That’s the sentiment of Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata on the upcoming special election, on this first day back for the Legislature after the summer recess.

The feeling in the corridors of the Capitol today is kind of like that “back to school” sensation. But Perata echoed what others are also saying: that it will be hard to focus on what’s going in the classroom, so to speak, with everyone buzzing about the big brawl taking place after class… on November 8th.

“Everything is colored by that election,” Perata told reporters in a brief news conference this morning. He described the election’s impact on the legislative process as “stultifying”.

(If you, like me, didn’t know the meaning of “stultifying”, Webster’s tells me it means “making futile or ineffectual“. Only a former teacher like Perata could use that in a sentence.)

Other notable comments from the pro tem:

* Perata pretty much said that there will be no compromise measures placed on the ballot to replace those campaigned for by Governor Schwarzenegger. And it seems that part of the problem was Perata’s long-standing opinion that the initiatives were solutions in search of a problem. “That became the template,” he said. “It wasn’t, is it a good idea or bad idea, [but rather] ‘that’s the idea, what do you want to do about it?’ Well, that’s not a negotiation.”

* There was also some thinly veiled criticism leveled at political consultants. “All these campaign consultants are little like fight promoters: no fight, you don’t make any money,” said Perata.

* And on legislative matters, overshadowed as they might be, Perata says he’ll continue to push forward on issues like his proposal for a bond measure to pay for transportation projects. However, he sounded skeptical of efforts by some Democrats to push for an income tax hike on the wealthy as a way to send more money to the schools.

They may say otherwise now, but there was hardly a person in state Capitol circles who I spoke to this week– Democrat or Republican– who thought that the redistricting initiative Proposition 77 would be placed back on the ballot.

But that’s just what the California Supreme Court did, in a 4-2 ruling. Some notes on the issue, and what happens next:

* The decision did not fully settle the matter. In the relatively terse ruling, the high court simply allowed Prop 77 to be on the ballot, while reserving the right to revisit the case after the election. It’s a decision that sounds very much like what happened with Proposition 80, the initiative to re-regulate the energy industry. An appeals court kicked that measure off the ballot last month for being unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court overturned that decision, saying the issues would better be resolved after the election.

* The court’s ruling indicates that the justices were motivated less by whether the proponents followed the rules, and more about whether voters who signed the petitions were misled. The majority opinion seems to follow the logic of appeals court Justice Arthur Scotland, who made the same points last week but was outvoted.

* The case was considered by 6 jurists, with the seat once held by Janice Rogers Brown (now a federal judge) still being vacant. But one of those jurists was not a Supreme Court justice. With Justice Kathryn Werdegar listed simply as “unavailable”, Chief Justice Ronald George temporarily elevated an appellate judge, Justice Richard Aldrich of the Second District Court of Appeals.

The ruling will make things a little more interesting next week when the Legislature reconvenes, as talk again turns to the likelihood of Democrats and Governor Schwarzenegger hashing out compromise measures for the ballot.

California’s Controller Steve Westly was the 23rd employee of online auction giant eBay back in 1997, but it turns out he’s not the politician to whom the company has given the most campaign cash.

That would be Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yesterday, eBay gave the governor’s California Recovery Team $50,000. It’s the second time the Silicon Valley company has supported Schwarzenegger, after contributing $15,000 during the 2004 campaign season.

So what did Westly get from eBay? $10,000 this summer and $2500 last year.

Westly, who made his fortune as an eBay executive, just happens to be in the running for Schwarzenegger’s job in 2006. And while he once supported some of the Schwarzenegger agenda, he’s now more often a critic.

The amount of money spent on lobbying the California Legislature tops the amount spent in any other state, according to a new report from the non-profit Center For Public Integrity.

Using data from state records, researchers for the organization have put the 2004 total spent on lobbying Golden State legislators at a whopping $212,695,872. That’s up from just over $191 million spent in 2003.

The total money spent on lobbying efforts in Texas was the next closest, but still about $50 million below the totals spent here in California.

And keep in mind that California has 120 legislators, compared with 181 in Texas and 212 in New York… so the average amount per legislator is higher here.

Although a handful of small states don’t track money spent to lobby lawmakers, the CPI report puts the total reported for lobbying costs nationwide at almost $983 million. By my calculations, that would mean 22% of all the money reported in the U.S. for lobbying state legislatures is spent right here in Sacramento.

Of course, California wasn’t tops in all categories. The report says there are 9 lobbyists for every California legislator… which actually puts us at #7. New York, ranked #1, has 18 lobbyists per legislator.

You can read the report here.

After months of being in limbo, California’s new law allowing hybrid vehicles to use HOV lanes, without any passengers, is now going into effect.

The support for AB 2628, written by Assemblymember Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), was pretty strong as the bill made its way through the Legislature and onto the governor’s desk. But even after being signed, it was stalled… because the program required approval from the federal government.

That approval was included in the new federal energy bill signed by President Bush, and now the DMV is accepting applications for hybrid owners who want to participate. The catch: the program will be limited to 75,000 hybrid vehicles. There are also other requirements for hybrid owners in the Bay Area who want to drive solo in HOV lanes.

As expected, the proponents of the redistricting initiative Proposition 77 have filed their appeal with the state Supreme Court to keep the measure alive.

Prop 77’s backers are 0-2 so far in the courts. And a reading of the high court filing shows that once again, Prop 77 attorneys are arguing that even though more than one version of the measure was used, the initiative’s backers met the test of what’s called “substantial compliance.”

Substantial compliance essentially means that an initiative’s backers would have met all of the major legal requirements, even though they may have fumbled a few details that are deemed unimportant.

The Supreme Court filing also incorporates the argument handed to them in the appeals court dissent of Justice Arthur Scotland– namely, that the high court reinstated Proposition 80 on the November ballot last month even though it may be unconstitutional. Why? Because the justices decided the voters should still get their say, and the courts could always strike down the measure after the election.

Prop 77’s attorneys are saying if that standard applies to Prop 80, it should apply to their initiative.

Strike two for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s preferred plan to redraw political districts, courtesy of the Third District Court of Appeals.

In a 2-1 ruling, the court upheld the original ruling that Proposition 77 should not be on the November 8th special election ballot. As you’ll remember, the issue here was whether the changes made the initiative’s wording (one version was submitted to the Attorney General, a different version was circulated for signatures) made the measure ineligible for the ballot.

Last month, a Sacramento judge said the constitutional rules– that the same measure placed in circulation be submitted to state officials– were simple enough, and that Prop 77 should be yanked from the ballot.

During oral arguments before the appeals court last Friday, it was hard to get a good read on what would happen. Associate Justice Coleman Blease seemed very much receptive to arguments against Prop 77, while Presiding Justice Arthur Scotland seemed to lean towards a ruling in favor of the initiative, and Associate Justice Kathleen Butz was largely silent.

Today, Justice Butz was the swing vote, siding with Justice Blease.

And as you might have guessed, this isn’t the end of the story. Ted Costa, the proponent of the initiative, says he will appeal today’s ruling to the California Supreme Court. The high court will have the final say, and will need to do it quickly: the deadline for materials to be sent to the official state printer is now only 6 days away.

You can read the opinion here.

The next phase of this year’s battle over money for schools will be played out in court, courtesy of a lawsuit filed today against Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger by Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and the California Teachers Association.

For months, the governor and his critics in the world of education have sparred over the level of funding provided for K-12 schools and community colleges. Schwarzenegger has touted his decision to increase school funding by some $3 billion, while his critics have said the schools were actually owed closer to an extra $6 billion, under the formulas mandated by Proposition 98.

Now, the argument will head to court. O’Connell and the CTA say their new lawsuit follows the same path as the 1993-1994 legal battle over Prop 98 with then Governor Pete Wilson, a case that challenged the ability to tinker with the initiative’s guarantees about the minimum levels of school funding. That case ended in a settlement that sent hundreds of millions of dollars more to the schools.

A three judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals may have a decision next Tuesday as to whether the initiative to change political redistricting is on the November ballot.

But while today’s two hour hearing focused on legal and constitutional issues, it also shed some light on what might become a political powderkeg: who knew there were problems with the initiative’s language, and when?

In particular, Dan Kolkey, the attorney representing the authors of Proposition 77, was asked when he knew of the language differences between what was circulated for signatures, and what was submitted to the Attorney General.

Kolkey said he was first told of the problems in phone calls from the Schwarzenegger allied group Citizens To Save California, and the governor’s state-paid legal affairs secretary, Peter Siggins.

As to when all of this happened: we only know it was after May 5, when petitions began to be submitted to various counties. Today in court, Kolkey admitted he was informed “sometime in May”, but did not elaborate.

Why is all of this important: because Secretary of State Bruce McPherson certified Prop 77 for the ballot on June 10. And his staffers weren’t informed of the language snafus until June 12. And by then, of course, the measure was technically on the ballot.

All of these questions about who knew what, and when, are going to be the focus of a special hearing called by Democrats in the Legislature for the week of August 15th. The story is far from over.

Take two politically powerful labor organizations and put them in the same room with a business association that helped bankroll an effort to cut into political cash spent by the labor organizations.

You’d get chaos, chairs being thrown, right? Wrong.

This morning, the presidents of the California Teachers Association (CTA), the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), and the California Business Properties Association (CBPA) held a joint news conference… to say they’re going to start working together as a team on a new effort to fix the state’s education system.

The event offered very few specifics about this new “partnership” and what ideas it might have about improvements in K-12 and community college education.

In fact, the only agreement announced was that the CTA has agreed to abandon its efforts for an initiative on the June 2006 ballot for new property taxes on businesses– money earmarked for education– even though they claim to have had enough signatures.

Reporters at the event wanted to know why the CTA was dropping the initiative: too expensive to fund that campaign and all of the efforts on the November 8 ballot? Did the business community agree to stay out of other political measures? Is it related to efforts in the Legislature to raise taxes for the portion of school funding educators say they are still due?

None of those questions was really answered, except that the new alliance is a work in progress.

And as mentioned in the first sentence, what makes this alliance all the more unusual is Proposition 75, the November ballot measure to force public employee unions to get written permission before spending member dues on political activities.

CTA and CCPOA are some of the most vocal, and active, opponents of Prop 75… while the CBPA gave $200,000 to the committee that helped get Prop 75 on the ballot. Wouldn’t that fact affect any future abilities to work together?

Stay tuned.