Eleven months after leading a successful campaign against a ballot measure that would have repealed fuel tax hikes approved by the Legislature in 2017, Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing bipartisan criticism over his administration’s decision to cancel three road projects in the Central Valley and San Luis Obispo County.

Newsom has rejected the criticism that he had engaged in a “bait and switch” because he previously emphasized to voters in 2018 that at least 60 percent of the $5.2 billion generated annually by the 2017 tax hikes would go to roads and bridges, as specified in Senate Bill 1.

But his Sept. 20 executive order directed state transportation officials “to leverage the more than $5 billion in annual … spending for construction, operations and maintenance to help reverse the trend of increased fuel consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions” and to “reduce congestion through innovative strategies designed to encourage people to shift from cars to other modes of transportation.” 

Soon after, Caltrans – citing Newsom’s order – said the three road projects had been subject to “deletion” from a list of scheduled work at a savings of $32.5 million. It also said other road projects had been reduced in scope, creating a total savings of $61.3 million “to be held in reserve for priority rail projects and other priorities aligned with [the governor’s] executive order.”

Assemblyman Rendon says voters remembered ‘clear promises’

This led to criticism not only from Republican officials in the Central Valley and San Luis Obispo but from Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood.

Gas taxes were raised “with some clear promises … that this money would be used … almost exclusively for roads and repairs,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Now is not the time to go back on those promises.”

But Newsom said he would honor Senate Bill 1 exactly as it was written and said critics shouldn’t “conflate” his Sept. 20 executive order with the state’s “locked in” commitment to fix roads and bridges.

Nevertheless, Democrats in the Legislature have good reason to be wary about fallout from their support of the 2017 gas tax hike. One of their few setbacks in recent years as they have established lopsided majorities in the Assembly and Senate came in June 2018 when state Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, was recalled easily after a campaign that focused on his vote for the gas tax hike.

But the potency of the issue has been evident longer than that. In 2002, 69 percent of state voters backed Proposition 42, which made it more difficult for gas taxes to be shifted for use on general needs. In 2006, 77 percent of state voters supported Proposition 1A, which added even more restrictions.

Gas tax revenue diverted to general uses in 2010

Yet these measures were unable to block Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature from raiding gas taxes again in 2010. Facing a huge budget deficit after the Great Recession had led to a nearly 20 percent drop in state revenue, the Republican governor and Democratic lawmakers and their lawyers came up with a plan to end state sales taxes on gasoline while sharply increasing excise taxes. Because the “gas tax swap” didn’t increase revenue, it was allowed to be enacted on a simple majority vote.

And since there were far fewer restrictions on gas excise taxes than gas sales taxes, lawmakers were able to take $1.8 billion in annual gas excise revenue for general uses.

Senate Bill 1 in 2017 eliminated the law setting up the tax swap.

When Gavin Newsom is sworn in as California governor on Jan. 7, he’s already indicated he will take criticisms of the state’s troubled $77 billion high-speed rail project seriously.

That’s in sharp contrast to outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown, who described project critics as “declinists” with no vision for what the Golden State could become. Brown only offered vague pronouncements when asked about giant cost overruns and the $50 billion or more gap between available funding and what’s needed to build the high-speed rail linking Los Angeles and San Francisco.

If Newsom lives up to his word, he’s going to need to respond to profound issues raised by project watchers in and out of the state government over the last two months.

In November, state Auditor Elaine Howle issued a harsh report on poor management practices in the California High-Speed Rail Authority, especially the billions in cost overruns due to the decision to launch construction of the project’s $10.6 billion, 119-mile first segment in the Central Valley before the authority was fully ready. Howle’s audit led Newsom to tell a Fresno audience that he might shake up the leadership of the rail authority.

Among the few specifically positive observations that Newsom has made in recent months about the project was that the first segment held promise to link Silicon Valley workers with less expensive housing in the Central Valley.

Project seen as ‘notoriously unpopular’ in Central Valley

But a Dec. 23 Sacramento Bee analysis found that even though the bullet train project was generating thousands of jobs in the agricultural region, it was “notoriously unpopular” among residents.

“They resent how construction has carved up their farms and scrambled their highways,” the Bee reported. “Completion of just a partial segment through the Valley is still years away, and residents doubt the project will ever get finished. They question the promises that high-speed rail will lift the Valley out of its economic doldrums.”

This skepticism is increasingly shared by elected Democrats both in the Central Valley and the rest of the state.

A Dec. 28 Los Angeles Times report quoted Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon as saying problems with the bullet train are so widespread that it should “be paused for a reassessment.” Rendon said the prospect that the project would run out of money before ever reaching the Los Angeles region left voters in the area feeling deceived.

Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman Jim Frazier, D-Oakley, has made clear that he will work to have rail authority chairman Dan Richard ousted because of cost overruns and management issues.

The bullet train’s image has also deteriorated among state pundits.

When California voters approved $9.95 billion in bond seed money for the then-$45 billion project in 2008, the ballot initiative was broadly supported by newspaper editorial boards.

“Americans who visit Japan or Europe and hop a bullet train get a stunning reminder of how far behind much of the industrialized world we are in swift, clean, efficient transportation,” the San Jose Mercury-News editorial page declared on Oct. 18, 2008. “Californians can change that by approving Proposition 1A, a bond to begin construction of a high-speed rail system that would whisk passengers from Los Angeles to the Bay Area through downtown San Jose in a mere 2 1/2 hours. It will be a catalyst for the economic growth of California and this region over the next 100 years.”

An editorial printed last month in the Mercury-News showed a 180-degree swing in opinion: “The incompetence and irresponsibility at the California High-Speed Rail Authority are staggering. … It’s time to end this fiasco to stop throwing good money after bad.”

Decision on cap-and-trade funding may signal Newsom’s intentions

An early sign of Newsom’s level of enthusiasm for continuing on Brown’s path is likely in coming weeks as initial work is done on the 2019-20 state budget. The California Air Resources Board reported pulling in $813 million from its Nov. 14 auction of cap-and-trade air pollution credits – a heavy haul.

If Newsom opposes diverting 25 percent of cap-and-trade revenue to the bullet-train project – as has been done since 2015 – that will be the clearest indication yet that he is ready to back away from the troubled project.

At a time when many Democrats and Republicans alike believe often-drought-stricken California needs more water storage projects and infrastructure, an $8.9 billion bond measure that earlier this year seemed to be a sure thing now faces a somewhat less certain fate.

The odds of passage are still strong. As a Bay Area News Group analysis noted, state records show that over the last quarter-century, voters have approved 80 percent of bonds put before them – 24 of 30.

But Proposition 3 – which was placed on the ballot after a signature-gathering campaign – is facing unexpectedly vigorous pushback on several fronts.

The strongest objections deal with the fact that unlike water bonds placed on the ballot directly by the Legislature, Proposition 3 funds wouldn’t be divvied up based on a careful evaluation process in which the merits of individual projects are rated and weighted. Instead, the ballot measure amounts to a pay-to-play initiative in which proponents of projects agreed to pay signature gatherers in support of a bond that specifies that a lengthy list of their projects will be funded.

This has led the Sierra Club of California, the League of Women Voters and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon to formally oppose Proposition 3.

Measure depicted as favor for rich farm interests

Sierra Club executive Eric Parfrey has written scathingly of the measure as a “bailout for billionaires,” citing provisions that pay for $750 million in repairs to the Madera and Friant-Kern canals that he believes should be paid for by large agribusinesses. Other specified projects involve far smaller sums but also raise eyebrows, such as providing funds for infrastructure that critics say should be the responsibility of the giant Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Proponents say this criticism ignores the big-picture value of having improved water infrastructure, especially in the Central Valley.

“Everything we eat comes out of there,” said Jerry Meral, the former deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, who has led the push for the ballot measure. “We just can’t let it go. You might also say, why should the state pay for urban water conservation? Why should the people who don’t have kids pay for schools? An agricultural water supply means we have a food supply. You have to invest in the state,” he told the Bay Area News Group.

Nevertheless, a Sacramento Bee editorial opposed Proposition 3 on the grounds that there isn’t strong evidence that it would pay for “the projects that California needs most right now, or that they couldn’t get the money elsewhere.”

But Proposition 3 also has heavyweights in its corner. The state Chamber of Commerce, labor groups and farming coalitions back the project, as does Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Some environmental groups have also endorsed the measure, most notably the Nature Conservancy.

However, Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the strong favorite to succeed Brown, have kept quiet.

Brown’s silence has surprised some veteran observers. He has long opposed the sorts of state borrowing that many governors found unobjectionable, and as a result California now spends considerably less on bond service as a percentage of its general fund budget than it did under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Voters have approved $31 billion in bonds since 2000

Yet this doesn’t mean the state has skimped on bonds. The Legislative Analyst’s Office reports the state has approved about $31 billion in general obligation bonds for water and environmental projects since 2000, with nearly a third of the bonds as yet unspent. In 2014, voters approved a $7.5 billion water bond, and just in the June primary, another water bond – this one for $4.1 billion – was backed by voters.

Brown has been joined in skepticism about new state borrowing by those who question why the state would use bonds paid off over 30- or 40-year spans in an era in which the Legislature and Brown have been able to salt away more than $15 billion in state reserve funds because of swelling revenues.

The total cost of repaying Proposition 3 has been estimated at about $17.2 billion, slightly less than twice as much as the face value of the bond measure.

As of the last campaign reporting deadline, Yes on Proposition 3 reported $4.7 million in contributions, mostly from farming groups. No on Proposition 3 reported no donations.

The “Me Too” anti-sexual harassment campaign that quickly yielded several resignations by state lawmakers last fall appears to have hit a lull in Sacramento with Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, now seemingly on track for re-election this November despite scandalous allegations. But new twists may loom.

Garcia, 40, appeared doomed to a primary defeat two months ago. She took a voluntary leave of absence after she was accused of groping a then-legislative staffer four years ago; making inappropriate comments to a lobbyist; playing “spin the bottle” with staffers; and of using racist and homophobic language. The perception that she was a weakened candidate led the State Building & Construction Trades Council of California – which supported her in 2014 and 2016 – to oppose her primary bid.

But between a preliminary probe finding no evidence for the most serious allegation against Garcia – that she groped a staffer – and the strong support of Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, Garcia finished first in her June 5 primary. She got 29 percent of the votes to 27 percent for Republican activist Mike Simpfenderfer, a mortgage banker. The other five candidates in the race, all Democrats, split the remaining 44 percent of the vote.

Last week, however, saw two developments that suggested Garcia wasn’t out of the woods yet. The first came when the Assembly agreed to consider an appeal of its finding clearing Garcia of groping former legislative aide Daniel Fierro, who now works as a Los Angeles County political consultant. Fierro sought the appeal last month amid grumbling that the initial investigation of Garcia was released even though it was incomplete.

This concern may have been a factor in the second development: the call from two Democratic lawmakers for a much more transparent and responsive approach to allegations of misconduct involving state lawmakers and staffers.

Anti-gay, anti-Asian remarks could haunt Garcia

State Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, said existing efforts to respond to sexual harassment don’t go nearly far enough to take on a “toxic” culture in the Capitol. They propose establishing a new investigative unit that would focus only on discrimination and harassment complaints; would handle probes for both the Assembly and the Senate; and would rely on an independent committee of experts to recommend punishment for those found guilty of wrongdoing. Legislators, however, still would have the final say on what if any penalties were assessed.

But the Mitchell-Friedman proposal targets not just the behavior that Garcia has so far been cleared of but behavior of the sort the Assembly probe found she had engaged in: using homophobic slurs to describe fellow Los Angeles County Democrat John Perez, the Assembly’s first openly gay speaker, and of threatening violence against Asian-Americans after some Asian-American lawmakers balked at affirmative-action proposals that they thought would help some minority groups but not their own.

“The proposed policy … aims to spur a shift in how people in the Capitol community speak and act toward each other,” the Associated Press reported. “It encourages people to report minor incidents such as insensitive comments all the way through more aggressive acts of misconduct.”

Rendon’s decision to defend Garcia while still appearing strongly sympathetic to the Me Too movement has been complicated by comments that suggest he thinks Garcia’s larger record of legislative priorities and accomplishments should matter in judging her behavior. Similar suggestions made in defense of former President Bill Clinton and now-former Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, triggered a furious backlash.

Rendon entered this territory in April when he denounced the building trades unions for seeking to replace Garcia with other Democrats whom Rendon said would be more willing to challenge aggressive environmental policies touted by Gov. Jerry Brown and all the party’s legislative leaders. A spokesperson for the unions said their opposition to Garcia was prompted not by her strong environmentalism but by sympathy for her alleged victim and a belief another candidate would better reflect the values of the 58th Assembly District.

But Rendon rejected the claims in a blistering statement posted by the Sacramento Bee in which he called the unions’ maneuvering “a thinly veiled attempt by Big Oil and polluters to intimidate me and my members,” “ an affront to my speakership” and an “ill-advised political attack.”

The stakes are particularly high for Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, who has already gotten on the bad side of the “Bernie-crats” who may soon dominate the Capitol. Last year, he shelved Senate Bill 562 – a Senate-backed measure that would commit California to single-payer health care without a blueprint on how to overcome cost and legal obstacles – saying it was much too incomplete to approve.

Now, however, Rendon has decided to assert his bona fides on another foundational issue for progressives – fighting global warming – in a way that eventually could put him at odds with another progressive cause: the #MeToo anti-sexual harassment campaign.

Rendon’s maneuvering relates to Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (pictured), D-Bell Gardens, who was an outspoken leader of the Capitol’s #MeToo movement after allegations emerged against several lawmakers last fall. In early February – after the Legislature passed an unprecedented whistleblower-protection measure to help root out lawmakers responsible for sexual harassment – Garcia was celebrated as a hero in the Associated Press story about the law’s enactment.

But within days, Garcia – a single, 40-year-old former high school teacher – found herself accused of groping a former aide, Daniel Fierro, who is now a Los Angeles County political consultant. Garcia denied the allegations and is now taking unpaid leave while she is the subject of a formal investigation by the Assembly Rules Committee.

Lawmaker allegedly used gay slurs, ripped Asians

Yet her headaches have only intensified in recent weeks due to two new allegations. The first asserted that in 2014 she used homophobic insults to describe then-Assembly Speaker John Perez. The second, made by Perez, was that he had formally admonished her for saying in a closed Assembly Democratic Caucus meeting that she wanted to “punch the next Asian person” she encountered over Asian-American lawmakers’ opposition to efforts to overturn the 1996 state law banning affirmative action in college admissions.

Now, however, Rendon is coming to Garcia’s defense against efforts by other Democrats and Democratic allies to unseat Garcia in her bid for a fourth term in the June primary – with the speaker citing her history as a defender of the state’s cap-and-trade program against more business-friendly lawmakers.

On April 20, the State Building & Construction Trades Council of California opened an independent expenditure committee targeting Garcia after twice having previously endorsed her. The labor group’s beef with Garcia stemmed from her support last year of cap-and-trade and other pollution control programs; construction unions are much closer to oil-and-gas interests than other factions in the California Democratic coalition. Two credible challengers to Garcia have emerged – Commerce Councilman Ivan Altamirano and Bell Gardens Councilman Pedro Aceituno.

Rendon responded as if setting up the committee was an attack on him. According to a Sacramento Bee report, he called the targeting of Garcia “a thinly veiled attempt by Big Oil and polluters to intimidate me and my members” and “an affront to my speakership.” The Assembly speaker also vowed to “vigorously defend the members of our caucus from any ill-advised political attack.”

But a spokeswoman for the independent expenditure committee backing Garcia’s defeat told the Bee that no one should buy any characterization of Garcia as a victim.
“It wasn’t politics that forced her to do the things of which she’s been accused,” said Erin Lehane.

Rendon’s decision to defend Garcia could grow even more problematic if the Rules Committee returns with a report corroborating the harassment allegations against her. At that point, even Garcia’s close allies in the Sacramento #MeToo movement may be inclined to cut her loose. There is no firm timetable for when that report will be released.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom appears comfortable with borrowing from Bernie Sanders’ playbook and embracing single-payer health care in his bid to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown in the June open primary and the November general election.

That’s a key takeaway of campaign watchers from the past month of the California gubernatorial campaign. Perhaps the signature moment: Newsom taunting “defeatist Democrats” in a San Diego debate last week – a clear shot at his main Democratic rivals, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Treasurer John Chiang, who both support expanded state health care but are leery of single-payer’s potential cost.

The emergence of the former San Francisco mayor as an outspoken advocate of single-payer amounts to a triumph for the California Nurses Association, the leading champions of Senate Bill 562 – which commits the state to providing health care for all residents without providing key details on how that would be achieved. Despite the lack of details, the bill – known as the Healthy California Act and co-sponsored by Sens. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Garden, and Toni Atkins, D-San Diego – passed the Senate on a 23-14 vote last June.

But Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, incensed the nurses union later in June when he shelved the bill, declaring it “woefully incomplete.” Rendon cited its failure to identify how it would pay the estimated $400 billion that SB562 would cost per year – more than triple the state’s general fund budget. He also faulted the measure for violating spending limits in the state Constitution and for not making the case on how California would get many needed federal waivers to proceed.

In January, Rendon repeated his criticisms, saying there had been no progress in making SB562 into a serious legislative proposal.

But with polls showing national Democrats consider single-payer health care a high priority, Newsom is eager to take advantage of their enthusiasm. Yet while it may help him in the short term in the run-up to the June primary, it is unclear whether backing SB562 will be popular with the broad electorate in the long term.

A May 2017 poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 65 percent of adults surveyed support single-payer health care – but that the number plunged to 43 percent when those being surveyed were told substantial new taxes would be needed. A follow-up PPIC poll in September found just 32 percent of likely state voters backed single-payer.

Rendon recall bid fails without collecting a single signature

Another sign that single-payer support may have its limits has been the collapse of an effort to recall Rendon that was launched last summer after he blocked the advance of SB562. The bid received national attention after an Associated Press story depicted it as one more sign of how divided California Democrats had become.

But the recall campaign unceremoniously ended in early February, with organizers saying they were now focused on defeating Rendon’s bid for re-election – not on recalling him. To force a recall vote, 23,000 petition signatures would have to be gathered. According to the Los Angeles Times, the most recent official report on the recall campaign filed with the state showed no signatures had been gathered.

Public and private polls for months have generally shown Newsom to be leading Villaraigosa, with Chiang, former Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin (a Democrat) and Republican candidates Travis Allen, a Huntington Beach assemblyman, and Rancho Santa Fe businessman John Cox substantially behind them. But the last poll by PPIC, released Feb. 7, showed a statistical dead heat, with Newsom getting 23 percent and Villaraigosa 21 percent – within the poll’s margin of error.

The California progressive movement’s summer of discontent continues, with anger still on display over the abrupt withdrawal of a single-payer health care bill and over the May election of a party insider as California Democratic chairman.

This week, the Associated Press reported that progressives remain interested in pursuing a recall campaign against Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, (pictured) for his decision to kill Senate Bill 562, the Healthy California Act. Los Angeles activist Steve Elzie is a lead organizer.

The California Nurses Association last month paid for two mailers to be sent to constituents in Rendon’s Los Angeles County district blasting him for “holding health care hostage” and “protecting politicians, not people’s health care.” The mailers urged constituents to complain to Rendon’s offices over the decision, but did not advocate a recall.

That decision may reflect that CNA President RoseAnn DeMoro – who initially led the criticism of Rendon – has realized how difficult it would be to ultimately remove him from office.

Obtaining the 20,000-plus signatures needed to trigger a recall election might not be much of a problem, given that single-payer champion Bernie Sanders got 44 percent and 48 percent of the vote in the June 2016 Democratic presidential primary in California’s 38th and 47th Congressional Districts, respectively. The districts cover much of Rendon’s 63rd Assembly District district which includes parts or all of Commerce, Bell, Lynwood, Paramount and Lakewood.

But Rendon has gotten at least 69 percent of the vote in his three Assembly bids. He also has more than $1.2 million in his campaign war chest and has the support of other influential unions, meaning ready access to more donations and help campaigning.

Rendon killed SB562 because he said it failed to adequately identify how it would pay its $400 billion in annual costs to provide health care to every Californian.

‘Berniecrat’ still won’t accept loss in party chair vote

The other flap pitting the party establishment against “Berniecrats” also flared this week when Bay Area political organizer Kimberly Ellis launched a new salvo over her narrow loss for state party chairman to Eric Bauman, a nurse who has long been a fixture in Los Angeles County Democratic politics and was deputy to the last state chair, former Congressman John Burton.

At May’s state Democratic convention in Sacramento, Bauman held off a late surge from the lesser-known Ellis to win 51 percent to 49 percent. Ellis immediately challenged what she said were election irregularities, leading to a July recount in which 47 of about 3,000 ballots were thrown out but Bauman’s margin of victory was unchanged.

Ellis and her fellow Sanders’ supporters, however, still don’t accept the results.

On Tuesday, she called on the California Democratic Party to accept binding arbitration to determine who really won the May election. She hinted it was the only way the party could head off a lawsuit that she suggested last month was forthcoming if she were unhappy with how party officials handled her appeal, which continues this month with a hearing of the Democratic Party credentialing committee.

California Democratic Party spokesman Mike Roth said the party would stick to its rules, which don’t provide for arbitration.

“Ms. Ellis is now deep in her own end zone and throwing a desperate Hail Mary pass in hopes of changing the outcome of an election that she lost fair and square,” Roth said.

But Ellis’ “Vote for Kimberly” website remains unchanged and continues to feature sharp – if indirect – criticisms of Bauman for allegedly close ties to corporate interests.

SACRAMENTO – Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, an avowed supporter of single-payer health care, nevertheless announced last week that he was pulling the plug on a Senate-passed measure that would create such a system in California.

Rendon, who is holding the bill in committee, was only the proximate cause of AB562’s death. Its fate was sealed after a Senate floor analysis last month pinned its likely cost at $400 billion – more than three times the state’s entire general-fund budget.

“It didn’t make any sense,” Rendon recently told the Sacramento Bee. “It just didn’t seem like public policy as much as it seemed a statement of principles. I hope the Senate takes this chance to take the bill more seriously than they did before.”

According to its bill language, the Healthy California Act would “provide comprehensive universal single-payer health care coverage and a health care cost control system for the benefit of all residents of the state.” The measure would have tossed out California’s myriad systems of private, insurance-backed and government-funded health care and replaced it with a single, government-managed system run by a newly created state agency.

Such a massive change would demand volumes of detailed legislative language, yet the bill itself was remarkably brief and lacking in specifics. It even failed to include any explanation for how it would receive the necessary waivers from the federal government.

The Appropriations Committee analysis concluded the bill would lead to “increased utilization of health care services,” given that all residents would be free to “see any willing provider, to receive any service deemed medically appropriate by a licensed provider, and the lack of cost sharing, in combination, would make it difficult for the program to make use of utilization management tools such as drug formularies, prior authorization requirements, or other utilization management tools.” So all financial bets were off, given an expected – and probably massive – hike in demand.

To fund the $400 billion program, the Appropriations Committee concluded the state would have to raise about $200 billion in new tax revenues. That would mean a new 15 percent payroll tax, with no cap on the wages subject to the tax. Shifting any of those costs from taxpayers to enrollees would be impossible under provisions that prohibit “members from Healthy California from being required to pay any premium” or “from being required to pay any co-payment, co-insurance, deductible and any other form of cost-sharing for all covered benefits.” 

State officials often argue about programs that spend millions of dollars, but had a surprisingly short debate about one that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. One reason that might be is that Gov. Jerry Brown already had expressed deep skepticism about the measure. “This is called ‘the unknown by means of the more unknown,’” he told reporters in March. It was unlikely he would have signed it, especially given his concern about creating new spending programs. Critics argue that the governor’s public views gave Democrats a free pass to vote for it and assuage their political base while knowing it was unlikely to become law. Rendon’s comments to the Bee certainly give ammunition to those who saw the bill as a half-baked “statement” bill.

Support and opposition fell along predictable and partisan lines. Liberal interest groups, unions and Democratic politicians typically supported the bill, while conservative groups, taxpayer organizations and Republicans opposed it. Some groups expressed views similar to Rendon’s – supporting the single-payer concept but expressing concern about specifics.

The latter, cautious point of view won the day. After all, the bill raised more questions than it answered. It’s unclear how the new system would work or how the new government agency would operate. There are questions about the effects a 15 percent payroll tax would on the economy and jobs creation and about the magnet effect if California created an unlimited, valuable new benefit available to anyone who simply lives in the state. There are questions about federal waivers and how the California system would intersect with federal programs. And that’s just for starters.

Instead of trying to answer those questions thoroughly, the bill’s backers did as Rendon suggested – introduced a measure that stated some principles and goals, but didn’t really explain how the state government might fund them. Given the debate the health care issue sparked at the latest state Democratic Party convention and on the floor of the Legislature, it’s clear that the single-payer issue will be around or a while, regardless of the fate of this particular bill.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Will progressive lawmakers challenge Gov. Jerry Brown over his decision to dash their big dreams for the 2017-18 fiscal year? Or will they acquiesce as they mostly have in recent months of May after Brown released revised budgets without money for new or expanded government programs?

Despite the pleas of Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, and Senate President Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, that he take a break from his usual frugality, the governor’s revised 2017-18 $124 billion general fund budget released last week is far more concerned about helping public schools and beefing up the state’s rainy-day fund than any new liberal cause.

With a month until the June 15 deadline to adopt a state budget, that means Democratic lawmakers – especially those from liberal districts in the Bay Area and Los Angeles County – have a big decision to make: Do they accept a wipeout? Or do they put pressure on Brown by sending him bills popular with Trump-agitated grass-roots Democrats and making him veto them?

This is the dynamic created by the fact that Democratic legislative leaders entered the current session in January with ambitious hopes for bold new programs making college much cheaper, expanding state affordable housing efforts and providing health care for all.

Ambitious legislation not taken seriously

The governor doesn’t even think the ideas are worth discussing.

Brown’s budget rejects the basics of Assembly Bill 1356, by Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, which would have added a 1 percent surtax on California families earning $1 million or more to cover the cost of fees and tuition for in-state students at the University of California, California State University and the California Community College system. The governor also dismissed without comment Assembly Democrats’ push to help cover basic living expenses for 350,000-plus UC and CSU students from families which make less than $150,000 a year.

Brown’s budget makes no mention of SB562, a bill by Sens. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, and Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, that would create a government-run single-payer health care system. It’s won some early committee victories, despite not having a fiscal analysis that explains how or who will pay for the program.

And a push supported by dozens of Democratic lawmakers to impose a fee on real-estate transactions to provide a steady stream of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding for subsidized affordable housing projects was flatly rejected by Brown as inadequate to addressing California’s housing crisis.

At a Thursday press conference, the governor said, “I don’t think we should throw money at the housing problem if we don’t adopt real changes that make housing production more efficient and less costly. We’ve got to do that first.”

For nearly two years, the governor has pushed for laws reforming the California Environmental Quality Act to give builders fewer obstacles to constructing new housing units. But legislative Democrats have heeded their union, trial lawyer and environmental allies who say CEQA shouldn’t be weakened.

Brown and top Democratic lawmakers pulled off a big win last month on an issue they agreed on: the urgent need to improve California’s decaying infrastructure, both for quality-of-life reasons and to help the economy by reducing the drag on the economy caused by bad, clogged roads. They pushed through gas tax hikes to pay for a 10-year, $52 billion infrastructure improvement and repair initiative.

But Brown’s pragmatism about government spending has been the calling card of his second stint as governor. Given his high approval ratings, the governor seems unlikely to believe he needs to make concessions if Democratic lawmakers send him spending bills he doesn’t like.

“Lower-income students … are able to many times, through our great programs in California, get help to pay for tuition. But they’re still graduating with a tremendous amount of debt,” said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento.

The plan, unveiled earlier this month, would cover not just tuition but living expenses as well, making it different from other similar proposals in states like New York.

“California is taking the boldest step in the nation for making college debt-free,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, said in a recent press conference.

The cost for the program would come at a price tag of $1.6 billion per year, phased in over five years, and would be paid for using money from the state’s General Fund, lawmakers say.

Proponents say existing tax revenues will cover the cost, but other projections to provide universal college came in at a much higher cost of $3.3 billion annually.

Some lawmakers are skeptical of the effectiveness of the plan, especially as California confronts a wide range of other issues like infrastructure and entitlement spending.

“I think it’s well intentioned,” Republican Assemblyman Rocky Chavez said of the plan. “But I don’t think it recognizes the economic reality or really addresses the challenges we have to address.”

Additionally, the plan comes at a time when the effectiveness of Cal State schools is being called into question due to poor graduation rates.

For example, under 20 percent of full-time CSU freshmen graduate in four years, much less than the 34 percent national average for public universities.

The “Degrees Not Debt” program would affect around 400,000 students at UC and Cal State institutions.

It’s just one of over a dozen student-aid related bills already proposed in Sacramento this year alone to offset the cost of college, as the average student loan debt per graduate in the Golden State is $22,191.

For example, Assembly Democrats last month pushed forward a plan that would grant in-state tuition for individuals in the state as refugees.

Currently, around 60 percent of Cal State students and about half of University of California and community college students already have their tuition fully covered by existing grants and aid programs.

Student aid and college reform has come into increasing focus, partly spurred by former Democratic Bernie Sanders’ push to make all at public universities tuition-free.