From Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Alameda:

“The Governor’s proposal to balance the $24 billion budget shortfall without the use of additional revenues is neither a fair nor realistic solution to the budget crisis. I find it morally objectionable for the Governor’s proposals to specifically cut Cal-Works, Healthy Families, Cal-Grants, In-home service care for the elderly, and even access to State parks. The Governor’s proposal also fails at its intended goals: it fails to address our deficit and it fails to reflect our priorities.

“In this budget year alone, we have instituted $23 billion of cuts, over 20% of our $105 billion budget. These cuts represent a tremendous amount of pain for California, a serious reduction in services to our constituencies, and a reduction in the prosperity of our state.

“Our budget must reflect our priorities. It must reflect what kind of state we want to be. I believe our state should be one that gives priority to children, seniors, and support for working families, all of which requires us to invest in our state. I hope we will look at revenue solutions that are realistic, that help the state support its safety net programs, and that provide Californians with the services they require and demand as they work to bring our state through this economic crisis.”

From State Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley:

“That was Governor Schwarzenegger’s best speech yet. He understands, as I do, that voters sent an undeniably strong message during the special election last month: cut spending, do your job and live within your means with no new taxes. Senate Republicans have been preaching this message of fiscal conservatism for years.

“The Governor understands, as we do, that our options are few. There is no combination of taxes and fees that will close this yawning $24 billion deficit, nor does the legislative will exist to raise taxes again. Raising taxes is not the answer. We cannot borrow our way out of this mess. Banks do not consider California to be a good loan risk, and with our track record of overspending, I can’t blame them. The only option left on the table is to cut spending, reform inefficient government agencies, live within our means and never make the mistake of spending more than we have again.

“Now, let’s get to work!”

More, after the jump…
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Chicken and waffles with a good book, food for body (and soul) and mind – these are a few of my favorite things. And local Assembly members singled out purveyors of these delights as businesses from each district around the state were honored this week by the California Small Business Association in Sacramento.

Assemblyman Sandré Swanson, D-Alameda, picked Derrick Johnson of the Home of Chicken and Waffles in Oakland’s Jack London Square as his district’s honoree, praising Johnson’s practice of hiring and training local workers including many at-risk youth.

Although originally from Oakland, Johnson’s father and uncles opened a small chain of Los Angeles restaurants called Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles. In the late 1990s, his cousins invited Johnson – then living in Florida – to invest in the first Roscoe’s restaurant in Oakland; that investment eventually turned into ownership, with Johnson eventually moving, renaming and reopening the Jack London Square eatery.

“As a small businessman, Derrick Johnson has created an enterprise that is not simply a financial success, but a community achievement as well,” Swanson said. “By hiring local residents, particularly those who often have difficulty finding work, Home of Chicken and Waffles contributes to our economy while creating a better quality of life for many people. I was very pleased to nominate such a deserving business.”

Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, honored Michael Barnard, owner of Rakestraw Books, as the 15th District’s winner. Rakestraw hosts a regular program of author appearances and events with local Schools, and has created community partnership events with other local businesses and non-profits; Barnard has served on the Danville Area Chamber of Commerce board and is now president of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association.

“Through his hard work, Rakestraw Books – ‘The Bookstore in Danville’ – continues to be a community institution,” Buchanan said. “Small businesses make significant contributions to the California economy. They are the heart and soul of our communities, and Rakestraw books is just that,” Buchanan said.

More local Bay Area honorees, after the jump…
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So Mike Villines, R-Clovis, has stepped down as Assembly Republican Leader, making way for Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo. How do the Bay Area’s Assembly members feel about that?

“I have the utmost respect for Mike Villines and think he did a tremendous job in some difficult times,” Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, told me this morning, noting even tougher times are ahead.

“We are headed into some very difficult economic times here in Sacramento over the next few months, no matter what happens with the initiatives,” he said, facing one of the worst cash crises in California history, even worse than the one we narrowly escaped a few months ago.

Blakeslee, he said, is “a great choice because he’s a problem-solver and he understands, as many of us do, that the solutions aren’t Democratic or Republican, the decisions have to be tough choices that move California forward, that are largely bipartisan or nonpartisan. I think Mr. Blakeslee brings that to the job.”

Torrico said he has watched Blakeslee’s work as the Assembly Republican Floor Manager and credits his “demeanor and thoughtfulness in running a very smooth operation over the last year and a half.”

Conservatives had blasted Villines for agreeing to $12 billion in new taxes as part of the budget deal legislative leaders hammered out in February, but Torrico insists he believes Villines stepped down voluntarily “because he didn’t want to be a distraction for this initiative vote;” to spend more time with his family; and to give Blakeslee a head-start on leadership before budget negotiations start in earnest later this month.

More (or less) from the Bay Area Assembly delegation, after the jump…
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The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert had the scoop this morning that Santa Monica City Councilman Bobby Shriver – brother of California first lady Maria Shriver and nephew of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy and the late President John F. Kennedy – is mulling a 2010 run for California Attorney General.

If he’s in, Shriver would join a crowded Democratic primary field including San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who has been busy raising money from many of the same people with whom she rubbed elbows in the Obama campaign last year; Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, who entered the race with the biggest pot of money already in the bank; Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, who might’ve gained some valuable experience while taking a drubbing from Jerry Brown in the 2006 primary; Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance; and Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara.

If someone can clearly break from the pack as a front-runner in the next few months, he or she could benefit from having so many others split what’s left of the pie.

“We expect there are going to be more people who will be entering this race,” Torrico campaign consultant Phil Giarrizzo told me today – they’d expected Shriver, he said, and they still think Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly will jump in, too.

As for Shriver, with whom Giarrizzo said he has worked on environmental issues, “he’s a talented, bright, articulate person, but we’ve seen many times, in the sense that ‘he’s a Kennedy,’ that people look to accomplishment, they look to a record,” Giarrizzo said. Primary voters tend to be very discerning, he noted, and “it doesn’t work that you can just pass along a family name; he will have to run on his own merits … a level of experience he’ll have to communicate. I don’t think we look at him as ‘a Kennedy’ – I think we look at him as Bobby Shriver, an activist and city councilman.”

“Politics is a debate of ideas and we’ll see as we go forward what his ideas are,” he said.

Harris campaign manager Ace Smith said Friday that “As the only career prosecutor in the race, District Attorney Harris looks forward to having a spirited debate about all the issues of law enforcement.”

Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico says he’ll formally announce Monday his candidacy for state Attorney General in 2010.

“As Majority Leader I’ve been involved with the budget more than ever before… and in these last few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about where the state is,” Torrico, D-Newark, told me a few minutes ago. “Our state is clearly going in the wrong direction, we’ve got some challenges ahead of us, were going to spend more on prisons than on higher education in two years.”

“We need to have a new conversation in California about what our priorities are, and the Attorney General is an office that should impact law enforcement… and also a wide range of other issues I’m passionate about,” from civil rights to consumer rights and beyond, he said.

Torrico joins a 2010 Democratic primary field for AG already consisting of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris – already hard at work raising money from many of the same deep-pocketed donors with whom she rubbed elbows during the Obama campaign – and Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo (who ran against Jerry Brown in the 2006 primary).

Other Assembly Democrats reportedly considering runs for AG in 2010 include Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, and Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara.

Torrico said he has a “broad vision for the direction the state needs to go in,” having been not only a legislative champion of law enforcement and public safety but also of creating middle class jobs; the Attorney General, he notes, has a big impact on California’s business climate.

And from a political standpoint, he said, he enters the race with $650,000 cash on hand – a sum far in excess of any of the other contenders, and a good down payment on a race that could cost $5 million or more. “If you look at the reports over the past four years, you see I have the track record of being able to raise the money,” he said.

More after the jump…
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Apparently Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, is considering imposing an around-the clock Christmas week lockdown until lawmakers can come up with a plan to close the state’s staggering budget deficit. The plan, first floated by the Bay Area’s own Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, is OK with Assemblyman Sandré Swanson, D-Alameda, he said today.

“I am in strong support of the Speaker’s plan for a lock down. Our current budget short fall is at $14.8 billion and is growing each day. Frankly, we need to act like adults and take full responsibility in this time of crisis,” Swanson said. “Many working families in California will not have a Christmas at all. I have my red pajamas and am ready to be locked in until we get the budget done for the people of California.”

Whoa. Is that what we’ve come to — legislators in their jammies? STOP THE MADNESS!!!

(P.S. — Please send photos.)

Plenty of political happenings throughout the Bay Area in the next week:

Bay Area soul line dancers will be shakin’ it for Barack Obama at noon Saturday, Aug. 9, near the Lake Merritt columns at 550 El Embarcadero in Oakland. It’s not a fundraiser but rather a “community-building activity,” organizers say; they’ll distribute flyers and other material.

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, will hold his next “Congress at Your Corner” constituent meet-and-greet from noon to 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9, at the Lowe’s hardware and home supply store at 3750 Dublin Blvd. in Dublin. Then, he’ll be joined by House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Filner, D-San Diego, for a veterans’ town-hall meeting at 10 a.m. Monday, Aug. 11, at the Karl Ross American Legion Post, 2020 Plymouth Road in Stockton; they’ll be talking about a cover-up of the number of veterans committing suicide, failure to inform veterans of suicidal and psychotic side effects of a drug tested on servicemembers; and the government’s purposeful misdiagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder as a lesser “adjustment disorder.”

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Martinez, has a series of town-hall meetings scheduled for next week: 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 11 in Vallejo’s City Council chambers, 555 Santa Clara St.; 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 12 in the Plaza Two Building, 3260 Blume Dr. in Richmond; and 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13 in Endeavor Hall, 6008 Center St. in Clayton.

Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, will hold a Town Hall meeting on the status of state budget negotiations and its potential impacts on local health care and social services from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 12, in the Fukaya Room at the Fremont Main Library, 2400 Stevenson Blvd. Joining the lawmaker will be experts from the California Budget Project, the Alameda County Social Services Agency, Health Access California and the Alameda Health Consortium.

Next Thursday, Aug. 14 is presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s first national house-party date, with events scheduled for 7 p.m. in Hayward, Redwood City, San Francisco, Vallejo, Oakley, Stockton, San Jose and elsewhere – see the rundown here.

A new study makes a compelling case for a pending bill that would require all California employers to provide their workers with paid sick days, researchers say.

The report – produced by Human Impact Partners (an Oakland-based nonprofit project of the Tides Center) and the San Francisco Department of Public Health – says the proposed law “would help reduce the spread of flu; protect the public from diseases carried by sick workers in restaurants and in long-term care facilities; prevent hunger and homelessness among sick low-income workers; and enable workers to stay home when they are sick or when they need to care for a sick dependent,” according to its findings summary .

The summary also notes that about 70 percent of California’s accommodation and food service workers don’t have paid sick days right now, so they’re apt to come to work sick rather than lose that pay. I know I’ll think about that the next time a server coughs while taking my order.

This is “not only a labor policy but also a sensible and effective public health policy” which could save the state significant healthcare costs, said Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, the San Francisco Public Health Department’s director of Occupational and Environmental Health, told reporters on a conference call today.

His office provided much of the research from this report – data it had gathered when San Francisco was considering such a law. The city’s law has now been in effect since early 2007.

AB 2716, the California Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act of 2008 — authored by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, and co-authored by assemblymen John Laird, D-Santa Cruz; Sandre Swanson, D-Oakland; and Alberto Torrico, D-Newark — would guarantee that all workers in the state accrue at least one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours. A small business (having 10 or fewer employees) would be able to limit an employee’s use of this accrued sick time to 40 hours or five days in each calendar year; larger employers would be able to limit it at 72 hours or nine days in each calendar year.

Dr. Jody Heymann, founding director of both the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University and the Project on Global Working Families at Harvard University, said the idea that such a law would make California less competitive is a fallacy. “If we just look at the 10 countries that have been ranked by businesses as the most competitive countries, nine out of 10 have guaranteed paid sick leave – the United States is the only one that doesn’t.”

The bill, which the Assembly passed May 28 on a party-line vote of 45-33, is pending before the state Senate Appropriations Committee.

(hat tip to MC Hammer)

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke this morning at the 46th annual California Prayer Breakfast in Sacramento about service, volunteerism and giving back to one’s community, and the importance of keeping kids off the streets and out of gangs. Listen to the audio here; a transcript is here.

From left: California State Assemblymember Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, Gov. Schwarzenegger, California State Senator Jack Scott, D-Alta Dena; photo by William Foster from the governor’s office.