More than three-quarters of California’s local governments have declined to authorize retail stores to sell cannabis, as permitted by state voters with their 2016 approval of Proposition 64. Opposition has been led by moderate Democrats and conservative Republicans unconvinced that making the drug readily available for recreational use is good for society.

But much of California’s House delegation is supportive of helping the marijuana industry achieve a key goal: access to the banking system. Even with cannabis now legal in some form in 33 states, the great majority of banks and credit unions in the Golden State and elsewhere have declined to do business with marijuana-related businesses because possession and sale of the drug remain illegal under federal law.

Last week, the House passed the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act 321 to 103. Every California Democrat backed the measure and so did four of the state’s seven Republican members: Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, Tom McClintock of Elk Grove, Devin Nunes of Tulare and Duncan Hunter of Alpine.

The passage of the bill after past efforts went nowhere was widely credited to a change in focus in lobbying. Leading the push this time was lobbyists for the financial services industry itself – not the cannabis industry. They argued that making a multibillion-dollar industry use cash only created headaches and safety risks for the many legitimate, longstanding businesses that dealt with cannabis companies.

Bankers say other businesses shouldn’t be inconvenienced

American Bankers Association President and CEO Rob Nichols told Politico, “The most compelling arguments have been centered around these secondary relationships. It’s the local plumber, it’s the local electrician, it’s the attorney, it’s the accountant who are doing business with a cannabis grower or dispensary who are then having challenges associated with getting banking products and services.”

The American Financial Services Association focused its lobbying on McCarthy and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, also emphasizing the need to stop inconveniencing so many established businesses.

The fate of the SAFE bill in the Senate is unclear. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, has said that he will schedule a hearing on the bill, but his aides said that should not be interpreted as support.

California’s Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, are expected to be supportive. After 35 years as a staunch supporter of the drug war, Feinstein reversed course in spring 2018.

“My state has legalized marijuana for personal use, and as California continues to implement this law, we need to ensure we have strong safety rules to prevent impaired driving and youth access, similar to other public health issues like alcohol,” she told a McClatchy reporter.

Harris has also changed her position. In 2010, while running for California attorney general, she opposed an initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use. 

“Spending two decades in courtrooms, Harris believes that drug selling harms communities,” her aide told Capitol Weekly. “Harris supports the legal use of medicinal marijuana but does not support anything beyond that.”

But her position softened over the years, and last year she signed on as a co-sponsor of a bill by Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, that would make cannabis legal under federal law.

The Trump administration has launched a bold effort to up-end water policies in the Central Valley and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, calling for big changes that would favor farmers over endangered species in allocating water.

Helping craft the administration’s new approach: Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former lawyer and lobbyist for the Westlands Water District, which is the nation’s largest agricultural water district with 600,000 acres of farmland in Fresno and Kings counties.

As CalWatchdog reported in June 2017, the prospect of having Bernhardt overseeing the federal government’s California water policies was opposed by nearly all Democrats in Congress because of his history. Meanwhile, to GOP lawmakers from the Golden State, his nomination was seen as confirmation of Trump’s 2016 campaign promises to abandon the old status quo involving Central Valley agriculture.

The Oct. 19 memo signed by Trump reflected Bernhardt’s years of calling for lesser regulatory burdens, specifically including long-lived protections for endangered species. It underlined the determination of the Trump administration to make sure farmers got more water. The memo also ordered that major water projects receive faster environmental reviews.

Trump signed the memo before a campaign rally in Arizona while flanked by three California House members – Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, Jeff Denham of Turlock and Tom McClintock, who represents a wide swath of Central and Eastern California. All have denounced what they see as excessive federal deference to environmentalists – including by the George W. Bush administration, not just the Obama administration.

“This will move things along at a record clip, and you’ll have a lot of water,” Trump assured them.

But veterans of the water wars – including those who back Trump’s new policy – have warned farmers not to get their hopes up for the rapid changes the president predicted. More modest changes in policies by the last Bush administration were fought in both federal and state courts by well-funded environmental law firms. They won not just stays of federal orders but full victories from judges who agreed with their interpretation of Congress’ intent when it adopted far-reaching water laws last century.

Fight over economic impact of rules looms

Bernhardt’s remarks at a May 2017 Senate hearing point squarely to one coming fight with broad implications for all of the federal government. When asked whether the Interior Department would keep its commitment to “scientific integrity” in enforcing federal laws, Bernhardt said, “I will look at the science with all its significance and its warts. You look at that, you evaluate it and then you look at the legal decision you can make. In some instances the legal decision may allow you to consider other factors, such as jobs.”

The idea that governments can consider such economic factors when interpreting laws has been one of the favorite legal arguments of conservative and libertarian law professors since it was advanced in 1973 by Richard A. Posner, who went on to serve 36 years as a federal appellate judge and to emerge as one of the most important and provocative legal thinkers of the 20th century.

If there is any evidence this philosophy is leading to new Trump administration interpretations of federal laws, a strong legal challenge is certain – not just because of what it would mean for water policy but because it would give business interests a powerful new tool to challenge a wide range of laws that create economic burdens.

Posner’s most crucial, basic claim – that the “common law” that is the basis of the legal system holds efficiency as a value – is scoffed at by many legal academics. A Stanford law school analysis that was otherwise sympathetic to Posner’s theories says it is based on “ambiguous” precedents.

The fight over the Posner-Bernhardt view of the law is in some ways the reverse of normal fights over the extent of judicial authority. Democrats say the claim that “efficiency” is part of how laws should be interpreted was invented out of whole cloth, with no evidence it reflected the wishes of the nation’s founders. 

This is the line of argument often made by conservative strict constructionists, who reject the idea that the Constitution and other long-standing laws are “living documents” subject to new interpretations because of changing circumstances.

Twelve of the 13 GOP no votes on the House tax plan came from the three states, with three from the Golden State: Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa, Darrell Issa of Vista, and Tom McClintock of Elk Grove. There were fears of more defections because both the House and Senate plans would only allow tax filers to take up to a $10,000 deduction in property taxes, only a little more than half the average $18,000-plus deduction in California. The House plan would also only allow deduction of mortgage interest on up to $500,000 on a home loan, down from the present $1 million.

But a compromise was reached allowing individual filers to take a deduction of up to $10,000 on any combination of combined income, property and sales taxes. The allowable deduction of mortgage interest on a home loan rose to $750,000.

To cover the revenue lost because of the changes, the 20 percent corporate tax rate approved in both the House and Senate bills rose to 21 percent – still down sharply from the present 35 percent.

It is not clear whether the concessions would stem defections from GOPers representing high-tax stakes. The House bill passed 227-205 last month, meaning Speaker Paul Ryan doesn’t have many extra votes to spare.

Two New York Republican House members – Peter King and Dan Donovan – were rebuffed in their bid to retain the present complete deductibility of state and local taxes for families earning less than $400,000 per year and to gradually phase out the deduction for higher-income earners in coming years.

Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-New York, was one of the few on-the-fence lawmakers to offer immediate comment on the compromise.

“Many middle-income taxpayers … were promised a tax cut and won’t being seeing the tax relief that they’re expecting,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

State Democrats, housing advocates see likely tax change as devastating

Two tax proposals that drew withering fire from California Democrats and higher education leaders, including UC President Janet Napolitano, were scrapped. One would have eliminated the deduction for interest on student loans and the other would have classified graduate-school tuition waivers as taxable income.

But changes to the tax code that California Democrats and advocates for the poor say will ravage construction of affordable housing appear on track for adoption. The changes make low-income housing tax credits that businesses use to reduce their tax liability less attractive. The credits have defrayed the cost of 40 percent of some major housing projects in Northern California, according to a Bay Area News Group report last week.

“All the work that we did this year, the hard work of advocates working for years, if not decades on this, could be wiped out overnight if Donald Trump and his Republican allies are successful in passing the so-called tax reform,” Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, told a BANG reporter.

Chiu is chairman of the Assembly’s Housing & Community Development Committee.

Photo by Justin LoFranco

In a broad turnabout, the fortunes of California Republicans in Congress have waned as conservatives on the Hill have gained the advantage.

The shift, which began with Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., withdrawing abruptly from a race for Speaker he had seemed certain to win, has sidelined other members of the GOP’s California delegation. “Despite his lead over other candidates,” the Los Angeles Daily News recalled, “McCarthy had failed to win over a small but crucial bloc in the House GOP: the hardline Freedom Caucus. This group of 30-plus uncompromising conservatives drove Boehner to resign by threatening a floor vote on his speakership. On the eve of [the] vote they announced they would oppose Boehner’s No.2, McCarthy, and back one of his rivals instead, Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida, a former speaker of the Florida House.”

Fresh fissures

Rather than hinging on ideology, tough tactics have been largely responsible for the obdurate reputation the Freedom Caucus has made for itself. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., recently announced his withdrawal from the Caucus — despite sterling conservative credentials on the Hill. “A charter member of the House Freedom Caucus when it began earlier this year, McClintock quit the group last month,” as McClatchy reported. “Just last year, the American Conservative Union had given him a 99 percent lifetime support score. Only one House of Representatives Republican was more consistent.”

In an interview with the wire, McClintock said of the Freedom Caucus that “their tactics have become counterproductive for the enactment of a conservative agenda,” singling out its “opposition to a trade bill and its willingness to shut down the federal government over Planned Parenthood funding.” Although those issues have emerged as important to a slice of the Republican base often associated with the Tea Party, the Caucus has come under fire more for using them as wedges to weaken and challenge the establishment GOP leadership in Congress.

Political blowback

But the establishment’s own political acumen — or lack thereof — has fueled the sense among Tea Party sympathizers that the Freedom Caucus has no choice but to combat the sitting GOP leadership. Rep. McCarthy’s unforced error on the Benghazi investigation, which he touted as an effective political weapon against Hillary Clinton, became a sizable boon for Democrats.

For some California conservatives, insult was added to injury when the Golden State’s Congressional Democrats like Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Linda Sanchez seized on the opportunity to raise their own profiles during the suddenly beleaguered hearing. “The kind of spotlight Schiff and Sanchez enjoyed Thursday is rare for California lawmakers, particularly those in densely populated Southern California, which has an ultra-competitive media market,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “Such visibility can be helpful for someone like Schiff, who has served in Congress for nearly 15 years and is well-respected by colleagues, but whose name recognition is lower than more prominent members of the delegation.”

Ballot blues

The political crossfire has troublesome implications for the coming election cycle in California, where state Republicans have grown increasingly desperate to field candidates capable of notching some wins. “The National Republican Congressional Committee sent a staffer out to the Golden State last week to search for and meet with potential candidates and convince them to run in competitive districts in San Diego, Palm Springs and Sacramento, according to a source with knowledge of the visit,” Roll Call recently reported. “But after a string of losses in the state, multiple Republican strategists in California are pessimistic about the GOP’s ability to recruit top-tier challengers, especially for 2016, when presidential-year turnout is expected to benefit Democrats.”

While national conservatives have blamed the state GOP’s drift away from core principle, California Republicans have pointed the finger at the kind of truculence they say defines the Freedom Caucus. State GOP consultant Richard Temple told Roll Call “a major problem for Republican candidates running in the state is that they are weighed down by the national GOP’s brand. He said the image could be fixed if the field of candidates Republicans recruit reflected the party’s growing diversity, but he said without donors believing those candidates can win, getting them to run will be hard,” the site noted.

The new makeup of the U.S. Congress might break the log-jam for drought legislation. In addition to Republicans taking over the U.S. Senate and increasing their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, McClintock just was appointed chairman of the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands of the Natural Resources Committee.

Before being elected to the House in 2008, in his two decades in the California Legislature he continually warned of the need for more water storage.

McClintock said the Feinstein bill only addressed the current drought and didn’t provide long-term relief. Now, he said, “The longer-term measures may take on a more West-wide perspective. So, stay tuned.”

The former chairman of his subcommittee, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, now chairs the full Natural Resources Committee and is a McClintock ally focused on the water situation in the entire Western United States.

Bipartisan

McClintock pointed out that any bill still must be bipartisan. In the Senate, 60 votes are needed to prevent a filibuster, but Republicans now hold only 54 seats. And 67 votes would be needed to override a potential veto by President Obama.

If a bipartisan bill lands on the president’s desk, McClintock said, “At that point, it’s his prerogative to either sign that legislation into law, or explain to the American people why he is standing in the way of desperately needed water measures.”

As to the GOP takeover of the Senate, McClintock said the president has gotten off to a bad start by “getting Lisa Murkowski mad a him.” From Alaska, she is the new Republican chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Reported CNN, “On Sunday, President Barack Obama announced plans for the Interior Department to designate 12 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, including its coastal plains, for conservation. The possibility of such a move has been the cause of a lengthy battle between environmentalists and the energy industry for some time.”

Murkowski branded the move a “stunning attack” on Alaska’s economy. “It’s clear this administration does not care about us, and sees us as nothing but a territory,” she said. The plan must be approved by Congress.

Bonds and dams

Last November, California voters passed Proposition 1. McClintock supported it, writing at the time, “This is a long way from a perfect measure, but it’s as good as it gets in California these days: a $7.5 billion water bond that spends $2.7 billion for new water storage.  If that sounds breathtakingly underwhelming, remember that’s $2.7 billion more than the multi-billions of dollars of water bonds that we’ve spent in recent years.”

In the interview, he said he’s been having discussions about how Prop. 1 will interface with federal actions. He’s waiting to see exactly what will be funded by the state measure before working on federal programs.

“Speaking for myself,” he said, “I would like to see streamlined, one-stop permitting for new dam construction. And a prohibition against these massive, pulse-flow releases of water from our dams to adjust the water temperature for the fish, at a time when we’re at a record drought.”

In an article in the Wall Street Journal last March, McClintock described the problem as he saw it:

“Government officials who are entrusted with the careful management of our water squandered it in less than three weeks to nudge baby salmon toward the Pacific Ocean (to which they swim anyway) and to keep the river at just the right temperature for the fish by flushing the colder water stored in the reservoirs.

“These water releases are so enormous they are called ‘pulse flows.’ They generate such swift currents that local officials issue safety advisories to exercise extreme caution when on or near the rivers. While some of the water can be recaptured downstream, most is lost to the ocean.”

In the interview, he summarized, “Generally, droughts are nature’s fault, but water shortages are our fault. We haven’t built a major water storage facility in California since 1979. So we’re not going to solve our water shortage until we build more dams. And we’re not going to build more dams until we overhaul the radical environmental  laws that have made their construction impossible.”

Public lands

McClintock also is concerned about what he called maintaining “public access to public lands.” Specifically, he opposes President Obama’s recent unilateral designation of national monuments in California areas formerly more open to the public.

As CalWatchdog.com reported last October, the president came to our state to designate “half of the Angeles National Forest a national monument at the behest of Rep. Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park. … Young people and families use the forest for a cheap recreation place instead driving down to the beach. But environmentalists want forest access limited.  The forest attracts 32 million visitors each year, more than Yosemite or Yellowstone national parks.”

McClintock said he takes his philosophy of public lands from Gifford Pinchot, the founder of the National Forest Service. He cited Pinchot’s maxim, “The greatest good for the greatest number in the long run.”

“I think that that maxim is going to apply in the subcommittee to all matters pertaining to public lands. We need to preserve them for future generations. But that doesn’t mean closing them to the current generation,” McClintock said.

This is setting up a clash with the president and some of the more ardent environmentalists. McClintock said the president is claiming his authority to designate national monuments from the Antiquities Act of 1906.

This is confirmed by the White House website, which claimed, “First exercised by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 to designate Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, the authority of the Antiquities Act has been used by 16 presidents since 1906 to protect unique natural and historic features in America, such as the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty and Colorado’s Canyons of the Ancients.”

But according to McClintock, the 1906 act was “an emergency power to protect small archaeological sites from looting. It’s been used over the years to the point that this president is attempting to use it to place millions of acres off limits for virtually any human activity.”

The actual wording of the act, 16 USC 431-433, reads:

“That any person who shall appropriate, excavate, injure, or destroy any historic or prehistoric ruin or monument, or any object of antiquity, situated on lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States, without the permission of the Secretary of the Department of the Government having jurisdiction over the lands on which said antiquities are situated, shall, upon conviction, be fined in a sum of not more than five hundred dollars or be imprisoned for a period of not more than ninety days, or shall suffer both fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court.

“Sec. 2. That the President of the United States is hereby authorized, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments.”

Jobs

McClintock also is concerned about the jobs of the Californians who work in or near the areas that could be restricted. Despite an improving jobs picture, California’s unemployment rate remains higher than the national average. He pointed to the Lake Berryessa Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to its area being designated a national monument, something sought by environmentalist groups.

The chamber itself explained on its website:

“At its regular monthly meeting on January 12, 2015, the Board of Directors of the Lake Berryessa Chamber of Commerce voted to oppose the creation of a so-called Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument (BSMNM). The Board’s primary concern was the potential negative impact of the designation on Lake Berryessa and its business and residential communities.”

McClintock maintained that environmental concerns and public access to public lands both can be met. “So the people are speaking very loudly and clearly,” he said. “Their president, unfortunately, at the moment isn’t listening. Congress, however, is.”

But that coverage has mostly been on human interest angles relating to the kids coming from Central America and on the protests in Murrieta. I don’t think the mainstream media have done a good job of covering the political upshot of this mess. That upshot: The border debacle is sabotaging any chance for a bipartisan agreement on immigration reform — the sort of deal that many people in the GOP say is key to the party ever broadening its narrow base of voters.

Tom McClintock, the Northern California Republican congressman, has long been a foe of illegal immigration. His arguments are a preview of the powerful fire that is going to be used from here on out — not the usual stuff about how illegal immigrants are bad for the country but about how the federal government simply can’t be trusted on any immigration issue at all. This is from a speech he gave on the House floor:

The fact is, our southern border IS wide open; it is practically undefended and everybody knows it.  The many thousands streaming across it know that if they break our laws and enter the country illegally, they will be rewarded with free food, clothing, housing, medical care, transportation, legal representation and relocation, all at the expense of struggling American families.  Ninety five percent of them believe they’ll get “permisso” to stay –- and at the moment, they’re right.

Until we fundamentally change that reality, the mass incursion of our borders will continue and our nation’s sovereignty will slowly fade away. …

‘There is no reason to believe future laws will be enforced’

More from Tom:

This administration has actively encouraged this crisis with its promises of amnesty, and it now needs another $4 billion to feed, clothe and house this new surge.  Conspicuously lacking from the President’s proposal is any serious effort at enforcement or deportation.

The advocates of illegal immigration tell us we need comprehensive immigration reform, but what they really mean is extending some form of amnesty to those now illegally in our country.  Yet it is precisely these promises of amnesty that are causing and encouraging the mass migration we now are seeing. …

If we are not willing to enforce our current laws, there is no reason to believe that any future laws will be enforced.

This is a strong argument to make not to anti-immigration true believers but to those who are wavering on the issue — especially GOP moderates and Democrats in some border states.

Whether you believe, as McClintock does, that this surge was intentionally encouraged by the Obama administration, or is just more Obama incompetence, the end result isn’t good for anyone who hopes for a cease-fire in the immigration wars. I don’t think there’s a chance Congress enacts comprehensive immigration reform in the foreseeable future — and by that I mean at least five years.

Flyers from Tim Donnelly: None so far.

I’m not a fan of either. I can’t figure out how Donnelly supported redevelopment, which means using eminent domain to seize the property of homeowners and small businesses, to give it to Big Box stores.

But this comes down to the old liberal Establishment vs. conservative grassroots fight in the GOP:

• It’s Ed Zschau vs. Bruce Herschensohn in the 1986 GOP primary for U.S. Senate. Zschau was the Establishment Republican who backed gun control. Bruce was the Reagan Republican. Zschau won, but then lost to Democratic incumbent Alan Cranston.
• It’s the failure of the Establishment GOP to support Tom McClintock in his narrow losses for controller in 1994 and 2002, and for lieutenant governor in 2006.
• It’s the Establishment preferring Arnold Schwarzenegger to McClintock in the 2003 recall, despite my repeated warnings in the Orange County Register that Arnold, at the first sign of problems, would wimp out and back tax increases — which is what happened.

This time, Donnelly is the grassroots conservative. And Kashkari is the obvious Establishment choice, despite his flyers labeling him a “conservative.” Amusingly, the new flyer says Kashkari is “ENDORSED BY FELLOW CONSERVATIVE LEADERS,” including “Governor Mitt Romney” and “Governor Pete Wilson.”

Romney, of course, created Romneycare in Massachusetts, which was the model for Obamacare.

As to Wilson, I remember the battle he had with conservative Republicans in 1991 over his then-record $7 billion tax increase. Along with the majority Democrats in both houses of the Legislature, he needed a handful of Republicans for the two-thirds vote needed. Ed Mendel recounted what happened:

“At one point during the Grass Valley meeting, an angry Wilson warned Assembly Republicans they would become “(bleeping) irrelevant” if they did not vote for the tax increase. Afterward, some conservatives appeared on the Assembly floor sporting lapel buttons emblazoned with two big letters: FI.”

The difference is that now they’re all irrelevant. There’s little chance of the Republican winning anything. In the Top Two primary Tuesday, No. 1 will be Jerry Brown, who will wipe out No. 2 in November.

.

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Driven by the haunting reality of lack of California farm water, the Democratic and Republican drought relief bills in the U.S. Congress tentatively are starting to merge into one.

Back in 2009, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., got her San Joaquin River Settlement Act through Congress. But it has come back to haunt her because it created a foreseeable but unaddressed farm-water shortage in dry years, such as now. Feinstein has recently criticized the environmentalists who helped her design the bill as “never having been helpful to me in producing good water policy.”

Passed when Democrats controlled both the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, the bill appropriated $88 million in planning funding for a proposed $2.2 billion restoration project. In 2010, Republicans took back the U.S. House of Representatives and subsequently have blocked any additional funding to implement the project.

Feinstein is now backtracking and has revised and successfully pushed her S. 2198, the Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014, through the Senate on May 23.  It now will be considered in the House for merger with a Republican drought bill, H.R. 3964, by Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford (formerly named H.R. 1937 by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare).

Valadao released a statement that Feinstein’s bill “is a positive step in the right direction.”

Neutered drought bill

To get her drought bill passed over stiff opposition from a large number of environmental organizations and Northern California lawmakers, Feinstein neutered the bill of any provisions that would impede passage by either political party.  The new revised version of the bill has dropped from her original bill provisions to:

• Reauthorize the Delta restoration program provided under the CALFED compact of 2002 (sought by Republicans).
• Authorize several hundred million dollars for drought relief (sought by Democrats).
• Soften the authorization of funding for expanding the capacity of Nevada’s Lake Mead to appease Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

As presently worded, the bill would not authorize anything new that is not already being undertaken to relieve drought impacts on farms and rural areas before the onset of summer. But that made the bill palatable enough for senators in both parties unanimously to pass it.

River restoration goal: 500 fish at cost of $4.4 million per fish

The 2009 San Joaquin River Settlement Act authorized 10 physical restoration projects in the river to be completed by Dec. 31, 2013.  None of the projects even has started. And the projected cost now is $800 million. What planning money has been available has been used physically to transport salmon across the dry reach of the river in tanker trucks.

This hasn’t stopped the NRDC from forcing the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to release 180 thousand acre-feet of water from March 2013 to Feb. 2014 — with nothing completed that was called “necessary” by the NRDC for the success of the project. Success is defined as the return of 500 fish in the dry reach of the river by 2019.

The water storage situation in California would be much different if the NRDC had not released flushed water to the ocean for fish during drought. Recently, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Auburn, has criticized such releases of water as waste that could have been avoided if the Republican-backed drought bill, H.R. 3964, had been passed.

First ever water shipped from eastside to westside farmers

To relieve the drought, on May 15 for the first time ever, federal water managers conveyed 529,000 acre-feet of water from the Eastside of the San Joaquin River Valley (from Millerton Lake) to Westside farmers in Patterson and Mendota. That increased the water allocation to Westside farmers, but also increased water to wildlife refuges in the South Delta from 40 percent to 65 percent.

In response, the Friant Water Authority has filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Fresno to challenge the unprecedented release of federal water to state water contractors.

Ron Jacobsma, FWA’s general manager, said that Eastside citrus-tree growers might have their water replenished later in the year. Then he warned, “But that may mean putting water on dead trees.”

The San Joaquin River Restoration Project has been a contest between political parties. But farmers didn’t take issue with it until the onset of the 2014 drought made them see how bad it is to release water for fish runs.

More water but greater water diversions for fish

Ironically, the table below tells the story that there is more water than in the severe drought of 1977, but more outflow for fish flushes resulting in less net agricultural water in 2014.  

                         Central Valley Project 1977 vs. 2014 (October thru March)
                                                            (In million acre-feet)

Sequester We Hardly Knew Ye

The great irony of the Republican decision to bust the budget sequester is that barely two months ago, congressional roles were reversed.  The Democrats insisted on funding the government according to existing law.  The Republicans sought one simple change: that the individual insurance mandate under Obamacare be delayed for one year.  They were trying to spare the American people the Obamacare disaster that is now unfolding, but to no avail.  The American people sided overwhelmingly with the Democrats on the principle that the government should be funded according to current law without any side issues.

Why wasn’t that principle applied just two months later? Republicans were in the ideal position to hold the budget line simply by insisting on enforcing current law.  Instead, the House Republican leadership pushed through a two-year budget that will allow the federal government to spend an additional $63 billion more than current law allows – money that our country does not have.

Some of the discussion has focused on how much of the spending spree will be paid with higher taxes.  The answer is, “all of it.”  Once government spends a dollar, it has already decided to tax that dollar – the only questions that remain are who gets the bill and when.

Sixty-three billion dollars of new spending – and therefore new taxes in some form – is not a small amount of money.  It averages about $570 of added burdens for every family in America.

Not so, say supporters.  Over the next ten years, fee increases and spending reforms will pay for all of this, with $22 billion to spare for debt reduction.  The claim is a practical application of the economic principles of J. Wellington Wimpy:  “I will gladly pay you $22 billion in deficit reduction ten years from now for $63 billion in new spending today.”

The lie is given to this promise within the measure itself.  A major part of the alleged long-term deficit reduction is the assurance that after a two year spending binge, Congress will not only enforce the sequester but will even extend it for an extra two years in 2022 and 2023.  Pardon my skepticism.  We are required to believe that in the future, Congress will magically summon the fiscal discipline that has eluded it in the present.

A side deal called the “Doc Fix” offers more reason for doubt.  The “Doc Fix” has become an annual ritual arising from a previous budget deal that promised long term savings, except that Congress votes every year to ignore it (oops there goes another $8.7 billion).

True, discretionary spending will be less than the House budgets of 2011 and 2012, but this is a sleight-of-hand. Those budgets were unified packages of reforms that saved most on the mandatory side of the ledger and must be viewed in their totality -– not picking and choosing which parts to compare and which to ignore.

Finally, we are told that there are not enough votes in the House to support current-law spending.  There’s one way to find out: put a clean measure on the floor and see where the votes are.  That’s essentially how the impasse was resolved two months ago.

The sequester provided less than a third of the deficit reduction that Standard and Poors warned would have been necessary to maintain our triple-A credit rating, which is why many conservatives opposed it.  But it was at least a step in the right direction. It was an agreement that Congress made with itself, and given the political realities of a divided government, it became the only viable instrument to keep spending under some modicum of control. The busting of that limit now calls into question any promises of future fiscal restraint.

Perhaps the most stinging indictment of the budget deal comes from former Reagan budget director David Stockman. Under Stockman’s guidance, the Reagan administration reduced both spending and the deficit as a percentage of GDP, produced a period of prolonged economic expansion and won the cold war.   His verdict is chilling: “It’s a joke and betrayal. It’s the final surrender of the House Republican leadership to Beltway politics and kicking the can and ignoring the budget monster that’s hurtling down the road.”

The new Congressional budget is a mistake at a time when we can’t afford many more mistakes.  The path of least resistance, even if paved with good intentions, is not a path America can afford to travel any longer.

McClintock is a better writer than a heck of a lot of journalists. How do I know he wrote this himself? I hosted a talk-radio show for two years. He was one of the very few people I ever interviewed (Victor Davis Hanson was another) whose responses were always like cogent mini-essays. Thesis. Supporting evidence. Factual poke at opponent’s counterargument. Restate thesis.

He writes like he talks.

October 7 marks the 10-year anniversary of the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis. The 2003 recall brought a movie star to power and marked only the second time in American history that a sitting governor has been removed by such a vote.

Born on talk radio, the recall was panned by the political experts. Once it qualified for the ballot, Democrats responded like a “Bengal tiger” facing off against the “Taliban.” Republicans split on ideological lines but eventually rallied behind a man who “couldn't wait to become an American citizen” so he could “vote Republican.”

Rather than buy something tin, the traditional gift to mark the first decade, we thought it best to assemble our Top 10 quotes from the 2003 recall.

10. Shawn Steel: “Our party is going to be looking very seriously at a recall movement”

“I think that our party is going to be looking very seriously at a recall movement… And I think if we start talking about recall with Davis, it’s focused, it’s specific. It’s not some pie-in-the-sky dream.” — Shawn Steel, then the Chairman of the California Republican Party and the first signatory of the recall petition, kicked off the recall talk in an interview with KSFO-AM’s Melanie Morgan on January 20, 2003. (H/T Joe Mathews, The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy.)

9. Art Torres: “Vindictive attempt to overthrow the will of California voters”

“The right-wing Republican recall effort is a vindictive attempt to overthrow the will of California voters.” — Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party, wasn’t too happy with the idea. (Source: San Mateo County Times, February 24, 2003)

8. Political Experts: “Not going to go anywhere”

“I didn't see a groundswell of support for a recall. I saw a crowd that would add credence to the governor's claim that it is a partisan movement.” — Sherry Bebitch Jeffe led the chorus of political experts who downplayed early recall campaign efforts. (Source: Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, February 22, 2003)

“I think it's irresponsible mischief myself that's not going to go anywhere. The reality is if (Republicans) are the ones who are going to push it themselves, they're going to push themselves into a hole.” — Bruce Cain, the director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, who also dismissed its chances. (Source: Contra Costa Times, February 13, 2003)

7. California Business Roundtable: “We are opposed”

“We all should devote our energies to efforts that will positively benefit our citizens rather than activities that will have no positive productive results and bypass the accepted process for selecting our state leadership. For these reasons we are opposed to placing the recall measure on the ballot.” — The California Business Roundtable, an influential group of business executives, unanimously opposed the recall. (Source: San Gabriel Valley Tribune, June 4, 2003)

“Groups like this are the last to wake up to these things. I can't remember one of the special interests that supported Proposition 13 either, and this is a very similar movement. It's something that isn't from the top down, it's from the bottom up.” — Dave Gilliard, a political consultant for the recall group Rescue California, said the campaign would march on without the support of the business community. (Source: San Gabriel Valley Tribune, June 4, 2003)

6. Ted Costa: “The potential to just go like wildfire”

“This has the potential to just go like wildfire. We're going to go all out to get the signatures.” — Ted Costa, the “father of the recall,” organized the massive grassroots effort. (Source: Washington Post, February 23, 2003)

5. Rep. Darrell Issa: “Wasn't late for the party”

“I respect the work that he (Ted Costa) did. He's the father of the recall. Whatever place in history I get for the recall, it doesn't start until the paragraph after what Ted did. I wasn't late for the party, but Ted was there for the start.”— Rep. Darrell Issa, who provided crucial financial support for the recall, made sure to give credit to the grassroots activists. (Source: San Bernardino Sun, August 22, 2003)

4. Bob Mullholland: “No surrender…to this Taliban element of the California Republican Party”

“There will be no surrender in this state to this Taliban element of the California Republican Party.” – Bob Mulholland, a California Democratic strategist, tried to paint the recall as a partisan effort. (Source: NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, July 24, 2003)

3. Gov. Gray Davis: “I am going to fight like a Bengal tiger”

“I am going to fight like a Bengal tiger, and one of my greatest strengths is people have because underestimated me since I was born. Every time they say I'm road kill. I continue to win because I have great faith that the California voters are fair and believe in fundamental fairness.” — Gov. Gray Davis, an accomplished campaigner, didn’t go down without a fight. (Source: NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, July 24, 2003)

2. Tom McClintock: Why must the most qualified candidate defer to celebrity?

“If the most qualified candidate must defer every time a celebrity or a millionaire casts a longing eye on public office, well then we've lost something very important in our democracy, and it's called merit.” — Then-state Sen. Tom McClintock, the choice of California conservatives, continually faced questions about his candidacy splitting the Republican vote. (Source: Associated Press, August 23, 2003)

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger: “Let us unite for victory”

“Are we going to win in unity, with our common fiscal conservative principles? Or let the liberals win, because we are split? Are we going fight Davis and [Lt. Gov. Cruz] Bustamante, or fight among ourselves? I say, let us unite for victory. I have been a Republican ever since. I campaigned for Republicans, knocked on doors for Republicans, I handed out leaflets for Republicans, I've given money to Republican candidates. And I couldn't wait to become an American citizen, so I can vote Republican. And now I'm here, running for governor of this great state as a Republican.” Arnold Schwarzenegger assured Republicans that he was one of them. (Source: Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, September 13, 2003)