Paging Bob Beverly and Ralph Dills, Please Come Immediately to the Senate Rostrum, Your Services Are Urgently Required

The state Senate has traditionally been the more decorous, less strident house of California’s Legislature. Republicans and Democrats tended to tilt mightily as adversaries but not engage in the sniping or juvenile one-upmanship antics of the more fractious Assembly.

Regrettably, with the advent of term limits, most senators are now graduates, if that’s the correct term, of the Assembly.    Read more »

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Lawmakers Pass a Budget But Key Pieces Are Still Unresolved

Over Republican opposition, Democratic lawmakers passed a bill authorizing a $123 billion state budget and other measures aimed at reducing state spending by $6.2 billion but did not act on three key measures necessary to balance the spending plan.

The budget voted on by the Legislature is close to that proposed by Democratic Gov.    Read more »

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Not Exactly a Cut But Delayed School Payments Have a Cost

Among the budget-related bills approved by the Legislature March 16 was one that postpones $5.2 billion in state payments to public schools.

Since the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, the state has shorted public schools $18.6 billion that schools are owed under the formulas dictating annual state support. More than $6 billion of the $18.6 billion was offset by one-time federal economic recovery aid.    Read more »

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Legislature Starts to Begin to Commence to Approve a Budget

The Legislature lurched toward passage of a budget plan March 16, sending bills to Gov. Jerry Brown aimed at reducing state spending by some $7.5 billion, about half of the savings coming from reduced payments to welfare recipients, less health care for the poor and scaled back services for the developmentally disabled.    Read more »

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Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, Page 400

“(Western Europe’s) superiority since the Renaissance is due partly to science and scientific technique, partly to political institutions slowly built up during the Middle Ages. There is no reason, in the nature of things, why this superiority should continue.

“In the present war, (World War II) great military strength has been shown by Russia, China and Japan.    Read more »

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Legislature Schedules Vote on Budget, GOP Still Opposes Plan

Both the California Senate and Assembly have scheduled votes for 1:00 pm March 16 on a $123 billion budget plan that attempts to close a $25.4 billion gap between revenues and spending commitments over the next 16 months.

It’s anything but certain the 20 bills – the budget itself and 19 implementing measures – will be approved since Republicans and Democrats don’t appear to agree on the merits of the package.    Read more »

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$500-Million Highway Program Is Proposed By Contractors

Brown administration officials, legislative leaders and the construction industry have opened discussions aimed at pumping as much as $500 million more into the state’s highway construction program without raising gasoline taxes, possibly through the issuance of revenue bonds.

The construction industry, hard-hit by the sharp reduction in highway construction and stymied by Gov.    Read more »

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State Parks Face a 9 Percent Budget Cut, Closure List Being Readied

Among the proposals made by Gov. Jerry Brown in his January budget that lawmakers include in their spending plan, is an $11 million cut for the Department of Parks and Recreation.

This roughly 9 percent reduction in the department’s $121 million general fund budget “will result in partially or fully closing some state park units and reducing expenditures at the department’s headquarters,” the Democratic governor said in his budget plan.    Read more »

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The Senate Sends All Californians Best Wishes for Arbor Week

In the absence of a vote on the Legislature’s budget plan, California’s Senate approved two resolutions March 10 relating to food and flora.

The more sweeping of the two resolutions, neither of which carries the force of law, declared the week of March 7 to March 14 as “California Arbor Week.”    Read more »

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Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1, Page 181…

“The coat of arms of the human race ought to consist of a man with an axe on his shoulder proceeding toward a grindstone. Or, it ought to represent the several members of the human race holding out the hat to each other.

“For we are all beggars. Each in his own way.    Read more »

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