[note: still trying to figure out why the formatting is mucked up below... apologies]

Call it a glimpse into California's political past.

That's one way to describe a collection of fascinating photographs now online from the archives of Time and Life magazines. The photos, hosted by -- who else -- Google offer an incredible glimpse at everything, everywhere, for the better part of the last 150 years.

But this is a blog about California politics... and the archive doesn't disappoint on that front.

There are an awful lot of photos of Ronald Reagan in his campaigns for governor, like this candid shot from 1966. The legendary incumbent he beat that year is also a photo favorite.

Photos of Pat Brown are numerous. This is a great shot from 1962 of the Democrat watching Richard Nixon on TV, the same year that Brown defeated Nixon for another term as governor.

There are also an awful lot of photos of Brown away from the office, like this 1961 photo of him surfing in Hawaii; the candid photos show a politician unafraid of being seen at play... a far cry from the pols of the modern era.

A foil of both Brown and Reagan, the legendary Jess Unruh, is also featured in a series of Life photos; this one is only pegged with a date of 1970 (perhaps from his gubernatorial run?). Unruh, the once powerful speaker of the Assembly, is mislabeled in a few other photos... most notably in the poignant photo of Robert F. Kennedy just moments before his assassination, where Unruh is noted as the mayor of Los Angeles (a job he unsuccessfully campaigned for a few years later).

And going backwards from that point, this photo is also worth noting: a chat between then outgoing Governor Earl Warren and incoming Governor Goodwin Knight, taken in the governor's Capitol office in 1953.

Tonight's new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California is, as always, chock full of items that are worth mulling over: a bitterly divided state over the issue of gay marriage, lousy approval ratings for the governor and legislators, and a better sense of who voted for whom in the race for the White House.

A lot of that will be covered by the rest of the news biz, which sent me looking for some other morsels, like this one: we Californians still love our initiatives.

Maybe not individual ballot initiatives, but the system itself. PPIC found 67% of those surveyed were either somewhat satisfied or very satisfied with the initiative process. That's consistent with their polling from two years ago, but a much warmer and fuzzy feeling about initiatives than voters expressed after Governor Schwarzenegger's 2005 special election.

The most satisified subgroup? Independent voters, of which 73% surveyed give the process a thumbs up.

That being said, it's still interesting how many grumblings there are about a process people like. All subgroups agree there could be changes to the initiative system, though Democrats (42%) want major changes more than anyone else. 51% of respondents overall say there was too much money spent on initiative campaigns in 2008, and almost a third "strongly" agreed that the wording of the measures was too complicated.

So what would folks change? 84% said there should be more disclosure of campaign money, including signature gathering. And 72% of those surveyed believe the opposing sides in an initiative campaign should have to participate in a series... a series... of televised debates (I have to believe the euphoria of a fascinating presidential election has some folks forgetting what they really watch when the clicker is in their hand).

It's hard to know why the love affair (or maybe love/hate affair) with initiatives still continues, but here's one guess, based on info in this poll: when asked who they trust more to make public policy -- lawmakers in Sacramento or voters at the ballot box -- PPIC's respondents chose... themselves. Using the scores from two levels of trust, it's 37% for elected officials, 52% for Joe and Jane Public.

That may say more than anything about why direct democracy is alive and well in California.

[update 4:03 pm - Sigh. Welcome to another example of how the budget process is about as clear as mud. The original version of this posting reported that lack of legislative action on the current fiscal year's deficit could add another $2 billion to the already assumed $11.2 billion gap. That was based on the Q&A in today's weekly briefing with the governor's staff. But after seeing a copy of the document the Schwarzenegger administration sent to legislative leaders yesterday, it now appears that the $2 billion is the amount of extra solutions that would need to be found absent legislative action by mid-January. In other words, the governor's $9 billion in solutions proposed last month... would only be worth $7 billion by January. It doesn't mean that the budget hole will be deeper, just that much more tough from which to crawl. Thanks, too, to an eagle-eyed expert legislative staffer who confirmed the error of my ways in an email this afternoon. The posting below has been modified to reflect the proper understanding. --JM]

That well-reported $11.2 billion gap between state government's revenues and expenditures is expected to be even harder to resolve without legislative action over the next seven weeks.

That's the message from aides to Governor Schwarzenegger, who say that the governor's November 6 proposed savings will be worth $2 billion less if the Legislature fails to act before the end of 45-day period covered by the new fiscal emergency declaration.

Of course, that's assuming the sour economy doesn't shrink revenues even more than it already has... thus making the problem even worse; remember that the 18-month deficit figure now stands at $28 billion.

Schwarzenegger's press secretary Aaron McLear told reporters today that the governor believes the November proposal, which includes everything from a $4 billion cut in K-12 spending to an increase in the state sales tax, is still the right way to go.

But budget spokesman H.D. Palmer said today that if the Legislature fails to act, money-saving proposals start evaporating as soon as next week.

Schwarzenegger was in Philadelphia this morning (above) talking about the states' need for a federal economic stimulus package and, we're told, chatting with President-elect Barack Obama about how Californians were convinced to authorize massive infrastructure borrowing in 2006. (Doubtful the governor renewed his, ummm, October concerns about the President-elect's physique.)

So when will the guv be back in Sacramento to personally chat up the new legislators about the need for action? That remains unclear, even though Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said yesterday that Schwarzenegger needs to do more heavy lifting in forging a relationship with newly elected GOP legislators.

All the newbies got a welcome gift from the guv this week: a ceramic replica of the state Capitol with Schwarzenegger's famous signature on the bottom. We're told it opens up like a little pill box.

While no doubt unintentional, it's hard to miss the symbolism that the little Capitols are... empty. Anybody have any ideas on how to fill them up with cash?

Welcome back, Legislature. Man, don't we all feel rested?

Per the state constitution, today marks the convening of a brand new two-year session of the California Legislature, where more than two dozen rookies join seasoned vets under the Capitol dome for work on... what else... a budget crisis.

If the issue wasn't front and center on its own, Governor Schwarzenegger put it there by declaring a fiscal emergency -- the second of his tenure, and a power given to him under 2004's Proposition 58) and by calling the new Legislature into special session, which runs concurrently with the regular session that began today.

(A sidenote: Schwarzenegger made the announcement in Los Angeles, after his private jet was grounded by fog here in Sacramento. While some in the press may wonder why the public doesn't understand the problem, perhaps we might want to look at ourselves; at least one LA reporter could be heard asking the guv just what a "fiscal emergency" is and how it works.)

It's hard to call any of what happened today at the state Capitol truly different; in my conversations with a few new legislators this morning (more on that tomorrow on The California Report), it was clear that the political battle lines seem pretty much intact.

And yet, there are small sprinklings of a new approach. One was found in today's announcement that the budget committee in the Senate will now consist of all 40 senators, a "committee of the whole," as it were. That decision was announced by new Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

"We all own the problem," he said in his floor speech this afternoon. "Let's have the institution begin acting like it."

Steinberg also called on legislators to complete their budget negotiations in 2009 by May 15. "Let's use the [governor's] May revise not as the beginning point of budget negotiations," he said. Steinberg further challenged lawmakers to strike deals on several thorny issues, from water supply protection to renewable energy, in the first 120 days of the session.

And back to the budget... Assembly Speaker Karen Bass says she wants to convene a joint session so that the state's financial experts can discuss the budget crisis with all 120 legislators in more detail.

Meantime, the governor threw some water on one idea that's been getting a lot of ink lately: asking the feds for money to solve the state's fiscal woes. Schwarzenegger is expected to travel to Philadelphia tomorrow for an event featuring President-elect Barack Obama; but it doesn't sound like he'll be asking for cash.

"I would never ask the federal government to help us before we straighten out our own mess," he said today.

The big accomplishment in California's statehouse on Tuesday: the maintenance crew successfully finished decorating the historic building for the holiday season. At least they did their job.

On this week's Capital Notes Podcast, we examine the total collapse of this week's efforts to stem the flood of the budget red ink. From partisan warfare to a budget process that seems to have completely failed, Tuesday's activities closed another chapter in the annals of Capitol gridlock.

Capitol Weekly editor Anthony York and I discuss what happened, and what's next. We also check in on the handful of political races where votes are still being counted.

(You can read all about the incoming crop of new legislators in this week's Capitol Weekly here.)

Happy Thanksgiving to our readers and listeners... see you back here for the convening of the new Legislature on Monday.

There's a common perception inside the ornate walls of the Capitol that the public hasn't ever really been dialed in to the impending doom that is the state budget. They don't seem to feel a sense of urgency, goes the theory.

Well, after today's anti-climatic end of the legislative session, one might be compelled to say to the Legislature: right back at ya.

In the Senate, the late afternoon/early evening session on the Democratic budget plan produced a sizeable source of revenue... for Round Table Pizza. The tradition of legislators getting a taxpayer subsidized dinner for working past normal hours continued, with 36 pizzas stacked up in a hallway just off the Senate floor. At last count, there are 40 senators... which works out to just over 70% of a full pie for each one of them.

Meantime, the floor of the Assembly sounded more like a cocktail party than a legislative chamber. The sound system made it easy enough to hear the impassioned speeches, but there was a lot of inattention by those waiting to vote. Several lawmakers seemed to spend much of the debate surfing websites at the laptops on their desks.

If all of this sounds, well, snarky... perhaps it's because the proposal, debate, and outcome were all ones seen before.

In the end, the Democratic proposal failed to garner enough GOP legislative votes to clear the supermajority hurdle in either house -- although Senate Republicans did vote for some of the spending cuts contained in the package.

However, even if the proposal had somehow made it out of the Legislature and downstairs to the desk of Governor Schwarzenegger, he would have rejected it. At least, that's what he told reporters tonight just after both houses adjourned.

Schwarzenegger said the Democrats didn't put up an economic stimulus package in tandem with the spending cuts and tax increases. "You cannot go and raise taxes without having an economic stimulus package," he said. "It's not fair to business. It's not fair to the people. We've got to go put people to work, and we've got to ease off some of the regulations that makes it tough to do business here in California."

Moments later, incoming Senate pro tem Darrell Steinberg said Schwarzenegger's stimulus ideas still wouldn't have been enough of a sweetener to get any GOP votes on the budget proposal. Plus, he said, there were things in it Dems didn't like. Even so, he said the issue of the economy doesn't solve the state's immediate problems.

The floor debates featured some familiar points: for Democrats, it was the notion that Republicans won't lay out a comprehensive plan to solve the shortfall. For Republicans, it was criticism that the Dem spending cuts were actually worth much less than advertised, and that no one would listen to GOP revenue ideas before moving on to tax increases.

For his part, Schwarzenegger told reporters that legislators had "failed the public" by not getting the job done in this 19 day special session. Likening them to kindergarteners, the governor claimed the session was never taken seriously... a far cry from his usual optimism.

You can hear his critique below.

And yes, as you could hear, the governor plans to use his voter approved power to declare a fiscal emergency when the new Legislature convenes on Monday. Whether that inspires a sense of urgency, though, remains to be seen.

One of two things will happen as the Legislature convenes today to consider solutions to the state's big budget mess: either a handful of Republicans will cross party lines and do something they've never done before... or we'll be right back at square one tomorrow morning.

That's the overview, in a nutshell, of what to watch for as Democrats in the Assembly and Senate put up a $17.1 billion proposal to deal with the budget gap now projected over the next 18 months.

The proposal, outlined for reporters in a background briefing with Democratic budget staffers, is split down the middle between cuts and taxes. The $8 billion in cuts relies on a $4 billion whack to proposed K-12 education spending, and a number of cuts to higher education, social services, transportation, and state employees.

The $8 billion in new revenues relies in a full restoration of the vehicle license fee (VLF), the infamous "car tax" of yore, and a suspension of this year's scheduled indexing of personal income tax rates; the latter means that most taxpayers would not see the lower state income tax rate they're scheduled to get when filing for 2008 (is that a tax increase, or the cancellation of a tax cut? Ah, semantics). For people whose adjusted gross income (AGI) is $50,000 a year, the reported cost is about $79, rising to $200 for those whose AGI is $100,000 a year.

The vehicle license fee hike, a tripling of the current rate from .65% of a vehicle's value to 2% (which is where it stood until 1998), would reportedly bring in about $5.7 billion over the 18 month budget period. The income tax indexing plan would bring in about $2.4 billion.

None of these proposals are new. Many of the cuts are smiliar in dollar amounts to those proposed by Governor Schwarzenegger earlier this month. The VLF is a perennial favorite when it comes to revenues. Even the income tax indexing idea, or at least a version of it, was pitched by Democrats this past summer during budget negotiations.

And the "usual suspects" nature of the plan brings us back to the first paragraph above; something truly unseen in recent years -- Republicans bucking their party leadership for one reason or another -- will have to happen if we're not going to all be right back here tomorrow... or next week... or in January.

If that wasn't depressing enough, then here's one more body blow: approval of this package would still leave the state budget in a big hole... another $10 billion over the next 18 months.

The headline pretty much says it all.

Legislative leaders say they expect to vote tomorrow on some kind of proposal to address the $11.2 billion breach in the state budget, but they won't confirm what is... or is not... in the proposal. And at this point, it seems unlikely that an actual deal is at hand.

After a private meeting with Governor Schwarzenegger this afternoon, the legislative leaders that emerged to a waiting throng of reporters said virtually nothing. Will there be a vote? Yes. What's going to be voted on? Can't tell ya. Will Republicans vote for any kind of proposal offered by Democrats? Who knows.

There are days when the press corps... and by extension, the public... knows very little about how elected officials, paid by taxpayers and generally required to deliberate in public, actually plan to act. (With every year, by the way, this phenomeon grows stronger.)

The incoming leader of the state Senate, Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), later came back out to address a few questions, though again without any real specifics. Last week, Steinberg was identified as the man reportedly behind a deal that would both increase the vehicle license fee and place a new budget spending cap on the statewide ballot; the pro tem-in-waiting didn't comment on any of that today, choosing instead to only speak in general terms about tomorrow's proposal.

"The problem is of such significant magnitude," he said, "that we feel it is vital that we at least give it our best shot tomorrow, that we put up a responsible, balanced package."

One thing Steinberg did clear up, however, was that there is not currently a "deal," per se, between Democrats and Republicans.

That would seem to mean one of two things: either the push is now on to pick off the mininum number of GOP votes needed for a two-thirds majority, or the outcome of tomorrow's late afternoon debate is already a foregone conclusion.

Since we began the Capital Notes Podcast last year, one topic is far and away the most talked about: California's screwed up finances.

So why should this week be any different?

Fresh off the diversion of campaign coverage, we're back on the money beat. And as Capitol Weekly editor Anthony York and I surmise, it looks like it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

It's kind of hard to be surprised by bad economic and budget news in California these days. After all, there's virtual unanimty that we're in deep you-know-what.

And yet, today's full analysis by the Legislature's nonpartisan budget watchers is still shocking... probably for its opinion that the problems stretch across almost every single aspect of state revenues and expenditures.

The annual fiscal outlook, the first under newly minted Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, adds some details to the gloomy projections the LAO released just nine days ago. That projection focused on a $28 billion gap by July 2010.

Ready for some more bad news?

The Five Year Flu: The LAO report concludes the current economic storm, which could easily keep blowing into the next fiscal year, will result in a prolonged period of revenue problems. Analysts now predict it will take until the 2013-2014 budget year for state government revenues to surpass those received just last year -- in total, a five year recovery.

And It Could Be Worse: The report, with a nod toward the fact that no one really knows how much worse things will get, includes a scenario where personal income grows only half as much as the LAO now predicts for 2009 and 2010. The result: another $4.5 billion less in state government revenues in the short term.

Capital Gains Collapse: The outlook for capital gains revenues really helps tell the overall story. Profits on stocks and real estate are a major component of personal income tax revenues for the state, and thus a major component of government revenues. The LAO outlook now projects capital gains will decrease from $125 billion in the 2007 tax year to just $65 billion in 2008... almost a 50% drop in one year. In 2009, the LAO believes capital gains will fall to just $41 billion -- that's a 66% evaporation of capital gains revenues in just two years.

Housing, Unemployment: Two more signs of the meltdown... while more than 200,000 new residential building permits were issued in both 2004 and 2005, the annual totals this year and next are expected to only be about 70,000. Meantime, California's unemployment level was about 4.9% in 2006; by next year, the LAO believes it will be 9%... or higher.

Expenses: Lest anyone think the problem is strictly too little cash, the LAO projects an ongoing rise in state government expenses (but to be fair, the projected problems seem to be much more severe on the other side of the ledger). Some biggies -- public schools (K-12) spending to rise by 2.2% a year; Medi-Cal spending to rise by an average of 6.1% a year; in-home supportive services (IHSS) to average 7.9% more a year; and prison spending to increase an average of 2.6% a year.

But the winner... debt service. The LAO predicts payments for all of the state's borrowing through bonds will rise an average of 9.9% a year. That increase includes the bonds approved by voters just two weeks ago.

This kind of sober assessment would presumably shake up the cuts/taxes soap opera that's been playing out in the Legislature these past few years. For now, it hasn't; another leadership meeting today apparently didn't move the ball over the goal line.

Plans for a weekend budget vote in one or both houses have been scrapped... with the best case scenario now being some sort of budget action taken just before that Thanksgiving turkey gets popped into the oven.