The action is returning to Sacramento today with a “Big 5″ meeting of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders on health care and other priority items and the launch of a hard-hitting new TV ad pressing for health care reform.
The California Endowment, the state’s largest health care foundation, has a $6 million advertising campaign on pressing for comprehensive health care reform this year. As of today it will feature a new “Code Blue” TV ad on a system in crisis. California Endowment chief Dr. Bob Ross shows up at the Capitol with an ambulance as stage prop to preview the new ad, which will play up a crisis atmosphere in a state with challenged emergency rooms, costs going up, and nearly a million kids with no insurance. The organization notes that 69% of Californians are unhappy with the health care system and want it changed, but only 6% think it’s very likely to happen in this legislative session, which is slated to end September 14th.
State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata is not in that small, optimistic group. In various comments yesterday to Capitol beat reporters, Perata struck a tone that can only be described as morose. He lamented the “bruising and battering” of the state budget fight and predicted that nothing of particular note will happen before the session closes. Told that Schwarzenegger is contemplating keeping the Legislature around in special session to deal, if need be, with any or all of the priority issues of health care, redistricting reform, and water policy, Perata persisted in his gloomy mood.
Actually, the failure of the Senate conservative Republican holdouts to make any real changes in the deal offered them a month before they finally acquiesced to the state budget, and the internal fallout in that caucus, will make it easier next year to get Republican votes when needed. And the budget fight, such as it was, was not nearly so hard-hitting as most of those in the past.
With his trademark optimism, Schwarzenegger seemed late last week to believe he could get Republican votes for his health care reform measure, which the Legislature’s lawyers, at least, believe requires a two-thirds vote to impose a fee, which many believe is a tax, on health care providers as part of its undergirding funding. That was always unlikely, at best. While Schwarzenegger has done a good job of winning business support and/or acquiescence with regard to comprehensive change, he runs afoul of the Republicans’ ideological anti-government faction. The Democrats’ plan does not require a two-thirds vote for passage.
This prompted Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to pull a play — first reported on NWN last Friday — of saying that he will force a vote on Schwarzenegger’s plan, after first endeavoring to at last get it into bill form.
What this burst of reality checking and posturing on those two sides has done is point up the need for high-level action. Hence the Big 5 session today, which will focus mostly, but not entirely, on health care, the most complex of the three big issues before the Capitol.
With Democrats angry over the right-wing budget stall, prospects for big moves this year on water policy, never great — given environmentalist shibboleths against dam construction and new water conveyance, even in a state beset by the greenhouse effect, with a population projected to increase more than a third by 2050 — are further diminished.
But redistricting reform is easily within all the parties’ grasp.
Indeed, they will have few excuses and a lot of explaining to do if it does not happen. Since Perata and Nunez have previously pledged to make it happen, the Republicans have always said they want it and are committed to it, and Schwarzenegger has been for it since before he became governor.
And without redistricting reform, there is no change to term limits.
Earlier this year, Perata devised an Iraq War withdrawal advisory measure for next February’s ballot, in part to stimulate turn-out and aid the passage of the term limits change measure without which he loses his post. Following earlier passage in the Senate, it got by in the Assembly yesterday on a 43-32 vote.
So the stage is set for action on at least one of the three major issues, and perhaps more.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum.
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Your budget fight was boring. Where can I send anti-depressants to Sen. Perata?
Your budget fight was boring. Where can I send anti-depressants to Sen. Perata?
Good one. I believe it’s illegal to send that stuff across state lines without a prescription.
Good article, Bill.
Quick note: the Legislature will adjourn on September 12 for Rosh Hashanah. Also, a last minute deal will have to be had by September 7. Amendments to bills after that date will require rule waivers and rule waivers require a two-third vote. Republicans have already said they won’t support provider or business taxes.
Perata needs to mellow out.
Thanks for clarifying that the Legislature is actually leaving two days earlier than scheduled.
What’s going on with Don Perata? He’s a pro. He knows better than this.
That’s too bad.
Perata needs uppers. Schwarzeneger needs downers. lol
I think Perata in part doesn’t want to have Arnold get a win on health care this year.
Mr. Perata should simply get on with it.
Mr. Perata should simply get on with it.
Mr. Perata should simply get on with it.
Did anyone notice how last week Perata was cutely saying “he didn’t mind if the teacher keep him after class until the assignment was done” in reference to a special session on health care. Now, in today’s Bee he’s saying “it wouldn’t be productive.”
Burton would have never let a governor call a special session on him.
Speaking of whom, any news on the Burton/Lucas blog?
Wouldn’t the Democratic health care proposal, which requires business to pay 7.5 percent fee be ruled by the courts as a tax not a fee, thus requiring a 2/3 vote? Then of course there is the ERISA premption issue. From what I’ve seen of the existing government run health care we’ve got (VA hospitals and government nursing homes) I don’t know if I want the government in charge of my health care.
I think Bill has it right that redistricting has the best shot at passage this year. NOTHING is more important to Perata, and health care is not going to happen in a conference committee style gut bomb dropped in the last few days of session. I doubt seriously that legislators care enough to show up for a special session on health care, but redistricting-term limits, i.e., something that benefits them personally, stands a very good chance in either a special session or still in the regular session.
I would guess that we end up this year with a pilot program on some portion of the health care reform packages that have been introduced this year
Anyone else notice that a federal court recently threw out Suffolk County, New York’s health insurance employer mandate law? The court found, as all courts have found for the past three decades, that employer mandates violate ERISA. Last time I ventured in here, Bill said the fact that a single-payer law passed by the Legislature a few years back didn’t face a strong ERISA challenge was the key way to evaluate whether AB 8 was legal. But I still wait for someone to explain how this is more pertinent than the fact that the only state with an employer mandate (Hawaii) is the only one with a congressional ERISA exemption. I am sure that this post will be greeted with partisan scorn. Sorry, but whatever my politics, ERISA’s 33-year winning streak is a matter of uncontradicted fact. On the legal history alone, why does anyone think Nunez’s employer mandate will survive a federal court challenge? I don’t get it. Lockyer’s theory — that if the state does something that ambitious, Congress would pass a waiver — makes sense. But not assuming that ERISA is somehow irrelevant.
Trying to burn up more of my time, Mr. Crusader?
Actually, your analysis is not quite right.
>Hap Hazard :
I think Bill has it right that redistricting has the best shot at passage this year. NOTHING is more important to Perata,
No. And no.
I’ve only explained this around 500 times.
See the “ancient” history of SB 2 (John Burton).
It was waaay back in … 2003 and 2004.
>EFSully :
Wouldn’t the Democratic health care proposal, which requires business to pay 7.5 percent fee be ruled by the courts as a tax not a fee, thus requiring a 2/3 vote? Then of course there is the ERISA premption issue. From what I’ve seen of the existing government run health care we’ve got (VA hospitals and government nursing homes) I don’t know if I want the government in charge of my health care.
Aug 28, 2007 09:24 AM
It’s a different mood.
>Vladimir Bierko :
Did anyone notice how last week Perata was cutely saying “he didn’t mind if the teacher keep him after class until the assignment was done” in reference to a special session on health care. Now, in today’s Bee he’s saying “it wouldn’t be productive.”
Whatever it is, he should snap out of it.
Whatever it is, he should snap out of it.
EFSully:
First will come the referendum.
Then the tax-vs.-fee court challenge.
Then comes the ERISA case.
It can fall at any of these stages.
Yes, my intel is the opponents plan a referendum.
To avoid wasting their time, they should also sue in the meantime.
And see just how well they do in the courts here.
Especially since they will lose the referendum, which they only won last time because of Schwarzenegger’s late intervention.
Yes, my intel is the opponents plan a referendum.
To avoid wasting their time, they should also sue in the meantime.
And see just how well they do in the courts here.
Especially since they will lose the referendum, which they only won last time because of Schwarzenegger’s late intervention.
Some friends of my neighbors from Canada were in town and I found out to my surprise that they were here to get medical treatment. I asked them about the health care system in Canada which all the government run single-payer advocates point to as Nirvana and they said that they are seeking treatment in the U.S. because there is a two year waiting list for the elective surgery he needs. I guess all systems have their flaws but two years seems along time to wait for surgery.
Let me pass along another clue.
The Canadian system is not going to be adopted by this governor and legislature.
… Incidentally, you didn’t sell me on that story.
I believe that whatever it takes to ensure term limits are extended is Perata’s prerequisite to dealing with the healthcare agenda this year. If a health care package emerges in these last days, I would bet that, if nothing else, it will contain provisions making it extremely difficult for opponents to successfully challenge it in court based on ERISA.
EFSully, how is “elective surgery” a need?
Nice write up.
Your right, the water stuff will probably go down the drain – the various factions (farmers, environmentalists, developers, SoCal, NorCal, The Valley, etc) are too fractured to do anything substantial through the legislature.
Perata’s comments doesn’t bode well for healthcare.
I agree that redistricting is within grasp and the legislature and governor SHOULD be motivated and SHOULD be close to a deal. But history hasn’t been kind to redistricting reform.
If it does pass, hopefully we will get that citizens redistricting commission. I’d love to be on that – I’d draw the districts so they’d spell obscene words.
Haven’t I read this before somewhere?
Which country is healthier overall? It’s not even close.
>EFSully :
Some friends of my neighbors from Canada were in town and I found out to my surprise that they were here to get medical treatment. I asked them about the health care system in Canada which all the government run single-payer advocates point to as Nirvana and they said that they are seeking treatment in the U.S. because there is a two year waiting list for the elective surgery he needs. I guess all systems have their flaws but two years seems along time to wait for surgery.
Aug 28, 2007 11:06 AM
Thanks. It’s too bad about the water stuff, as I pointed out in that rather loaded sentence above.
I don’t know how reflective of the political situation Perata’s attitude yesterday is.
>Brasky :
Nice write up.
Your right, the water stuff will probably go down the drain – the various factions (farmers, environmentalists, developers, SoCal, NorCal, The Valley, etc) are too fractured to do anything substantial through the legislature.
Perata’s comments doesn’t bode well for healthcare.
I think Don is a pretty calculating guy and his comments weren’t out of carelessness. My gut tells me he’s trying to get redistricting done and then shut the legislature down before someone from the Right or the Left can set the building on fire.
Well Brasky, it would take a latter day Marinus van der Lubbe or another deranged truck driver to burn down the Capitol. Not sure which party would choose which arsonist.
I meant politically. Don is concerned that every day that the legislature is in session, it’s another reason for people to vote against the term limit deal.
Marinus van der Lubbe? Wow, now THAT’S obscure. How about Guy Fawkes?
Who’s that?
>Kandy Kid :
Well Brasky, it would take a latter day Marinus van der Lubbe or another deranged truck driver to burn down the Capitol. Not sure which party would choose which arsonist.
Aug 28, 2007 01:30 PM
Perhaps.
>Brasky :
I think Don is a pretty calculating guy and his comments weren’t out of carelessness. My gut tells me he’s trying to get redistricting done and then shut the legislature down before someone from the Right or the Left can set the building on fire.
Aug 28, 2007 01:20 PM
Marinus van der Lubbe was a commie who burned down the Reichstag in the 1930′s. Wiki lists it as a “pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi Germany.”
Didn’t know the cat until I looked him up.
Something tells me that Kandy Kid knows the name of the guy who sold John Wilkes Booth his horse.
Marinus van der Lubbe was a commie who burned down the Reichstag in the 1930′s. Wiki lists it as a “pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi Germany.”
Didn’t know the cat until I looked him up.
Something tells me that Kandy Kid knows the name of the guy who sold John Wilkes Booth his horse.
Oh, THAT guy.
Yeah, exactly. Funny thing is, he’s got a Bacon Number of 5…
Hah!
I wonder how the Bacon Number business got started.
It is amazing how a couple clicks on the Internet can be as useful as a World War II history class at one of California’s finest universities and the valuable brain cells needed to retain it. Though Wikipedia does not allude to a possible Brown Shirt involvement in the arson and the convenient elimination of Communist sympathizers as a result.
And sorry Brasky, can’t help you with Booth’s horse sale. Try my friend Solon. He might have been around at the time.
Kid — too true. The Internet is great for Cold War history too.
Someone wake up Solon from his nap!
Maybe Solon is busy stocking up on the spicy barbeque chicken at El Pollo Loco. It goes away Sept. 4.
http://www.elpolloloco.com/whatsnew/press_text.asp?news_id=131
This is much more interesting than my currenty conference call. From –http://www.surratt.org/documents/Bplact02.pdf
I saw at the Government stables in this city, Seventeenth and I Streets, a dark-bay oneeyed horse on the 8th of this month. It is the same horse that was sold some time in the latter part of November, by my uncle, George Gardiner, to a man named Booth.
Can’t imagine a one-eyed horse cost very much back then.