As was noted here last week, repealing marriage equality in 2008 has already cost California businesses and local governments $750 million and could represent a loss of $2.5 billion over the next decade.
The sentiments in the photo above were reflected in the lead editorial on the Los Angeles Times op-ed page today:
In years past, these gains would have put California Democrats in charge of the state’s decennial, post-Census redistricting of congressional and legislative districts. It’s also more than likely that the Democrats would have continued the bipartisan practice of carving up the state to, first, protect its majority *and, second, protect incumbents in both parties — insofar as the second objective did not interfere with the prime.
Under the backroom scratch-backing system, it is true that the California GOP would have paid for its losses and for the related fact that GOP registration is down to a historic low of 31 percent in the state. The party would likely have lost a few more seats in the Legislature, but its 19 seats in the U.S. House delegation would likely have remained intact.
But the maps are being redrawn under a radically different redistricting system this year, because in 2008 California voters, in their infinite wisdom, decided via a ballot initiative to hand the responsibility for redistricting to a new 14-member California Citizens Redistricting Commission — five Democrats, five Republicans and four unaffiliated.
That’s right. Redistricting for the largest state in the union has been handled by a committee of amateurs.
It’s fair to say that political insiders assumed that the CCDC would redraw the map to the advantage of Republicans. But that assumption turned out to be wrong. The redrawn maps, which were released on Friday, revealed a reconfiguration that, while not as radical as it could have been, spells trouble for the GOP. It is, as a GOP political analyst described it, “cause for full-out panic … This is musical chairs with switchblades.”
California lawmakers will start losing their pay in two weeks if they don’t make further progress in balancing the budget, says state Controller John Chiang.
Chiang, the state’s chief accountant, is citing a ballot measure voters approved in November in justifying his plan to dock legislators of their pay absent a balanced budget. His interpretation of the measure differs from that of legislative lawyers, who had previously opined that a budget bill lawmakers passed in March — which still left the state with a multibillion-dollar shortfall — met the conditions set by voters needed to keep salaries flowing once the Legislature’s June 15 deadline for passing the budget arrives…
“In passing Proposition 25 last November, voters clearly stated they expect their representatives to make the difficult decisions needed to resolve any budget shortfalls by the mandatory deadline, or be penalized,” Chiang said in a statement. “I will enforce the voters’ demand.”
Chang has the support of Gov. Jerry Brown, who is also a Democrat:
So the question is, “Should only straight judges be allowed to rule on gay rights issues?”
…ethicists disagree on whether retired federal judge Vaughn R. Walker, 67, should have disclosed his 10-year relationship with his partner before presiding over the challenge to Proposition 8, the 2008 California ballot measure that reinstated a ban on same-sex marriage. Walker ruled in August that the ban was unconstitutional, and his decision is now before an appeals court…
A federal district judge in San Francisco has scheduled a June 13 hearing to decide whether Walker’s ruling should be wiped from the legal record as a result of his personal situation.
Does this mean only gay judges can preside over straight divorces in states that outlaw same-sex marriage? Read the whole mess in the L.A. Times and then discuss amongst yourselves.
If you guessed that 25 percent of Americans are gay, you would be wrong, but you would be in agreement with a majority of the country, according to a new poll from Gallup:
U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian. More specifically, over half of Americans (52 percent) estimate that at least one in five Americans are gay or lesbian, including 35 percent who estimate that more than one in four are. Thirty percent put the figure at less than 15 percent.
The adult population of the United States is about 225 million. If a quarter of them were gay, that would be 56 million people — that’s a lot of gay people. That’s roughly the number of Catholics in America. No way.
The fact is, nobody really knows how many gay people there are in the United States or anywhere. The conventional wisdom used to be 10 percent, a figure that probably came from the Kinsey Report in the 1930s.
Every town has its secrets. The difference in Los Angeles is that some of the secrets here relate to world-famous celebrities. It’s fair to say that hardly anyone in town knew that Arnold Schwarzenegger had fathered a child with a member of his household staff. But it’s equally true that there are other rumors — what Donald Rumsfeld might call “known unknowns” — that have been floating around years, decades even, that could come to light, if the scandal escalates, which, based on the volume of news reports in both legit and gossip outlets, appears to be what is happening.
Just in the past few days, the baby mama has been identified as Patty Baena, the Schwarzeneggers’ housekeeper for 20 years. Local news in Los Angeles found the McMansion Schwarzenegger bought her in Bakersfield, and neighbor interviewed by local reporters praised the son as being extremely well-mannered.
Maria Shriver has hired a divorce attorney, although sources say Shriver, who is Catholic, has not yet decided whether to proceed with divorce, which is astounding, if true. Meanwhile, her son, Patrick Schwarzenegger, 17, changed his last name to Shriver on his Twitter account.
And this one had to hurt: TMZ reports that Maria Shriver and Patty Baena were pregnant at the same time. Maria’s son Christopher was born on Sept. 27, 1997 and Baena’s son was born five days later, on Oct. 2, 1997.
Facing a $30 billion budget shortfall in 2009, the state of California raised taxes — a quarter-percent on personal income tax, 1 percent on sales and a half-percent on vehicle license fees.
According to Republican dogma, those tax hikes should have killed the state’s economic recovery. This week, however, Gov. Jerry Brown reported good news. The state is projecting $6.6 billion more in revenue than expected — some of which is unarguably a result of these modest tax increases.
In the five months since he’s been office, Brown and the Democrats who control the legislature have reduced the budget deficit from $26.6 billion to $15 billion, mostly through harsh cuts to education, health care and other safety-net programs.
The tax hikes would bring in an additional $11 billion next year, but, as of now, they are set to expire on July 1. Without them, severe cuts will be required to programs that serve children, the poor and elderly.
In the governor’s race last year, Brown campaigned on putting a measure on the ballot that would allow voters — also known as “taxpayers” — to decide whether to extend the additional taxes. He won the election by double digits, a clear mandate.
And yet, despite polling showing that the public favored the vote — and perhaps because polls also found that the measure would pass — the Republican minority “Party of No” in Sacramento killed the governor’s ballot initiative. It will not appear on the ballot next month as planned.
That’s right. Republicans blocked a measure that would allow California taxpayers to vote on tax policy.
The answer, of course, is that, even in the vivid imagineering of science-fiction, it strains credulity to believe Skynet, an evil artificial intelligent system that becomes self-aware, revolts against its human creators and mass produces machines whose sole purpose is to wipe out humankind and take over the world, would build a robot that looks the way former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger does now.
As silly as this is, it may explain at least part of the reasons for the newly announced separation between Schwarzenegger, who played the android (or its replica) in the first three installments of the “Terminator” franchise, and his wife, former NBC anchor Maria Shriver.
Even news last week that the state collected $2 billion more in revenue than had been projected — a windfall that was at least part due to the tax and fee hikes — did not convince the Republican minority in Sacramento to reconsider its position.
If the raised rates are allowed to stand, they could contribute as much as $12 billion toward closing the deficit. They are set to expire on July 1.
Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic majority in the Legislature have cut $11 billion from the budget, much of it from safety net programs that provide health-care and other services to children, the elderly and low-income residents.
If the extensions expire — as the GOP minority in Sacramento insists — billions more in cuts will be required to resolve the shortfall.
A poll released in March found that 58 percent of California voters supported extended the tax hikes. A more recent poll found just 33 percent of California voters support the GOP plan to resolve the deficit with an additional $14 billion in program cuts. (Interestingly, about the same ratio of California voters — about 30 percent — are registered Republicans.)
This prompts a question: If it is only California Republicans who want budget cuts alone to resolve the deficit, why then should the majority of Californians who oppose the cuts be forced to share the sacrifice?
California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein unofficially launched her third reelection bid at the state Democratic Party Convention in Sacramento on April 30 with a fiery (for her) speech attacking congressional Republicans. Here’s a transcript of an excerpt from the video, starting at about minute 02:20:
Pundits say that Trump’s $5,000 midterm bribe was an overreach,
And they agree that if lies were a crime, he’d be impeached.
Despite all the dividend promises he’s made,
The fact is, not one has ever been paid,
So even before the midterms, he already owes us $8,000* each.
*$5000 stimulus checks via “DOGE dividend”; $2000 stimulus checks via a “tariff dividend”; $1000-plus checks via “savings” from expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies
