Here are five things I have found interesting since my last post.
1. California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) released his initial 2023-24 state budget. After several years of surpluses, this year’s budget projects a $22.5 billion shortfall. California’s revenue structure is quite volatile, so this kind of swing isn’t too surprising given what’s happened with the stock market and technology sector over the past year.
Newsom proposes using a series of trigger cuts, deferrals, and reductions in planned one-time spending to balance the budget while protecting his core policy priorities. Newsom also suggests not using any of the $35.6 billion reserve “rainy day” funds in the state’s accounts to reach budget balance.
The California Budget and Policy Center has an outstanding analysis of what the Governor proposed. It released its First Look: Understanding the Governor’s Proposed 2023-24 State Budget, which details the overall economic picture and what Newsom suggests for spending and policies to produce the required balanced state budget. This report provides a wealth of background information about the budget and the direction Newsom seeks to take the state.
The release of the January budget starts a six-month dance between the Governor and Legislative leaders, who must make the compromises necessary so the Governor can sign the state budget by the Constitutionally mandated June 30 deadline.
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2.
— Scott Reinhard (@scottreinhard) 11:11 PM ∙ Jan 10, 2023
California has gotten a bunch of rain and snow over the past two weeks, but that doesn’t mean the state can stop worrying about its water supply. But the situation has improved, as the Bay Area News Group’s Paul Rogers writes, “For the first time in more than two years, the majority of California is no longer in a severe drought, the federal government reported Thursday, a dramatic turnaround following a series of powerful atmospheric river storms since Christmas.
Overall, 46% of California’s land area remains in severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly report put out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Only a month ago, on Dec. 6, it was 85%.”
Unfortunately, this wet start doesn’t mean California will end up with all the precipitation it needs to end the drought. CalMatters Alastair Bland reminds us that the state hasn’t seen many wet years recently: “After all, most years in the past 15 have produced an underwhelming amount of rainfall. Since the big water year of 2006, only three — 2011, 2017 and 2019 — have been notably wet. Many climate experts believe California’s predominant weather pattern in the future will be one of steady drought conditions broken periodically by very wet interludes.”
California’s weather patterns are likely to continue to move towards the extremes, with a series of arid years occasionally interrupted by very wet seasons. As The Atlantic’s Jacob Stern explains, “It’s no surprise that climate change has likely played a role in all of this. California has always had something of a “boom-or-bust hydrological economy,” Horton told me, but the booms are getting even wetter and the busts even drier.”
There is more precipitation to come!
The storm parade is not over for California.
Another 3 storm systems will sweep across the state over the next 7 days bringing another 2-5 inches of rain across much of the state.
The Sierra could see up to another 4-8 feet of snow.
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) 10:18 PM ∙ Jan 12, 2023
3. BuzzFeed’s Melissa Segura profiles Chicago attorney Josh Tepfer, who has built an incredible career by successfully winning the exonerations of many wrongfully convicted people.
Segura writes, “Tepfer’s representation has led to the exoneration of 288 wrongfully convicted people — making him among the most prolific exoneration attorneys since anyone began keeping track. Last August, he spearheaded what is believed to be the first mass exoneration of people convicted of murder, all of their cases hinging on confessions and witness statements that had been obtained by a now-retired police detective, Reynaldo Guevara, who used physical force and manipulation. In a single marathon day of court, Tepfer’s work helped wipe unjust convictions from the records of seven people who’d served a collective 174 years behind bars.”
We need to focus on how corrupt police officers, prosecutors, and judges harm innocent people around the country. We also need to make it easier for people to seek judicial relief when we discover new evidence or scientific advances that demonstrate how our judicial system made a horrible error.
4. Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care. Here are some stories that she highlights:
There is more coverage of the Alabama Attorney General spokesperson’s admission that the state is seeking to interpret older laws to jail women for abortion. Other states copy what Alabama starts, so we need to be ready for this idea to spread.
Georgia is offering a $3,000 deduction for a fetus with a detectible heartbeat, but that’s running into implementation problems. Valenti writes, “because a fetus is not actually a person, the guidance has left all sorts of questions open about the deduction as it relates to pregnancy loss, what kind of medical records are necessary, privacy issues, etc. Most of all—the rule gives some insight into how confusing it will be as more states adopt fetal personhood measures (emphasis in original).”
5. It was free Thursday for Craig Calcaterra’s Cup of Coffee newsletter. While I subscribe mainly to read the baseball news, he also is a liberal living in Ohio. I appreciate his political writing as he analyzes his state’s relentless turn to the hard right.
He’s been trying to warn people that the surprise election of an Ohio State House Speaker earlier this month is not about moderation or bipartisanship. Oh, it is so much more complicated. Yet national political writers are ignoring the context that led a portion of the state’s Republican caucus to abandon the person they tipped for Speaker just a few weeks ago.
As Calcaterra explains, “But honestly, I cannot get over the fact that a national political columnist with serious academic credentials was allowed to characterize a situation in which a hardcore GOP megadonor made a large donation to a Democrat while simultaneously orchestrating a lurid sting operation which outed a closeted gay man in order to swing the Democratic coalition and some homophobic GOP reps behind a different candidate as “moderation.”
I’ll understand if you want to scroll past the baseball news down to the Moderation update of Calcaterra’s newsletter to learn more. But the baseball writing is excellent too.
Quick Pitches:
Can’t wait for Monday when all the Republicans who’ve spent all year banning Dr MLK from the classroom suddenly remember to misquote him for Internet clout.
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) 7:21 PM ∙ Jan 11, 2023
Elon Musk sets a Guinness World Record! But it’s for the largest loss of personal fortune in history, as Fortune magazine estimates he’s lost $165 billion of net worth from November 2021 to December 2022. But I am sure he meant to do that. (Faarea Masud, BBC Business)
Roger Bennett and the Men in Blazers’ team highlight what members of the United States Women’s and Men’s National Soccer Teams are doing over in European club play. (American States United)
I hope everyone listens to Chris Hayes. We can’t let them fool us like this again.
.@chrislhayes on Walgreens admitting the shoplifting threat was overstated:
“This is something everyone needs to bookmark in their minds the next time you hear giant corporations warning about a ‘rampant crime wave.’”
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) 2:00 AM ∙ Jan 13, 2023
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