GEORGE SKELTON COLUMN
Someone needs to call the shots
Californians are paying the price as the Legislature dickers over a final budget agreement. California badly needs someone, some party, to just make a decision about a state budget and be held accountable for the consequences.
DAN MORAIN COLUMN
Session ends with pork and petty politics
Legislators haven't passed a budget. They didn't overhaul the troubled pension or taxation systems. They didn't approve bills aimed at increasing green electricity.
BUDGET
Low, middle incomes hit by governor's tax plan
Sacramento Bee-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest tax reform idea would probably result in higher costs for low- and middle-class taxpayers based on an initial review, the nonpartisan legislative analyst said Wednesday.
Governor says it takes more courage, not more time, to pass budget
Ventura County Star--As the state reached its 63rd day of the fiscal year without a budget on Wednesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asserted that “there’s still plenty of time” to reach an agreement that includes the policy changes on public employee pensions, the budget process and the state’s tax structure that he says must be part of any deal.
ECONOMY & JOBS
Schwarzenegger, union argue furlough case next week
Sacramento Bee -- If the bitter furlough battle between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state employee unions happened to be a heavyweight fight, Wednesday would be the final round.
Employed, but still stressed by joblessness
Ventura County Star--As we head into Labor Day weekend, a new survey of Californians indicates the lousy labor market isn’t just straining the lives of the jobless — the employed say they’re being stretched thin.
EDUCATION
CTA, flexing political clout, targets Steinberg tenure proposal
Capitol Weekly-- One of the biggest education bills of the year died an ignoble death late at night during an ad hoc hearing of the Assembly Appropriations committee in the final hours of the legislative session.
Charter school scandal could bolster transparency bill
California Watch-- An audit released this week that accuses a former San Fernando Valley charter school administrator of misusing roughly $2.7 million in taxpayers funds could tip the scales in favor of more transparency and accountability for all charters.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Environmentalists stunned by failures of key measures in Legislature
Los Angeles Times-- Activists expected big gains, but a ban on plastic grocery bags, another on a chemical used in baby bottles and a bid to boost alternative energy fell short in the face of heavy industry opposition.
Southern California panel to consider greenhouse gas targets
Press-Enterprise--Officials with the planning agency that covers Riverside and San Bernardino counties projected earlier this year that the region could cut heat-trapping emissions from passenger vehicle travel by up to 6 percent by 2035.
Sacramento picks up the pieces the day after marathon lawmaking session
Mercury News--Two major environmental bills went down in flames Tuesday as California's legislative session came to a frantic halt at midnight.
POLITICS
Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina battle hard in first Senate debate
Los Angeles Times--Candidates discuss hot topics from the economy to climate change to abortion. Boxer gives scathing critiques of Fiorina's record as Hewlett-Packard CEO and Fiorina calls Boxer 'bitterly partisan.' Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and her Republican opponent Carly Fiorina met in a contentious first debate Wednesday that seethed with disputes over their records and covered a broad range of issues from the economy to climate change to abortion rights.
Union-backed committee to take 'less visible' role in Whitman-Brown race
Sacramento Bee--Leaders of the union-backed independent expenditure committee California Working Families said Wednesday they will take a "less visible" role in the governor's race after spending $8.7 million running TV, radio and online ads attacking Republican candidate Meg Whitman.
Senate foes Boxer, Fiorina trade personal attacks in debate
Sacramento Bee--In a bitter debate filled with personal attacks Wednesday night, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer repeatedly slammed Republican rival Carly Fiorina's record as the CEO of tech giant Hewlett-Packard while Fiorina called the veteran Democrat an out-of-touch career politician indifferent to the suffering of ordinary Californians.
Whitman wants to dock legislators' pay for late budget
Sacramento Bee--Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is not alone in believing the current state budget standoff is "unacceptable," as she said Wednesday at a campaign stop in Folsom.
Barbara Boxer, Carly Fiorina debate taxes, jobs
San Francisco Chronicle--Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and Republican challenger Carly Fiorina agreed on one thing Wednesday during their hourlong televised debate at St. Mary's College in Moraga: California voters have a clear choice between the two very different candidates from opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Fact-checking what they said at the debate
San Francisco Chronicle--Here's what U.S. Senate candidates Carly Fiorina and Barbara Boxer said on key issues at Wednesday's debate, along with the bottom line on those arguments, in a special debate edition of The Chronicle's Lies, Half-Truths and Contradictions:
Brown poised to raise profile in governor's race
Contra Costa Times--With Labor Day approaching -- and Election Day two months away -- Jerry Brown is finally poised to up his game and raise his profile for the gubernatorial campaign.
MISC.
Bill goes to governor
San Bernardino County Sun--Doctors, business groups and health associations are pushing for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign Senate Bill 220, which requires all health plans and health insurance policies in the state to provide coverage of treatments to help patients quit smoking.
California lawmakers do the Humpty Dance with 'legislative bingo'
Sacramento Bee--Oh, the games people play – as lawmakers. In what has become an end-of-session tradition, various Assembly members participated in a Capitol floor game Tuesday night in which they receive an oddball word or phrase and must try to slip it into debate on a bill.
Supporters pressure Brown, Schwarzenegger to defend Prop. 8 in court
Sacramento Bee--Proposition 8 supporters are ramping up political – and legal – pressure on Attorney General Jerry Brown and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to defend California's same-sex marriage ban in federal appeals court.
Big-money lobbyists ruled at legislative session's end
Sacramento Bee--They crammed Capitol hallways, hailed lawmakers, worked phones, sweated, counted votes – and when the Legislature's session ended at midnight Tuesday, powerful interests left happy.
Bans on 'open carry' and plastic bags die in Legislature
Contra Costa Times--Bills to prohibit the "open carry" of unloaded handguns, to ban plastic shopping bags, to set a stringent new renewable energy standard and to change how teachers are laid off died in the acrimonious final minutes of this year's Legislative session.
MERCURY NEWS EDITORIAL
California legislature fails
Nice going, Legislature. California's reputation is in tatters. It has no budget in place. Its schools are rated among the lowest in the nation, its unemployment is among the highest, its prisons are bursting at the seams and its infrastructure is crumbling.
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER EDITORIAL
Slight progress on pensions in Sacramento
Outrage and controversy over frankly outrageous compensation of city officials in Bell prompted state legislators to act on reforms that they say would curb such future compensation abuses and narrow loopholes for public employee pensions. The reforms are watered-down versions of what they should be but at least are a step in the right direction.
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY SUN EDITORIAL
Reforms have little chance
After Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a Democratic budget proposal to be dead on arrival last month, it was only a matter of time until he delivered a fiscal corpse of his own. Then he declared he would hold the budget hostage until the Legislature breathed some life into it.
SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE EDITORIAL
Slippery state lawmakers risk backlash
In case state lawmakers have somehow missed all the evidence, Californians are genuinely and increasingly incensed about public employee compensation. This is playing out on many fronts. There’s fury over the looting of the small town of Bell in Los Angeles County by a handful of city executives and City Council members, anger over excessive benefits routinely provided to government executives and disbelief over the size and cost of cushy pensions given to rank-and-file government workers.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE EDITORIAL
California Legislature: Wasted days, wasted nights
California's Legislature adjourned in shame early Wednesday, bickering and jockeying to the end, and leaving far too much of the people's business unfinished as a result of timidity or incompetence.
