The issue may not matter to anyone but legal beagles and political campaigns, but the California Supreme Court ruled today that the redistricting initiative Proposition 77 did, indeed, deserve to be on the November ballot– a ruling that effectively says the two lower court decisions to block the measure were wrong.

If you’ve forgotten the background of this case, it centered on the fact that one version of Prop 77 was submitted to the Attorney General for title and summary, but a different version was actually circulated for voter signatures. A trial court and an appeals court ruled this summer that this was enough to kick the measure off the ballot. But the state’s Supreme Court allowed the measure to go forward, where as we know it was soundly rejected on election day.

In a 4-3 ruling, the Court today essentially said that while there were differences in the versions that “constituted a constitutional and statutory defect… the discrepancies did not require or justify withholding [Prop 77] from the ballot.”

Voting in the majority: Chief Justice Ronald George, Associate Justices Marvin Baxter and Ming Chin, and Justice Richard Aldrich (an appellate judge who was called to temporarily fill a vacancy on the court at the time the case was pending).

Justice Joyce Kennard’s dissent says she thinks Prop 77 did not deserve to be on the ballot. And Justice Kathryn Werdergar dissented because she says the defeat of the initiative makes the case “moot.”

Interestingly, the majority opinion written by Chief Justice George warns against using the case for any kind of precedent, the real reason anyone cared at this point.

“A similar conclusion may not be warranted in other circumstances,” writes George.

From Capitol Hill… to the race for the White House… and today, to cooling his heels for more than 90 minutes waiting to tesify before the California Senate’s Transportation & Housing Committee.

Yep, that was Richard Gephardt.

Gephardt, the longtime congressman from Missouri, former House majority leader, and two-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination now works in the private sector for investment banking giant Goldman Sachs. Today marked his second trip to Sacramento in recent days, to discuss possible public-private partnerships when it comes to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s transportation proposal– namely, the idea of launching such ventures for new toll roads to help unclog traffic jams.

It had been a testy hearing for the 90 minutes that Gephardt quietly sat in the front row of the audience section, with commitee members grilling the governor’s top transportation officials about the proposal.

But when the 65-year-old ex-politco came forward, something seemed to change. And Gephardt, whose company would no doubt like to be involved in any kind of public-private financing plans in the Golden State, sounded very much the elder statesman.

One early exchange between Gephardt and Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) focused on whether the governor should have what some think would amount to carte blanche to enter into these kinds of agreements.

McClintock criticized that kind of scenario, and the man from Missouri seemed to sympathize. “Maybe you need to think about the way it’s written,” Gephardt said, “so [legislators] have more oversight.”

But Gephardt also encouraged the legislators to consider the possibilities. “This may be a way,” he said, “to solve a problem that we couldn’t solve otherwise.”

That’s the assessment of Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata when it comes to the buzz word of 2006: infrastructure.

The Oakland Democrat spent about 45 minutes in a conference call with reporters today, in advance of this week’s escalation of the infrastructure debate. On Thursday, a conference committee of both chambers is scheduled to begin sorting through Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $222 billion infrastructure plan and variations proposed by Democrats.

Perata is perhaps the lead Democrat on all things infrastructure, having begun talking about his own proposal a year ago. He also took the unusual step late last week of launching a small but much-talked about TV ad campaign for his own infrastructure plan. You can see those ads here.

The Senate leader’s discussion today ranged from keeping expectations realistic to virtual rejections of some ideas floated by the governor and legislative Republicans.

Some highlights:

*Port Security: To hear Perata tell it, there is so little security at the state’s ports that the phrase is almost an oxymoron. “I’m baffled that they turn you upside down and shake you like a bat in order to get on a commercial airline,” he said, “but you could take a dirty bomb, or any kind of a bomb, and drive it into a port and leave it there.” He identified the ports as a key area in need of money.

*Levies Before Dams: Perata seemed to reject ideas that flood and water proposals should also include new dams and water storage, when so many levies are in danger. “Why don’t we [first] try to prevent the water we have from leaking the hell all over the place?”, he said.

*No Thanks: While Senator Perata took great pains to say how close he believes Democrats and the governor are on an overall package, he did point out some Schwarzenegger proposals that sound pretty much dead on arrival. Perata said bond money for prison construction was unlikely (in his words a “very, very low priority”). He also spoke at length about the governor’s proposal to place a 6% cap on the amount of the state’s General Fund that can go towards paying off borrowing.

“I believe debt ceilings are pandering to the public,” said Perata, who continued by voicing opposition to anything that limits the state’s ability to invest in what’s most needed.

Perata also was the second Democratic leader in less than a week to reject a GOP proposal (ACA 27- McCarthy) to pay for more of the infrastructure needs with existing cash, and therefore less borrowing– the so-called “pay as you go” option.

Calling such proposals “nonsense,” Perata said they’re also not realistic: “You don’t buy your house pay as you go, most people don’t buy a vehicle pay as you go, and those are the two biggest expenditures that the average household faces.”

*Carpe Diem: The Senate leader sounded as though he wouldn’t bet big on an infrastructure bond getting on the June 6 ballot (that would mean the proposal has to clear the Capitol by March 10), but he also said that if legislators move too slowly, it will only invite more interest groups to begin demanding their own pieces of the pie. “The longer we delay, the more mischief there is,” he said.

In what appears to be a bit of a political warning shot, members of what’s known as the “Education Coalition” told reporters today they haven’t given up on the $3.2 billion they say Governor Schwarzenegger promised to repay the schools as part of a budget deal struck in 2003.

Today’s background briefing was the latest chapter in the long running “did he break his promise?” debate over money owed (or not) under the school guarantee Proposition 98.

Education critics handed out new charts showing how the total IOU (thanks to rosy state revenues) has grown to what they say is a total of $3.2 billion– a number arrived at by combining an IOU of $1.7 billion from the 2004-05 fiscal year and a $1.5 billion IOU from the 2005-06 fiscal year.

Remember, this is not a debate about education money in the governor’s 2006-07 budget proposed last month– rather, it’s about money from previous budget years.

Even so, the governor’s budget advisers point out that school funding is, indeed, growing… by their estimates, an additional $7.3 billion for K-14 education from July 2005 through July 2007.

But the “money owed” issue seems to be particularly thorny for two reasons in 2006: first, state revenues appear to be up significantly from recent times, and education advocates claim that other state services are growing faster than school programs under Prop 98.

Secondly, this is an election year. And the education coalition members flatly said today that they believe the issue still resonates because of their campaign against Schwarzenegger in the 2005 special election, where they played up the alleged “broken promise”. And while they say they are still in a negotiating mood, they also won’t rule out another direct appeal to the voters.

A comprehensive study just out today theorizes that as many as 14 congressional races and 17 state Assembly races might truly be competitive if the power to draw political maps is removed from the hands of the Legislature.

The study comes from the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. But while the authors say competition may be increased, more frequent turnover of lawmakers who hold those jobs may not.

You can read the report here.

“The ability to achieve a high level of potentially competitive seats,” says the report, “is greatly limited” by factors that include the huge power of incumbent candidates– like name recognition, campaign cash, etc.

This past fall, I visited the IGS offices for a story on the idea of making more races competitive– a requirement that was not in Proposition 77, but was nonetheless a key selling point made in speeches by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. After sitting down at a specialized computer system for a couple of hours, I found that drawing competitive districts in California can be pretty hard. The main problem is that the partisan split is pretty deep in certain regions like the Bay Area and the LA region; balancing the (D) and (R) voters in those areas is not easy.

The IGS study says depending on the different map-drawing criteria used, elections for the U.S. House of Representatives would feature an average of 13 competitive races out of a total of 54– where currently there are zero. And for the Assembly, the report calculates an average of 15 of the 80 races would be competitive.

And as I found from my own map-drawing experience, the IGS report seems to conclude that those often criticized meandering political districts drawn in odd shapes might actually be the only solution, if your goals are to increase competition and ensure that ethnic or racial minorities are properly represented in Washington and Sacramento.

“Plans that placed a heavy emphasis on compactness and minimizing city/county splits,” says the report, “made it hard to achieve the political goals of more competitive seats and preserving majority minority requirements.”

California’s requirement for seniors to pass an exit exam before receiving their high-school diploma kicks in this year, but the debate on the exam continues.

My colleagues Kathryn Baron and Sasha Khokha are taking an in-depth look at some of the issues surrounding the exam this week on The California Report. Baron’s overview on the dilemma faced by many students aired this morning; Khokha’s look at one particularly impacted school in Fresno airs tomorrow morning.

You can listen to part 1 online here.

A visible and wealthy group of moderate Republicans today announced it’s endorsing the re-election bid of Arnold Schwarzenegger, even as some factions within the GOP continue to call for the party to distance itself from the governor.

The news release from the New Majority says the endorsement is based, in part, on Schwarzenegger’s “commitment to making California a more business friendly state.” There was probably never any doubt that the Orange County group would line up behind the governor, after backing him in virtually every endeavor since his 2002 campaign to pass Proposition 49, the after-school funding initiative. In fact, the New Majority’s Orange County chairman, Paul Folino, is also one of the governor’s most generous donors.

But one wonders whether the endorsement’s timing is designed to counter some of the headlines being made by the most conservative elements of the state’s Republican brigade. There, the criticism continues that the governor has begun paddling hard towards the left and liberal side of California’s political spectrum.

This battle is the latest chapter in a long running feud between conservatives and moderates in the state GOP, a feud that predates Schwarzenegger and one both he and party leaders have tried to quell in recent times. In times past, it was largely over social issues. While this battle is different, expect it to again highlight internal conflicts at the party convention later this month in San Jose.

That’s the assessment of Yolo County Registrar of Voters Freddie Oakley, in regards to counties across California getting new voting machines in place in time for the June 6 primary election.

On today’s newsmagazine edition of The California Report (click here for broadcast times), I take a look at the challenge facing county elections officials, and my colleague Scott Shafer follows up by interviewing Secretary of State Bruce McPherson.

The problem, in a nutshell, lies in compliance with two laws that kicked in on January 1– the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which includes a provision for at least one machine per polling place that allows disabled voters to vote by themselves; and the new state law requiring all electronic “touch screen” machines to produce a paper record of every vote cast.

As we’ve reported earlier this week, 53 counties still have no machines that satisfy both new laws. And while almost every voting machine still in limbo has completed federal testing and could pass muster from state officials as soon as early March, there’s still the issue of counties getting these machines, testing them, and training poll workers.

My story profiles three counties as examples of why the issue is so confusing:

* San Diego: Registrars in other counties kept telling me over the last couple of weeks that no one has it as bad as their colleague in San Diego, Registrar Mikel Haas. Haas must conduct the state’s first federal election of 2006 on April 11– a special election in the 50th Congressional District to replace former U.S. Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham. San Diego hopes to use the latest touch screen machine from Diebold Elections Systems, and the machines are even sitting in a warehouse across town. The device has been modified to produce a paper record, but the machine (the Diebold TSx) was sent back for more federal testing in December. However, there is word a decision on the machine could come soon. That would probably help Haas, who has to begin sending out absentee ballots next month. But he says it will be very tight.

* Alameda County: Registrar Elaine Ginnold is aking the Legislature to allow the county to vote by mail on June 6. Alameda’s touch screen machines (made by Diebold) do not produce a paper trail, and the county was in the process of upgrading to the same machines San Diego will use. But Alameda was not as far along in the process. Several lawmakers say they doubt urgency legislation for ” mail election” will be approved, and Ginnold says the county may then ask the courts to intervene.

Worst case scenario, I asked her? “We have paper ballots at the polls.” And what about the HAVA disabled access requirements, I asked? “We get sued,” she said. “That’s the worst case. We get sued by the federal government.”

* Yolo County: Until now, the rural county used punch card machines, the kind of machines which were the focus of criticism in Florida in 2000. Registrar Freddie Oakley has now decided to use a device called the VotePad, which is nothing more than a transparent plastic sleeve that fits over a paper ballot. It has cut-outs and tactile dots to help the blind read the ballot and vote. But the VotePad has not been certified for use. Oakley met with Secretary McPherson earlier this week, and McPherson says he will try to help expedite some sort of review of the device– although Oakley says she has already begun the process of buying the product.

There is word from the office of Secretary of State Bruce McPherson that every major manufacturer of California’s voting machines, except for one, has cleared federal requirements for its systems and now heads into testing for state approval.

As you may remember, McPherson told these voting machine vendors that they had until yesterday to submit all documents and proof of federal certification if any of those machines were to be cleared for use in the June 6 primary.

Currently, 53 of California’s 58 counties are without a system okayed on both the federal and state level.

On Tuesday, McPherson’s office said it received a full application from Sequoia Voting Systems, which has plans to supply its machines to as many as 20 counties. Completed applications and federal testing were also reportedly received from Elections Systems & Software (ES&S) and Hart InterCivic. The theory is that machines from these 3 companies would now undergo state testing and public hearings. State elections officials are shooting for full certification of the machines by early March, which they believe will allow counties enough time to get these systems in place.

That opinion, however, is not unanimously shared by elections officials in many counties… I’ll have more on that later this week on The California Report.

You’ll notice one well-known voting machine company not on the above list: Diebold Elections Systems, whose machines were sent back for more federal testing by McPherson in late December. Those Diebold machines… both electronic touchscreen and optical scan systems… are being counted on in 17 counties.

[2:45 P.M.– A spokesperson for Diebold believes it should be made clear that the company did not miss the Secretary’s deadline. However, it is true that McPherson has demanded further federal testing before the state will certify Diebold’s machines.]