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More trouble in California?

By: SteveLA (Diary)  |  October 10th, 2009 at 01:13 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Bloomberg is up with a story of how the California budget is once again in the hole to the tune of $1.1 Billion.

“California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will know within a month whether a $1.1 billion drop in revenue collections is part of a growing budget shortfall or an isolated event, his budget spokesman said.

Revenue in the three months ended Sept. 30 was 5.3 percent less than assumed in the $85 billion annual budget, state controller John Chiang reported yesterday. Income tax receipts led the gap, as unemployment reached 12.2 percent in August.”

This development is going to turn the race for Governor back in an interesting direction and could be a good one for Republicans….maybe.

The Democratic nominee for Governor, most likely former Governor Moonbeam Brown, will have to explain how he will deal with the sinking ship SS California which is taking on more and more water and a middle class electorate just hanging on in the middle of recession. Raise taxes, more cuts in education, which will annoy the CTA, more cuts to state employees, which will annoy the state workers unions including the powerful state prison guard union, or what.

Over on the Republican side, the nominee for Governor is going to face the same economic facts, but will not have to pander to the various state unions in order to deal with the problem. There is an opportunity to be bold on the R side to deal with the budget problem, but how bold will the R nominee be and will the electorate beleive promises made after the tenure of the “Girlyman Governator” who famously said during the recall election “We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem”, and failed to deliver on anything.

California once again is turning into ground zero for a debate between the views of both parties over the role of government, taxation, government spending on services, and how to balance competing interests and demands. How this debate plays out might just be a harbinger of future races and for that matter the 2012 Presidential race.

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  • Achance

    is find a way to bankroll a challenge to the public unions’ dues schemes so they can have their expenditures frozen and tied up in court going into the elections. That’s what Aahnold should have done before his initiative campaign. You’d have no likelihood of success in state courts but the challenge is also a federal question under Hudson. Don’t know about the federal district courts there, but the 9th Soviet is very friendly to individual rights on these sorts of issues and even if you lose there, the basic composition of the USSC is the same as it was for the WA cases so there’s a good likelihood of success.

    • SteveLA

      Art,

      It’s an easy scapegoat to blame just the unions for the budget mess out here in CA, but it’s far more than just their dollars going to defeat initiatives that the Girlyman floated a few years back.

      Unions out here in CA, at least in some of the public sector are very sophisticated in setting up phone banks, GOTV efforts and other outreach efforts that don’t take huge amounts of money but do take bodies to man the phones. I really don’t see how cutting money that the Union can use in political campaigns is the answer when a Union can provide the foot soldiers that Democrats rely on to win elections.

      Make no mistake, it’s the Union foot soldiers that help elect Democrats in CA, as much as Union bucks and Unions are darn good at pointing out those facts to Democrats in the Assembly when it’s crunch time on votes over budget matters effecting Union members pocket books.

      In terms of strategy, the Girlyman Governator has been hopeless at taking on any Union and as a matter of fact. By taking on Unions across the board Girlyman has shown what a silly way that is to go at least in CA. Maybe a focused assault on the worst of the worst, the prison guards Union, would be a smarter tactic.

  • Achance

    They’ve had it too easy and they’re sloppy and arrogant. I’ve met quite a few of the leadership types at various workshops and seminars; lots of bravado, not much skill.

    In any event, money is the mothers’ milk for all those “volunteers,” too. From the beer and pizza for the boilerroom workers, the stamps, the phone lines, teh proportionate share of the union office rent, the bar tab the BA picks up after the day or evening’s work. A court order freezing their political expenditures dries up that stuff since most of them have nothing resembling a record keeping system that can distinguish between chargeable and non-chargeable expenses. Then they’re left with only the truly voluntary PAC money which is a pittance compared to the compelled dues money and since it is legal it is generally given directly to candidates and the Democrat Party.

  • SteveLA

    Art

    I defer to your knowledge of the beast, but I still think taking on all the Unions at once has been dumb on the Girlyman’s part.

    I’d start with the biggest and least sympathetic Union in CA, the prison guards. They put lots of money into campaigns and have been rewarded with great contracts, restraint on hiring and promotions which allows for high overtime wages and arcane expensive work rules. You probably know the game and the result very well.

    Back to the point of this blog, the R candidate for governor could take on outrages of the Prison guard unions and most people would just blink. Going after the Teachers Union is probably not a smart thing as there is a tendency for CTA Union propaganda to appear in our classrooms. A fact that drives me nuts.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    What new candidate entered to replace Larry, Moe, and Curly Meg, Tom, and Steve?

  • SteveLA

    Well Neil,

    Interesting in the sense that there might actually be an issue that Republicans can win on. Fiscal conservatism and pocket book issues are probably something that all Republicans should be able to unite on, but you can go ahead and tell me where I’m wrong with that thinking.

    I am going to pay attention to what the R’s running for governor have to say about this topic, because it does matter to me as a tax payer.

  • Achance

    Trouble is, I don’t think they can strike, so they get interest arbitration; there’s almost nothing in an employer’s toolbox to deal with a union that has interest arbitration. The only challenge is the Constitutional challenge on their dues and if you challenge one, you’ve challenged them all since they’ll all rally ’round the flag. As a Republican, you don’t have the option of picking the big frog to eat first. If you start eating frogs, you have to eat them all or they eat you.

    I agree with you, though, that CCPOA is pretty much low-hanging fruit as an object of scorn in Republican commercials. You can do that without the existential war that I advocate.