul Cook (R) -3,892

AD 80, Bonnie Garcia (R) -3,540

5 Democratic AD’s that showed the highest decrease in Republican voter registration:

AD 17, Cathleen Galgiani (D) -4,403

AD 54, Betty Karnette (D) -2,648

AD 52, Mervyn M. Dymally (D) -2,545

AD 41, Julia Brownley (D) -2,164

AD 55, Laura Richardson (D) -2152

Changes on the speaker's staff

They're moving and shaking over in the speaker's press shop. Press Secretary Richard Stapler takes a leave to go work for Kaufman campaigns, where he will help promote the initiative to adjust term limits. He's replaced, at least on an interim basis, by Beth Wilson, a former television reporter who has worked for former Sen. Jackie Speier and, most recently, Proposition 87 on the 2006 ballot.

Doolittle does the Bee

Rep. John Doolittle stopped by the Bee's editorial board this afternoon. Some highlights:

-- He has moved another step closer to supporting withdrawl from Iraq. He still doesn't want to set a timeline, but he says the U.S. troops need to be out of harm's way in a few months, not "many months." He says he would be OK with a continued role for our military in training Iraqis, but that's about it. There will be violent conflict there for many years, he says, and it's time for us to get out of the middle of it.

-- He doesn't have a problem with Bush commuting Scotter Libby's sentence but wonders why he didnt' just pardon him. Doolittle says he didn't follow the case closely but sees Libby as a "fall guy" for the administration. He was a "good soldier" with a "hazy memory." He also thinks the FBI might have trapped him into misleading statements, and he would prohibit the use of the purjury charge in cases where no "underlying crime" is charged. In other words, it would be OK to lie to the feds as long as your lying prevents them from charging you with anything else. Having witnessed the FBI in action up close and personal in his own case, Doolittle says he will think twice before voting to expand federal prosecutorial powers further.

-- He thinks the Tahoe fire was worsened by the local environmental regulators rules against thinning the forests, especially along the streams. He does not think federal legislation is warranted or likely, but he thinks "the time is right" for the regional agencies to change their rules. He especially thinks chain saws. not just hand thinning, should be allowed along sensitive stream beds.

-- He's thrilled that the immigration bill went down. He says anger about the issue is hotter than he has ever seen it, and the government needs to enforce its current laws, including building a border fence, before it considers doing anything else.

-- He professes to be not too worried about his own political future. He does not expect a "substantial" challenge in the Republican primary and figures the general will be fought over the same issues that highlighted his 2006 campaign, which he won narrowly.

Cap and trade -- with the Germans

Germany wants to trade greenhosue gas emissions credits with California.

Nichols knows micromanagement

There's at least one ironic twist to Schwarzenegger's naming of Mary Nichols as the new chairwoman of the ARB amid a dispute over whether the governor's office is trying to micromanage the regulatory board. Nichols, newly serving as Resources Secretary for Gray Davis in 1999, withdrew a legal brief the state had filed on behalf of farmers in a federal dispute over teh Central Valley's water supply. When Davis found out about it, he was outraged, and he reversed the decision while also making it clear to Nichols and everyone else in the administration that they had better inform him before making any major policy calls. Davis was also editing press releases and getting into long arguments with staff over who would make the Federal Express runs for the office. But his reversal of Nichols was the most prominent example in his early years as governor of his penchant for micromanagement.

State loses pension bond case

The state lost its appeal today in the lawsuit over its proposed pension obligation bond and will not take the case to the state Supreme Court. The decision appears to be fairly narrowly tailored. It does not state flatly that it is unconstitutional for the state to finance its operations with bond debt. It simply says that, in this case, the pension obligation was one that the Legislature brought upon itself voluntarily, and therefore it does not fit into any of the existing exceptions to the rule that any borrowing of more than $300,000 must be approved by a vote of the people.

Nunez: 'Very troubled'

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez says he is "very troubled" by turmoil at the California Air Resources Board and its effect on the implementation of AB 32, which he authored.

CDC: health care visits climb 20% in 5 years

Visits to emergency rooms, hospitals and doctors' offices climbed by 20 percent in five years, from 2000 to 2005, according to a new report from the CDC. The total in 2005 was 1.2 billion. Of those, only 19 million were ER visits by the uninsured. Universal health care might be worth doing, but it is not going to reduce costs.

Budget tracker

For those keeping score at home, here is a quick summary of how the conference committee budget plan differs from the governor's.

The biggest issues are debt repayment, education and public transit.

While the governor proposed prepaying $595 million in defict bond debt, the Democrats on the conference committee rejected that idea.

The conference committee also budgeted less for education than the governor did. In the May Revise Schwarzenegger added an extra $400 million in "settle-up" money to the schools budget. But the conference committee assumes that, because May revenues came in below expectations, that payment won't be required.

Those two actions gave the conference committee about $1 billion to play with and still come out with a bottom line in the same ballpark as the governor, although their budget would probably spend more money on ongoing programs, making next year's problem a little bit worse.

The biggest difference on the spending side is on public transit. While the governor proposed shifting $1.3 billion in "spillover" money programmed by formula to go to tranist, the conference committee budget would take about $550 million from that pot for other general fund uses. So they are spending about $750 million more than the governor on transit.

Another big difference: CalWorks. The committee rejected the governor's plan to end aid to families where an able-bodied adult refuses to work after five years on public assistance. That decision means spending an additional $325 million on CalWorks.

The Democrats also restored funding for the mentally ill homeless, Prop. 36 drug rehab, Williamson Act subsidies, and foster care. All of that combined comes to about $150 million.

Total general fund spending in the governor's plan: $103.9 billion.
In the conference committee version: $104.3 billion.

But their reserves are almost identical, right around $2 billion.

The Republicans say the state should be spending less. I have not seen a list of what they would like to cut.

Mass mandate takes effect

The individual mandate for health insurance took effect today in Massachusetts. The NY Times has a report.