Amid the avalanche of bills now awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature or veto is one born here in Oakland that would streamline state food assistance applications to increase the number of kids and families receiving aid.

AB 402 by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, would let families seeking free and reduced-price school lunches also apply for the CalFresh food stamps program at the same time, on one application.

CalFresh is funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is available to people with maximum gross income of 130 percent of the federal poverty level ($28,665 for a family of four) and a net income of 100 percent of federal poverty guidelines, and who have lived in the country for five years; are receiving disability-related benefits; or are children under 18.

The bill was conceived in part at the Alameda County Community Food Bank. The food bank says the adjustments to the application and added processing time would carry minimal costs but could bring enormous benefits to California, which currently ranks second-to-last in food stamp use.

“Although 3.4 million children are now eligible for school meal programs, a large number of these children and their families are not participating in CalFresh,” Skinner was quoted as saying in one of the legislative analyses of the bill. “California loses nearly $5 billion in federal food benefits and $1.7 billion in generated economic activity due to low CalFresh participation rates.”

The food bank estimates Alameda County alone could see an extra $107 million per year in federal funding if the bill becomes law.

The bill’s legislative analyses showed no opponents on record. The Assembly passed AB 402 in June on a 51-24 vote; the state Senate passed it Aug. 22 on a 24-10 vote; and the Assembly concurred with the Senate’s amendments Aug. 25 on a 52-25 vote, sending it to the governor’s desk.

Pressed to release Assembly members’ spending records, Speaker John Perez has snapped right into action and… appointed a task force.

Perez, D-Los Angeles, today named Assembly Rules Committee Chairwoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, to head a legislative records task force that will “review the status, rules and procedures governing legislative records.” That task force will be charged with rolling out a reform proposal by the start of next year’s session.

“I believe that updating our policies to reflect the 21st century world we live in is a vital step toward that effort,” Perez said. “How taxpayer dollars are expended is public information, and it is our job to ensure that the public has access to it. Currently, at my direction, all Assembly staff salaries are available on a publicly accessible web site, and we release audits of the Assembly budget annually.”

But at least one Democrat isn’t waiting for the task force’s recommendations.

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge, announced today he has introduced an amendment to the Standing Rules of the Assembly calling for all Assembly financial records to be made public.

“Californians deserve the respect of the legislature by having access to how their money is being spent,” he said in a news release. “We have used the better part of this legislative year legislating good practices in cities such as Bell and Vernon. We need to lead by example and not shroud our budgets in secrecy.”

Portantino also is looking for “fairness in budgeting for all members’ office expenses and precludes leadership from either rewarding or punishing a member for voting their conscience” – a topic that’s been on his mind lately.

“Unfortunately, leadership needs to be brought into the sunshine kicking and screaming,” he said. “Under HR20, the adoption of members’ budgets would be done in an open and public hearing instead of behind closed doors. Not only will members’ budgets be made available, but, all Assembly leadership, committee, caucuses and all administrative budgets for the Assembly will have to be disclosed in comprehensive detail. It is outrageous, unacceptable and wrong to keep the public in the dark when it comes to spending their money.”

Read the full text of Perez’ statement, after the jump…
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A pair of East Bay lawmakers will join with a group of nonprofits and concerned citizens Monday to launch a campaign urging Californians to cancel their Amazon.com accounts until the retail giant backs off its ballot-measure effort to repeal an online sales tax.

State Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, and Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, who were instrumental in the tax legislation’s passage, will hold a news conference on the State Capitol’s north steps Monday morning with Nan Brasmer, president of the California Alliance for Retired Americans; Jessica Lehman, lead organizer with Community Resources for Independent Living; and a few dozen California seniors, families, people with disabilities and health and human services advocates.

They’ll be making a case that making Amazon collect sales tax from Californians’ online purchases would level the playing field between online and brick-and-mortar businesses, bringing the state $200 million per year in revenue that’s desperately needed to maintain vital public services.

After the news conference, participants will testify to the state Senate Appropriations Committee in support of additional measures needed to raise revenues.

Monday’s event, one of several planned statewide, is sponsored by the Health and Human Services Network of California, California Partnership, Health Access, California Immigrant Policy Center, Western Center on Law and Poverty, Parent Voices, California Alliance for Retired Americans, Community Resources for Independent Living and other groups.

Two East Bay lawmakers will co-chair a hearing tomorrow in Sacramento on how California’s energy efficiency policies can create jobs.

Assemblymembers Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, co-chair the Assembly Select Committee on California’s Clean Energy Economy.

“California’s growing clean energy industry has tremendous potential to reduce our energy costs, decrease our dependence on foreign oil and create job opportunities for Californians,” Wieckowski said in their news release, noting he recently held a “Made in California Jobs Summit” in his district.

Skinner said energy efficiency retrofits “are an opportunity to grow green jobs and protect all of us against rising energy prices; as an employment strategy, energy efficiency wins hands down.

The committee – convening at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in room 127 of the State Capitol – will examine what role energy efficiency policies have played in the state’s emerging green economy and the influence of regulations and funding sources in that sector, with testimony from the private sector, academia and government.

Gov. Jerry Brown yesterday signed into law Skinner’s AB X1 14, which expands the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority‘s Property Assessed Clean Energy program so the authority (which is within the state Treasurer’s office) can offer financial aid to banks for privately-issued loans for certain energy efficiency, water efficiency and renewable distributed power generation retrofit projects. In short, it aims to increase demand for such projects by making their financing more affordable, in turn putting contractors to work while reducing consumer energy bills.

The committee almost certainly will have to discuss the State Auditor’s recent finding that the California Energy Commission is still sitting on a pot of $183 million in Recovery Act funding earmarked for energy efficiency, energy conservation, renewable energy, and other energy related projects and activities – a lot of supposedly job-creating funds that are just sitting there. The commission must spend the money by the end of next April, or else the federal government takes it back.

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge, says party leaders are slashing his legislative staff in retaliation for his recent vote against the amended state budget.

“At the close of business on Friday, I received a letter from Assembly Member Nancy Skinner, Chair of the Rules Committee,” he wrote in a news release today. “Ms. Skinner informed me that my previously-approved budget for office expenses has been slashed for the third and fourth quarters of this year. The letter further stated that ‘effective October 21, 2011 through November 30, 2011,’ my entire Capitol and District staff will be placed on leave without pay.”

“This bizarre and unprecedented action is clearly intended to punish me for my vote and to discourage other Assembly Members from performing their duties in a conscientious manner,” he continued. “I am very concerned that it will have a detrimental effect on the services for the District for which I proudly serve and I have asked Ms. Skinner to reconsider this exercise of power.”

Portantino said he was the lone Assembly Democrat to vote against the budget because he opposes further cuts to K-12 and higher education; he opposes the elimination of local redevelopment agencies, which have been useful to his district; he believes the prison realignment plan will make communities less safe and ultimately cost more; and he believes the revenue projections were too rosy.

“I knew that my vote ran counter to the wishes of the Assembly Democratic Leadership,” he wrote today. “However, I believed then, and continue to believe, that it reflected the needs and wishes of the residents of my District. To have ignored my constituents and legitimate policy priorities in order to curry favor with legislative leaders would have been an abdication of my responsibilities as an elected representative.”

He hopes Skinner will reconsider, but “if this is the price for speaking out and taking independent action, I will reluctantly have to pay it,” he finished. “The people of California will judge which of us is properly honoring our oath of office.”

Skinner’s letter (page 1, 2) actually says Portantino is spending in excess of his budget, and that his deficit will exceed $67,000 by November’s end; he has until this Friday to submit a new spending plan.

In a response today, Portantino notes all of his staffers were hired and approved by action of Skinner’s Rules Committee. He asks why he’s suddenly being deemed an over-spender, and asks when and how the committee cut his budget; whether other Assemblymembers are having their budgets cut mid-year; and whether his staffers – including “a single mother of three with a new-born child” – will lose their health insurance, too.

I’ve e-mailed Skinner’s office for a response, and will update here when I receive one.

UPDATE @ 1:12 P.M.: Haven’t heard back yet from Skinner, but I got a call a short while ago from a former legislative staffer who’s pretty steamed about this.

“California’s going to hell,” said William Schlitz, who worked as a staffer for Assembly Democrats including Barbara Lee for about 15 years and as a union lobbyist for three years before moving to Texas.

“If they want to punish him, fine,” Schlitz fumed, but it’s unforgiveable to take this out on staffers – some of whom have worked in the Legislature waaaaay longer than Skinner – whose only sin was to work for someone with whom the leadership now disagrees.

Former Speaker Willie Brown “never would’ve done this,” he said. “He knew once you went there, you’ve corrupted the system completely.”

Schlitz called Skinner a hypocrite for calling herself a workers’ champion while punishing aides for their boss’ vote, and for threatening to leave Portantino’s constituents without meaningful representation. “The fact that she would put her name on that piece of paper, ugh, she should have resigned as the Rules Committee chair first.”

UPDATE @ 1:45 P.M.: Robin Swanson, spokeswoman for Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, just e-mailed to say this is nothing more than Portantino being unable or unwilling to keep his own office’s spending in line:

“As Mr. Portantino made clear in his own press release, his office budget is out of balance. He was told as recently as April that he needed to bring his office budget into compliance, after it was found he overspent his office budget by almost $88,000. Now his office deficit is projected to be $67,179 by November 30, 2011. The Speaker made the determination that during difficult budget times, it would be unfair to other Members to continue to subsidize Mr. Portantino beyond his office’s approved budget. The Assembly simply could not continue to cover the spending gap and subsidize Mr. Portantino’s overdrawn office account.”

UPDATE @ 2:03 P.M.: I just spoke with Nancy Skinner, who says this has absolutely nothing to do with Portantino’s vote on the state budget.

She said Rules Committees staffers do quarterly projections of Assembly members’ office expenditures and advise them when they appear to be spending too much. Portantino’s first-quarter spending was too high, she said, and so the committee verbally advised him and his chief of staff of that in March.

“There was no adjustment in the expenditures that we could tell, so at the end of April a letter was sent – notice he didn’t release that letter to you,” she said; that letter also brought no changes, and so a second letter was sent Friday after staffers made new projections after the second quarter. “We do this whenever any member’s office is projected to be severely over budget – we let them know and then we monitor and if they don’t make any adjustments, we tell us they need to and ask them to show us how they’re going to.”

Amid all sorts of painful state budget cuts this year, Portantino seems to want a dispensation to spend an extra $67,000, Skinner said; she rhetorically asked what would happen if all 80 Assembly members did so. Non-rhetorically, my calculator tells me it would be $5.36 million in added spending.

Skinner said several Assembly members were advised after the first-quarter assessment that they were overspending; all but Portantino adjusted their office budgets, and he’s the only one with a projected deficit now.

UPDATE @ 3 P.M.: Anthony Portantino just called. His comments, after the jump…
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Each of the East Bay’s Assembly members named a Veteran of the Year this week, to be recognized at the Assembly Veterans Affairs Committee’s annual luncheon today in Sacramento.

Read all about these inspirational vets, after the jump…
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The Assembly this week rejected a bill that would’ve reduced marijuana cultivation from a felony – punishable by 16 months, two years or three years in state prison – to a “wobbler” that can be filed either as a felony or as a misdemeanor punishable by a year in county jail.

AB 1017, by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, failed Wednesday on a 24-36 vote. Assemblymembers Susan Bonilla, D-Concord; Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley; and Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, voted for it, while Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Alameda, opposed it and Assemblywomen Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, didn’t vote.

Swanson said the communities he represents is struggling with a severe drug crisis, and the bill would’ve moved California in the wrong direction.

“If we really want comprehensive drug reform, we can’t just relax certain portions of the laws around marijuana cultivation and use. We need to address the issue comprehensively through federal law,” he said, adding he fears the bill sends the wrong message to kids, that recreational marijuana use is acceptable. “This is not appropriate, especially when federal law continues to prosecute the crime, with a disproportionate effect on communities of color. You can’t address these issues in a vacuum, particularly where our state law comes into conflict with the federal.”

He said he’ll remain open-minded on the issue, “but as long as I see marijuana use preventing many of our young people from getting employed because they can’t pass drug tests, and all of the other adverse and negative impacts by accepting this drug as recreational, it clearly isn’t the time to start lessening the restrictions on its cultivation or use. The consequences of making this a recreational drug –- or creating the perception that we are trending that way by lessening the restrictions — has long-term and significant consequences I am not prepared support.”

Reconsideration of the bill was granted Thursday, but it was ordered to the Assembly’s inactive file at the request of Assembly Majority Leader Charles Calderon, D-Montebello.

Assemblyman Chris Norby, R-Fullerton, was the lone GOP vote in support of the bill, which was sponsored by Mendocino County District Attorney C. David Eyster and supported by the California Public Defenders Association and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

“The state legislature has once again demonstrated its incompetence when it comes to dealing with prison crowding,” California NORML Director Dale Gieringer said in a news release. “With California under court order to reduce its prison population, it is irresponsible to maintain present penalties for non-violent drug offenses. It makes no sense to keep marijuana growing a felony, when assault, battery, and petty theft are all misdemeanors. Legislators have once again caved in to the state’s law enforcement establishment, which has a vested professional interest in maximizing drug crime.”

The bill was opposed by the California District Attorneys Association, California Narcotics Officers’ Association, California Police Chiefs Association and California State Sheriffs’ Association.

As Gov. Jerry Brown issues his May budget revision Monday, an East Bay lawmaker will be renewing her call for a tax increase on California’s richest residents.

Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, has scheduled a news conference for Monday morning outside the state office building on Oakland’s Clay Street to discuss her AB 1130, which faces its first hearing in the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee later in the afternoon.

Skinner says AB 1130 would raise $2.3 billion a year to help close California’s budget deficit, reducing the need to further cut schools and essential services. The bill imposes a 1 percent tax increase on California’s wealthiest, those with incomes above $500,000 a year – a return to the marginal tax rates in place when Republicans Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson served as governor.

Scheduled to join Skinner at her event are UC Berkeley Labor Center Chairman Ken Jacobs; members of the California Federation of Teachers; and a special guest described as “Millionaire in Top Hat.” (Think “Monopoly.”)

At least three state lawmakers are expected to attend a “foreclosure and economic crisis solutions forum” Saturday at which foreclosure victims, clergy, public employees and others will call for new initiatives to aid struggling communities.

Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Alameda; Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley; and state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, are scheduled to attend the public forum, from 10:30 a.m. to noon Saturday in St. Louis Bertrand Church, 1410 100th Ave. in Oakland. The event is being organized by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Oakland Community Organizations, PICO California, and SEIU Local 1021.

The forum will feature testimonies from foreclosure victims and local officials who are still feeling the crisis’ impact, and will offer policy solutions.

“Banks must be held accountable,” Lilian Cabrera, currently in foreclosure proceedings, said in a news release. “I’m a small business owner in Oakland, and if I don’t hold up my end of a contract, I’ll lose my license. Well, the banks certainly haven’t held up their end of the deal and they’re getting away with it.”

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, and Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, were in West Oakland today to tout a free tax assistance program that helps working poor people take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit, to the tune of many millions of dollars in the East Bay.

The “Earn it! Keep it! Save it!” tax assistance program – a project led by the United Way of the Bay Area in cooperation with more than 250 public and private partners, now in its ninth year – provides free tax return preparation help to families that earned less than $49,000 in 2010; it helped 52,000 taxpayers last year.

The Earned Income Tax Credit, created in 1975, is a refundable federal income tax credit for low to moderate income working individuals and families, conceived in part to offset the burden of social security taxes and to provide an incentive to work. When the EITC exceeds the amount of taxes owed, it results in a tax refund to those who claim and qualify for it.

At a news conference in the People’s Federal Credit Union at Seventh Street and Mandela Parkway, Lee said the EITC lets working families keep more of their money, which ultimately benefits the entire community in which that money is spent. And as social services continue to be scaled back, she said, such families need all the help they can get.

“We have millions that’s being left on the table” while “we have so many people who are struggling … and there could be cash in their pockets right now,” Skinner said.

The “Earn it! Keep it! Save it!” program last year operated 211 sites in seven Bay Area counties, with 3,949 volunteers helping to prepare 51,963 tax returns that brought $57.2 million in total refunds, including almost $18.3 from the EITC.