Maybe California's chief justice just forgot what he's supposed to do

Everybody has had the pleasure of dealing with government employees who don't seem to remember that they work for us, the citizens. But it's rare to get that attitude from a guy at the top. Today's subject, of course, is Saturday's remarks by Ronald George, the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, who was harshly critical of the state's initiative process in a speech in Massachusetts, according to the New York Times. Speaking to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, an independent public policy think tank founded in 1780 by the leaders of the revolution against England, George said California's initiative process had "rendered our state government dysfunctional." Well, it certainly takes one to know one. This guy works for the government -- if the system functions badly, he's probably one of the main reasons because he's one of the most powerful officials. George was especially critical of California's two-thirds vote requirement to pass a state budget, a deadline that the legislature has missed repeatedly in recent years. No wonder. If the state doesn't have a budget, George and his colleagues might not get paid. And they do get paid, nearly $200,000 each per year. But who can even imagine how much nerve it takes to publicly denounce the very laws you're sworn to enforce. George said the two-thirds requirement was perhaps the "most consequential" impact of the referendum process because it limited "how elected officials may raise and spend revenue." But it's not difficult to understand why: the citizens don't trust their elected and non-elected officials. “California’s lawmakers, and the state itself, have been placed in a fiscal straitjacket by a steep two-thirds-vote requirement — imposed at the ballot box — for raising taxes,” George said. But these restraints are of officialdom's own making. If state officials could be trusted to take care of business without screwing up -- in 2009, the budget was passed so late that California had to issue IOUs -- the voters would not have to resort to the initiative procedure to get things done. A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to comment on the chief justice’s speech, the Times said.

Effects of G.M bankruptcy still roiling San Francisco Bay

Did the State of California get the raw end of the deal along with thousands of autoworkers when the Toyota-General Motors joint venture in Fremont shut down last month? That's what a state panel that gave New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. a $2 million training grant in February is investigating, now that the automobile facility is scheduled to close early next year. The acting chairman of the Employment Training Panel, the little-known state agency that awarded the grant, has asked NUMMI to withdraw its request for the money in light of Toyota's announcement in August that the facility would be closing, according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. "We would never have approved this if they had told us they were closing this factory in a year," said the acting chairman, Barry Broad, a labor union attorney. But NUMMI and the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, which helped train the workers, said the facility deserved the money because the training had been ongoing for months before the decision to close the plant was made. "We were hopeful that (Employment Training Panel) funding, along with other state and local programs, would enable Nummi to continue production at its Fremont facility," CMTA President Jack Stewart said, according to the Chronicle. "We expect that contractual obligations regarding completed employee training will be met." In fact, panel rules permit the agency to recover training funds when the company that gets money closes down or leaves the state. But a panel official said the $2 million was an indirect contract with CMTA, not NUMMI, so the recapture provision did not apply, the newspaper said. NUMMI received more than $18 million in training funds prior to the dispute. A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the Chronicle that the governor's office requested the investigation.

Toyota takes clunker money and runs

News that Toyota will bail from a 25-year partnership with General Motors to produce vehicles at the only automobile manufacturing plant still operating in California should come as no surprise to anyone -- GM already announced in a bankruptcy court filing in June that it was abandoning its share of the joint venture. California officials tried to save the NUMMI plant in Fremont by offering tax breaks and other incentives, according to the Reuters international news service, but Toyota decided to close the plant as part of its global cost-saving strategy. The plant, and the combination of GM and Toyota, was an innovation when it reopened in 1984 to produce a redesigned Chevrolet Nova using Japanese manufacturing techniques. It had previously been a GM manufacturing facility. It now employs more than 4,000 autoworkers and supports as many as 35,000 supplier jobs, and will continue to build Toyota Corolla cars and Tacoma trucks until March 31. GM, which is reorganizing under court protection, ceased production of the Pontiac Vibe at the plant last month, and is discontinuing the Pontiac brand. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said Toyota's announcement was a "sad day" and said plans were underway to convert the plant to other uses, Reuters said. The plant was the only Toyota facility in the United States with a contract with the United Auto Workers union. A union official said the decision to close the plant was devastating. "This is no time to close a highly successful manufacturing facility," said Jimmy Settles, a United Auto Workers vice president. "California is one of the most important markets for Toyota." Perhaps ironically, Toyota was the largest recipient of stimulus dollars from the U.S. government's so-called "Cash for Clunkers" program that pumped $3 billion into the auto industry in an effort to boost sales. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Toyota officials told her office that GM's pullout from NUMMI left the plant with excess capacity and no outlook for increased demand in the current economic environment, according to Reuters. Toyota also complained that the plant was old and that production costs were too high in California, Reuters said.

2009 California budget held hostage -- Day 16

The failure of state leaders to resolve California's latest budget crisis really should be blamed on its action-hero governor, whose inexperience has gone beyond being a source of amusement to an outright disgrace. No doubt, California voters thought they were voting for compromise when they ousted former Democratic governor Grey Davis and elected Schwarzenegger back in 2003, and then re-elected him in 2006. Instead, what they got was even worse legislative gridlock. The issue made news again today because an expected budget compromise collapsed yesterday, according to the Reuters international news service, and the state has been forced to pay its bills with IOUs. Democrats hold a two-thirds majority in the state Assembly but are six votes short of two-thirds in the Senate, and California is one of the few states that require a supermajority to pass a budget. And that is the problem, at least on the surface. Schwarzenegger has so little influence on his party colleagues in the state Senate that he cannot even convince three to change their minds and support the budget. Actually, this is colossal arrogance by Republicans and utter incompetence by Schwarzenegger. Millions of California residents and businesses depend on the state to conduct itself professionally; today, they are hostages to political bickering. The state legislature really only has one job, to pass the budget. The governor has the power to do pretty much everything else. So why do Californians spend millions of dollars every year to keep its legislature meeting in luxury and pay its legislators lavish salaries, if they can't even accomplish this?