That was Brown’s judgment of the Legislature’s performance, which has left his administration with substantial unfinished business heading into the election year. The consequence may be a fresh round of tax increases.

Special session blues

Frustrated with the meager results of the special legislative session he called this summer, Brown unleashed a series of vetoes against increased credits and benefits, especially for lower-income residents. Among the nine pieces of legislation Brown denied were “bills that won near unanimous support in the Legislature that would have offered tax breaks for food bank donations, veterans seeking employment and energy- and water-efficient appliances,” as the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Brown even torpedoed six unanimously improved reforms of the California Public Utilities Commission. The beleaguered agency has been subject to investigation by the state attorney general and the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco, according to the Sacramento Bee. “Taken together there are various technical and conflicting issues that make the over 50 proposed reforms unworkable,” Brown wrote of the bills, the Bee added. “Some prudent prioritization is needed.”

Losing revenue

But Brown’s approach alone could not resolve California’s outstanding budgetary challenges. At the heart of Brown’s raft of vetoes was the Legislature’s inability to restructure the so-called managed care organizations tax, which affects health plans participating in the Medi-Cal program. “Last summer, federal officials decreed that California’s managed care organizations (MCO) tax will no longer be allowed after 2016,” as KQED noted. “But reworking the MCO tax proved to be no easy task this summer,” with Republicans unwilling to hike taxes and Democrats unable to sweeten the deal for the GOP. “Without the extension of the managed care organization tax that I called for in special session,” Brown said in his message explaining his veto of the nine bills, “next year’s budget faces the prospect of over $1 billion in cuts.”

Disgruntled Democrats

In a sharp political irony, legislative Democrats suffered more than Republicans as a result of Brown’s fiscal retribution. Each of the bills vetoed was authored by members of his own party, who decried his decision to shoot down what the Mercury News described as “only modest tax credits” that would “cost the state relatively little.”

“Brown even vetoed Senate Bill 199, authored by Sen. Isadore Hall, D-Compton, which sought to provide blind, disabled Californians with assistance completing financial documents and would have cost the state $3 million annually — a minuscule fraction of California’s $117.5 billion budget.”

The MCO tax was not the only issue on which Brown and lawmakers parted ways. “Republicans rejected Brown’s road repair funding proposal, whose GOP-friendly components, such as streamlining CEQA [the California Environmental Quality Act] and using cap-and-trade money for roads, couldn’t overcome the minority party’s aversion to higher gas taxes and a new road fee,” the Sacramento Bee noted.

Resorting to the ballot

But not as much attention has been paid to the criticism a strong majority of the Assembly made of the governor on what he and others have described as California’s biggest issue: how it deals with its profound shortage in water. This criticism was reflected in 47 of the 80 Assembly members signing a letter asking for a special session to consider emergency drought legislation.

The Associated Press, which broke the story, reported that the bipartisan group believed a …

… special session is needed to address the unprecedented water crisis, which could worsen as California faces the prospect of an El Nino weather pattern that could bring severe flooding.

 

“We have seen from widespread reports that as much as half of the $687 million set aside to help drought-stricken communities remains unspent in state accounts – and will remain there until 2016,” says the letter. “In addition, we are seeing the same slow and lethargic project pace with the funds raised as a result of last year’s Proposition 1 ballot measure.”

 

The AP reported in June that more than $320 million that was supposed to be rushed to drought-stricken California communities was sitting unspent in government bank accounts, more than a year after lawmakers voted to use the money to provide water, protect wells from contamination and upgrade outdated water systems.

 

A special session addressing the drought should also include “thoughtful and careful review of environmental policies that — even if well-meaning — may be doing more harm than good,” the letter says.

Young Central Valley politicians taking on the governor

The Central Valley produced many of the 47 signatories to the letter. Assemblyman Devon Mathis, a 32-year-old Republican who represents Tulare and Inyo counties and parts of Kern County, was the leading organizer.

The leader of the opposition to Brown’s and state Senate President Kevin de Leon’s push for a long-term 50 percent reduction in gasoline use — the rejected central plank of the energy legislation — was Assemblyman Henry Perea, a 38-year-old Fresno Democrat.

This suggests that regional politics may be returning to prominence in Sacramento after a long period in which nearly all elected state Democrats went along with an agenda dominated by politicians aligned with environmentalists and union interests based in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Republicans got nowhere with appeals for regional solidarity on some issues.

In 2009, for example, a proposal by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, to help divert some federally controlled water to farmers in the poverty-wracked Central Valley won the support of 37 House Democrats. But only one was from California — Rep. Dennis Cardoza of Merced.

Nunes’ measure suffered a decisive defeat in the House Rules Committee, partly because Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, wouldn’t support it. Matsui grew up in Dinuba, a poor town in Nunes’ district some 30 miles from Fresno.

Taking a cue from one of his movies, Gov. Arnold Schwarzendeficit wants a final act. So he just called a Special Session of the new Legislature to resolve $6 billion in deficit spending from the budget he signed — just a month ago.

Legislators have to come to town because of Prop. 58, the initiative he put on the ballot in 2004 because it was supposed to balance the budget — but obviouly didn’t.

Legislators should do nothing except schmooze and get drunk.

They should ignore has-been Arnold and wait until Jerry Brown becomes governor in January.

Get lost, Arnold.

And good riddance.

Nov. 11, 2010