A small item of note today in the ongoing discussion of Governor Schwarzenegger and taxes and whether Californians actually may be willing to stomach something he isn’t.

The governor called what amounted to an impromptu news conference this morning to continue yesterday’s debate with Democrats about whether he had actually submitted budget reform proposals to the Legislature (this time, posing for a photo op with the documents to prove that he had introduced them).

But more interesting may be how he interprets the opinions of Californians on how to solve the state’s budget crisis. A poll released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (read it here) shows an interesting reaction to taxes by the citizens surveyed.

When asked how they would prefer to deal with the state’s budget gap, 40% of those surveyed answered “mixture of spending cuts and tax increases.” Another 11% answered “mostly through tax increases.”

That’s a little more than half that seem to be willing to accept some tax revenue proposals.

While it’s common knowledge that the governor is opposed to tax hikes, he has also said in the past that the opinions of the people on the subject of taxes are relevant.

In the news conference, I asked the governor what conclusion he draws from the poll results. “For me to solve the problem, is to live within our means,” he replied. He then went on to reiterate one of his familiar messages about revenues matching expenditures.

But when pressed, he claimed his own polls show Californians are against any tax increases, by what he says is a “2-1″ margin. His staff, however, later refused to clarify when that private poll was taken or what question might have actually been asked.

Even Democrats are not raising the same clamor this year, as last, about taxes. But if the latest statewide poll is to be believed, taxes certainly are not out of bounds in the minds of many Californians.

Leave it to Governor Schwarzenegger to stir the pot when it comes to the Legislature, the budget, and his ability to take his ideas directly to the ballot.

In a speech this afternoon to the Sacramento Press Club, the governor said that he hopes to begin gathering signatures on the proposed initiatives that mirror his legislative proposals to reform the budget process as soon as March. As mentioned here last week, those initiatives have been submitted by well-known supporters of the governor.

It was, in essence, a warning to the Democratically controlled Legislature that he would not wait. And he reaffirmed his interest in a special election sometime this year.

Schwarzenegger criticized the pace of business in the Legislature since the special session on budget reforms began some three weeks ago.

“All we hear these last three weeks is a lot of excuses, a lot of complaints, and a lot of finger pointing,” he said.

And the governor went further. He said that if the Legislature will not work with him, he will go to the people. “And it will be the governor with his partners, the people of California, against the legislators” he said. “We will be against the politics as usual.”

A few other items of note from Schwarzenegger’s lunchtime speech, at which the Sacramento Press Club auctioned off 3 coffee mugs that he autographed, with proceeds going to journalism scholarships (total raised: some $450):

* On reports that a special election could cost some $50 million: it’s an investment, he said. “This could make the difference, between having a state that’s always, almost going into bankruptcy, or a state that is financially healthy.”

* On the redesign of the Bay Bridge, and whether he’d consider alternate ideas that would be cheaper and faster: “If someone can convince me that they have a better idea to solve this problem than what we are trying to do right now, I’m more than happy to listen to it.”

* On his definition of special interests, the governor indicated it’s less about who they are, than what they get for their money. “People know”, he said, “whoever is paying for the campaigns, the initiatives, no one comes to me and asks me for favors.”

All this week on The California Report, we’re taking an in-depth look at some of the governor’s most ambitious proposals to reform the budget process. To listen to any segment of the series, you can check our website (updated after the program airs across the state).

On Monday’s newscast, I examined the proposal to reform Proposition 98. It’s an interesting concept, and one that would seem to be everything education advocates could hope for: no more suspensions of Prop 98, and no more “alternate” formulas for effect of inflation. The latter proposal means no more years where the the Prop 98 funding guaranteeis temporarily lowered, only to be restored some time in the future. The reforms are, by all accounts, a major new firewall around what amounts to some 43% of the state’s General Fund.

But the education sources I’ve spoken to say they can’t extract the governor’s rosy plan to protect future K-14 spending from what they see as a flawed plan to break future budget logjams. That proposal, which was the focus of my reporting this morning, calls for across-the-board spending cuts if future budget deficits aren’t erased by lawmakers in a timely fashion.

Even the Legislature’s most consistent fiscal conservative, Senator Tom McClintock, is a critic of what’s known as the governor’s Spending Control Proposal. He favors, instead, reforming the budget process by giving the governor the power to make mid-year budget cuts on his own, a power that was stripped in 1983. McClintock has introduced his own constitutional amendment, that would trade mid-year spending cuts for lowering the threshold for a budget vote to a simple majority. He is not, however, suggesting any change in the two-thirds vote required to increase taxes.

On Wednesday, reporter Kathy McAnally takes a look at the headaches California commuters face in light of the governor’s plan to eventually restore transportation funding. And on Thursday, reporter Cyrus Musiker examines the governor’s call for a reform to the embattled pension system of state workers. Host Scott Shafer will wrap up the week with a discussion segment on the impact of ballot box budgeting.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s allies have taken the first step towards giving him the same leverage on budget reforms that he used last year: the threat of an initiative.

The Attorney General’s office has received a request to prepare the title and summary of an initiative that mirrors Schwarzenegger’s proposals for reforming budget deliberations, education spending, and transportation spending.

You’ll remember that last week, the governor said he would ask the Legislature to place all three issues before the voters. One proposal would trigger across-the-board spending cuts if lawmakers failed to solve a deficit; the other two would remove any ability to borrow money from the schools (under Proposition 98) or transportation programs (under Proposition 42).

Now, according to the Attorney General’s website, the very same proposals have been submitted as potential initiatives by Bill Hauck. Hauck, who is the chairman of the California Business Roundtable and co-chairman of the California Performance Review Commission, is also a well-known ally of the governor.

This is the first step towards gathering signatures and placing these reforms directly on the ballot… most likely, a special election ballot.

The governor’s communications director, Rob Stutzman, says the governor has not endorsed any proposed initiatives. “He’s still hopeful the Legislature will join him in enacting reforms,” Stutzman said in an e-mail seeking comment.

Nonetheless, it seems likely the initiative would give the governor yet another chance to use what he likes to call the “carrot and stick” approach with the Legislature: get on board, or get out of the way.

In what appears to be a page out of the Schwarzenegger playbook, Senate Democrats are planning to take this year’s budget debate to city halls and community centers across California.

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata says lawmakers will hold hearings this winter and spring in cities across the state, including hearings by several budget subcommittees and the newly organized committee examining proposals for government reform.

Last week, several Democratic leaders said the governor’s budget plan is unfair to the middle class. And the statewide tour may provide a new way to get that message onto local newscasts and into local newspapers.

Perata says the town hall approach will allow lawmakers to focus on issues that resonate both locally and statewide. The tentative schedule calls for discussions on education in Fresno, Salinas, and San Diego; government reform hearings would be held in San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Modesto.

And Perata says the discussion will stretch beyond the Schwarzenegger budget plan. “We’re going to have our own ideas that I think will be as bold, or bolder, than what the governor proposes”, he said.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declined to stop tonight’s scheduled execution of convicted murderer Donald Beardslee, denying a request for clemency and for a stay of the execution.

Beardslee has claimed mental impairment at the time of the murders. But in a short written the statement, the governor said that “nothing in his petition or the record of his case convinces me that he did not understand the gravity of his actions.”

The denial of clemency means that barring any last-minute involvement of the courts, Beardslee will be put to death by lethal injection at San Quentin just after midnight. (In an interesting aside, the governor’s staff refuses to say just where Schwarzenegger will be tonight, except to say he will be “available.”)

The governor’s staff says he spent part of the weekend reading the documents submitted by attorneys on both sides, as well as the recommendation of the state Board of Prison Terms, which was to deny clemency.

Beardslee, 61, was sentenced to death for the 1981 murders of two women. Schwarzenegger also denied clemency last year for death row inmate Kevin Cooper, whose execution was ultimately blocked by an appeals court.

No California governor has granted clemency since Ronald Reagan stopped the execution of a brain-damaged inmate in 1967.

California’s latest Indian gaming showdown is over, and the winner seems to be Governor Schwarzenegger.

The administration has confirmed that disputed gaming machines have been removed by the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians from its casino near Temecula. The action comes several days after the Morongo Band of Mission Indians also backed off its original stance on what are known as Video Lottery Machines at the tribe’s casino near Palm Springs.

The governor had argued that the video machines, which look very much like slot machines, violated the two tribes’ 1999 gaming agreement. The administration says the Pechanga tribe removed their machines completely; the Morongo tribe reconfigured the machines in a way that met the state’s demands.

The Morongo and Pechanga are two of the state’s most successful gaming tribes, and are also two of the most powerful tribes that have yet to renegotiate their gaming agreements with Schwarzenegger.

The Morongo, in particular, seem interested in a new deal. The tribe recently expanded its casino operation, but is already maxxed out on how many slot machines it can have. And the video lottery machines might have been an attempt to get the governor’s advisers back to the bargaining table.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Vince Sollitto says that would have never happened with a tribe who they believed to be in breach of its formal gaming agreement. He says both tribes are now welcome to negotiate if they want, but neither has scheduled discussions.

If there was one conclusion that seems safe to attribute to Legislative Analyst Liz Hill and her early take on the governor’s budget, it is this: the budget may propose changes to some of the “autopilot” spending practices, but those changes are simply another form of “autopilot” operations.

Hill, whose non-partisan take on budget matters is widely respected in Capitol circles, told reporters this afternoon that Governor Schwarzenegger’s budget has many credible elements, but also calls for changes of which legislators should be wary.

Included on that list: the governor’s proposal to make both Proposition 98 (K-14 education) and Proposition 42 (transportation funding) almost untouchable, even in the most dire economic times.

“The proposal would really put more state spending on cruise control, ” said Hill. And while at it, she rattled off several other pieces of law, passed by voters, that could effectively lock future lawmakers into spending formulas.

One of those Hill mentioned: 2002’s Proposition 49, which would mandate state spending (in better economic times than this) on afterschool programs. And you may remember a certain celebrity bodybuilder who was the man behind Prop 49…

You can read Liz Hill’s early analysis of the governor’s budget here.

The intrigue continues over whether Secretary of State Kevin Shelley will, in fact, appear before a joint legislative committee investigating him and his office, as the chair of the committee has now given Shelley until Thursday morning to respond.

Monday’s marathon hearing of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC) lasted until after 10 pm. But only a representative of Shelley showed up, and alone faced tough questions about how federal election money was spent.

Today, Shelley sent a letter to the JLAC chair, Assemblymember Nicole Parra (D-Bakersfield) and said he needed time to consult with his lawyers before deciding whether to take the committee up on its request that he voluntarily testify.

(You can read the letters sent between Parra and Shelley by clicking here)

Late this afternoon, Parra told reporters on a conference call that if the Secretary doesn’t voluntarily testify, she will seek a subpoena to force him to appear. And, she says, he will have to testify under oath.

Parra says the questions will be limited to the controversy over the federal election funds, and will not stray into the criminal investigation of Shelley’s political campaign, where there are allegations of money laundering.

Her comments about what questions will be asked sound vaguely similar to the Watergate line of “what did he know, and when did he know it?”

Parra says Shelley should have to explain why there was no coordinator of the federal election money for 6 weeks; who decided that staffers being paid with federal money did not have to submit formal time cards (which would presumably show exactly how much work they actually did); and did Shelley personally take any action to stop federally funded consultants from attending partisan political events, once those activities were exposed to public criticism?

With or without the subpoena, it now seems likely that Shelley will have to show up to answer those questions in person at the next hearing of the committee– on Thursday, February 3rd.

Some major elements of the governor’s budget have trickled out the last few days, but there were still a few surprises at the big event this afternoon… and more on the event in a moment.

You can examine the entire budget this year online by clicking here. And for a complete wrap-up, tune in to KQED Radio News today and The California Report tomorrow morning.

But first, the new proposals:

* A $449 million cut from the welfare program CalWORKS, which includes reducing grants and canceling this summer’s cost of living adjustment (COLA). The governor also wants to cancel next year’s $174 million COLA for Californians who receive help from the SSI/SSP program. As one Democrat pointed out, these are exactly the kinds of cuts that former Senate President Pro Tem John Burton would have fought tooth and nail.

* A 49% decrease, in cost to the state, when it comes to contributions to the State Teachers Retirement System. The governor proposes that local school districts pick up the tab for what the state has traditionally paid into the system’s Deferred Benefit Program.

* And more bad news for officials on the local level… the governor wants county governments to pay the state’s portion of the salary of In-Home Supportive Services workers. That’s $195 million, and one local government official tells me that it’s a tough sell, considering the $1.3 billion hit they agreed to take last year.

* Many of the other proposals are well-known at this point, and chronicled here on Friday. As it was last year, the budget event itself was a Hollywood-inspired presentation with plasma monitors laying out charts and graphs… a roving microphone conveniently left for the governor under the podium so he could walk over and point to the charts for those morning newspaper photos… and a jazzy music selection over the PA system before the event including, by chance or by plan, a rendition of the song “These Are A Few of My Favorite Things.” No word on exactly which things were, indeed, the governor’s favorites.