Capital Notes is taking a brief hiatus until after Labor Day. I know what you're saying: it's the final week of the legislative session... and he's going on a vacation?

It's true. Until early September, then...

Capital Notes is taking a brief hiatus until after Labor Day. I know what you're saying: it's the final week of the legislative session... and he's going on a vacation?

It's true. Until early September, then...

A key to getting this year's state budget enacted on time was the removal of an element that legislative Republicans wouldn't accept: state subsidized health care for uninsured children, even if they happen to be undocumented immigrants. At the time, both Governor Schwarzenegger and many Democrats promised they'd try again on the issue.

But as the legislative year comes to a close, it appears all but certain that the issue will remain off the table. On this morning's edition of The California Report, we took a new look at the debate, and found two things. First, Republican opposition is still strong, meaning that even a policy change (enacted through a simple majority vote) would not include actual health insurance dollars for the counties running these stopgap programs... because spending money requires a two-thirds vote.

And second, the immigration issue is not the whole story. In Fresno County, for example, some illegal immigrant kids are still getting subsidized health insurance-- because those children are under the age of 5. Meantime, some of the kids on the waiting list... the same waiting list that the governor's $23 million proposal would have eliminated... are U.S. citizens.

My colleague Sasha Khokha and I teamed up for this story, which you can listen to here.

The answer: a lot, apparently, if you're running a campaign against an initiative, and your opponents have bought all of the obvious website names that you'd like to use.

The campaigns for and against Proposition 87 on the November ballot are shaping up to be big operations. The initiative, if approved by voters, would impose a tax on oil drilling in California, with the proceeds of the money directed toward research of alternative energy sources.

Every campaign these days has a website full of facts and figures. But for those trying to find the opponents of Prop 87, and who type in addresses like www.noon87.com and www.noonprop87.org... and the brower takes you to a page that highlights the oil industry backers to the campaign against the initiative. There is, however, a small link at the bottom of the page that will take you through to the anti-87 website.

Today, the No on 87 campaign filed a lawsuit in Alameda County, asking a judge to force their opponents to stop "sitting" on the domain names. The lawsuit invokes a 2001 state law that the plaintiffs say is directly on point.

For the record, the anti-87 website can be found here. And the pro-87 website is here.

Two interesting issues moved forward today at the Capitol... as a prominent Indian tribe's new gambling agreement cleared a big hurdle, and a deal was struck on the contentious issue of raising the minimum wage.

First, Indian gaming... where the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians secured Senate approval of the new gaming agreement it negotiated with Governor Schwarzenegger. The new compact will allow Agua to more than double their number of slot machines, and also build a third casino on their tribal lands near Palm Springs. In return, the state gets a fixed percentage of the profits from the existing slots, and a larger chunk of the profits from machines added later. But labor groups have been grousing about the deal, specifically because they wanted more explicit language regarding casino workers' rights. This afternoon, the bill squeaked through the Senate, after some fairly intense lobbying in Capitol hallways from tribal and labor groups. And with only 8 days left in the legislative year, the question now is whether the agreement will have another committee hearing in the Assembly, or whether it will be fast-tracked to the Assembly floor.

One tribe's victory is hard to notice without also mentioning another tribe's problems... just outside the Capitol, members of the Los Coyotes Band of Mission Indians are continuing to protest the legislative blockade created against their gaming deal with the state. Los Coyotes, one of two tribes looking to set up casinos in Barstow, has seen their compact languish a slow death, after criticisms that the casinos would be too far from native lands-- and an example of what critics call "reservation shopping."

Elsewhere, a big political and policy debate over minimum wage appears to be over. Multiple sources have confirmed that a deal has been struck to raise base pay in California by a total of $1.25, in two steps, between January 2007 and January 2008, to a total of $8 an hour. A formal announcement may not come until tomorrow.

Democrats did not get their way when it comes to automatic, future increases tied to the cost of living. They did, though, get a quarter more than the governor had wanted. Regardless, don't be surprised if you see this tentative deal... one that Democrats helped make happen and one that the governor's team will undoubtedly use to show him as a moderate... in campaign rhetoric and analysis over the next few weeks. One wonders how the campaign of Democrat Phil Angelides will react.

As a busy week in the race for governor winds down and Republicans gather in LA for this weekend's convention, a quick glance at campaign finance records shows the two main candidates have picked up their pace in the dash for cash.

But it's still the fundraising team of Arnold Schwarzenegger that's ahead, although the campaign of challenger Phil Angelides seems to be doing better this month.

A quick glance at daily campaign finance records shows that:

* Team Arnold raised about $1.6 million in the first 16 days of August, an average of more than $100,000 a day.

* Team Angelides raised a little more than $1 million in those same 16 days, for an August average to date of about $63,400 a day.

* While Angelides' fundraising efforts are still behind, his team wins the most improved award from July's pace. Last month, the Democrat's campaign appears to have taken in a total of about $1.18 million, or about $38,000 a day. Schwarzenegger's campaign in July took in about $2.66 million, or almost $86,000 a day.

Some caveats: none of the 24-hour reporting documents show a full picture of cash raised, and there's no info whatsoever released about actual cash left in the bank to spend. The delay in reports, for example, means we still don't know how well the governor did from this week's glitzy fundraiser with former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani. And the biggest caveat: this year's restrictions on the size of donations to candidate campaigns means that a lot of money is now given in larger lump sums to the parties. And the parties don't file daily reports of what they take in.

The morning headlines may have trumpeted legislative action to reform the redistricting process, but this afternoon those efforts died a quiet death for 2006, after the two houses of the Legislature reached an impasse over timing.

The squabble was over how to proceed with SCA 3 by Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach). The constitutional amendment to transfer political map drawing duties from legislators to a panel of citizens must ultimately be approved by voters. Yesterday, the Senate approved the proposal.

But it still needs to be approved by the Assembly. And while most bills that pass one chamber are quickly transmitted to the other, SCA 3 still hasn't shown up in the Assembly.

Why? Because the Democrats who lead the two chambers are at loggerheads about when redistricting reform should go to the voters.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-LA) wants it on the November ballot, which means it needs to be approved by the Assembly no later than tomorrow. Senate President Don Perata (D-Oakland), on the other hand, thinks a redistricting proposal shouldn't be on the ballot until 2008. In part, that's probably because Perata wants voters to focus on the massive infrastructure bond proposal already on the November ballot. And so the only way Perata could ensure that the proposal be considered in 2008... was to delay the transmittal of the bill. [UPDATE 2:30 pm: Well, Perata's folks dispute that he intentionally delayed the bill. But it's still the case that he didn't want it on the 2006 ballot.]

This morning, Nunez apparently got tired of waiting, and decided to quickly call a vote on legislation that contained technical language needed to get SCA 3 on the November ballot, even though SCA 3 itself still hadn't arrived in his chamber. Nunez failed to get the two-thirds vote that his bill needed-- perhaps, in part, because a number of assemblymembers seemed unsure of what to do.

Aides to Perata later confirmed that SCA 3 would not be transmitted to the Assembly until the end of today... which will be too late, because the Assembly is in recess tomorrow. That was the clearest signal of all that the Senate leader didn't want redistricting on the 2006 ballot. [UPDATE: see the above update, and add that Perata's staff now says they in fact tried to send the bill over this afternoon]

Nunez convened an impromptu news conference a short while ago, where he admitted the issue will not be resolved this year, saying that he's disappointed because there was "momentum" these last few weeks.

Today's insider maneuvers seem to signal a couple of things. First, it's clear that the Senate wanted to continue the discussion about redistricting; several senators said yesterday that they were hopeful some of SCA 3's language could still be tweaked before the Assembly voted. But there seems to be some feeling in the Assembly that this delay could be perceived by voters as lawmakers dragging their feet on giving up the power to draw political maps-- especially after Nunez and others urged voters to reject Proposition 77 last November by promising to resolve the issue at the Capitol.

There's no reason to think that won't still happen. But not this year.

[EPILOGUE, 3:22 pm: Speaker Nunez just held a conference call with reporters and editorial writers, steadfastly sticking to his assertion that SCA 3 would've gotten on the 2006 ballot had the Senate sent the bill in time. Even so, there's another important fact being overlooked: the current Legislature still has 2 weeks left in its session to place this exact same measure on the 2008 ballot, and thereby not leave the issue to the next elected group of legislators, where it could all easily unravel. Can't this group of incumbents still vote on redistricting? Technically, yes. But Nunez said that SCA 3 will now head back to a committee hearing, which sounds like the floor vote was a one-time only offer. Was it, I asked him? "You know how things work up here," Nunez said in response to my question.]

That was the big closing thought from the main author of the proposal to again allow voters to weigh in on whether the Legislature should no longer draw its own district maps. And when the votes were tallied, the state Senate approved a redistricting bill this afternoon... the first such vote by a legislative body in the nation.

After a long-- and politically frank-- floor debate, the vote on SCA 3 by Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) was 27-11... the bare minimum needed to send the measure on to the Assembly, and possibly the ballot.

You'll remember that just 24 hours ago, redistricting reform seemed dead. The legislative leadership had thrown in the towel on efforts to tackle redistricting and term limits reform, and the buzz in the Capitol was that there weren't enough votes for Lowenthal's plan, either.

But today's floor action included speeches from a few senators who were likely the swing votes. One of those might have been Sen. Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento), who said it should come as no surprise that redistricting has "always been political," and that legislators have a lot of work to do to regain the public's trust.

Opponents focused primarily on two issues: the fact that SCA 3 still includes a role for judges (this time: helping organize the citizens mapping commission), and that it's not an issue average folks care about. The comments about judges were particularly pointed. "The judiciary is about 89% white male," said Sen. Gloria Romero (D-LA). Others, like Sen. Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside), said that it's wrong to assume that judges are not political themselves.

Even with SCA 3's dramatic 11th hour victory in the Senate, changes in redistricting anytime soon still face big hurdles. The bill now heads to the Assembly, where even Sen. Lowenthal says it may be modified. And given the fact that state elections officials say the deadline for measures on the November ballot is this Friday, a redistricting proposal still may not reach voters until the spring of 2008.

[UPDATE, 3:38 pm: Well, who knows... the back and forth apparently isn't over. There is talk the Senate may still take up SCA 3 by Sen. Lowenthal tomorrow, though it would take 27 of the Senate's 40 votes to be sent to the Assembly. There's talk the joint statement was mainly a death knell for the combo of redistricting and term limits... but even a just released statement from the governor seemed to admit that redistricting is dead. Stay tuned.--JM]

It looks as though legislative efforts to change the process of political map drawing in California are over for this year-- according to a joint statement just released by the Legislature's four leaders.

Over the last week, a special conference committee has debated ways to remove the power of redistricting from the hands of the Legislature, and to place it instead in the hands of an independent citizens committee. The discussion also considered a possible revision to the state's 16 year-old term limits law, as kind of a 'one-two' government reform package.

But the talks apparently went nowhere. The issue of term limits may have made the discussions that much more thorny-- given the public's strong approval of the law-- but the specifics of a redistricting proposal were also heavily criticized. Who would appoint the citizens panel, said the critics? Judges? If so, how would the judges be chosen? And how would the proposal differ from last year's failed Proposition 77? Some redistricting reform advocates offered other versions of picking a panel in this weekend's special hearing. But that, too, failed to attract support.

This afternoon, the four leaders jointly declared their efforts DOA.

Their statement, in part, says that, "given the tremendous impact any proposal crafted by the Legislature this year could have on politics and policymaking in our state, we feel it is the best course not to pursue a sweeping reform package in the waning hours of the legislative session."

The statement goes on to say that there is support to rekindle the conversation once the new Legislature convenes in January. But the end of this year's effort is undoubtedly a blow to the many groups that had pushed for redistricting changes, for the author of this year's most well-known proposal, Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), and for Governor Schwarzenegger, who had personally lobbied for the cause over the past few days.

A panel of law enforcement, victims rights advocates, and legislators has released its recommendations to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on the status of high-risk sex offenders. The report recommends a number of changes-- including a new definition of "high risk," more treatment, and even regular polygraph tests for this group of parolees.

The full report is here.

At a Capitol news conference this morning, members of the California High Risk Sex Offender Task Force said that they expect an answer from the Schwarzenegger administration in 90 days on the workability-- and cost-- of implementing the recommendations.

"These recommendations," said Assemblymember Todd Spitzer (R-Orange), co-chair of the task force, "will become the driving force for both public policy within the Department [of Corrections and Rehabilitation], as well as legislative policy and budgetary policy in the state Legislature."

The report estimates that about 2,000 of the 7,000 active sex offender cases in the state now involve parolees who are designated to be high-risk. And the report recommends expanding that designation. For example, "high risk" sex offenders would also include those parolees not convicted of sex crimes, but whose record indicates they may have been allowed to plead guilty to a lesser crime.

The task force estimated that its recommendations for expanding the designation of "high risk" sex offenders would increase that population from 2,000 to more than 3,000 currently on the streets.

Other noteworthy recommendations: giving victims 90 days notice before the high-risk sex offender is released... more assessment of these inmates before release... lower caseloads for parole agents who oversee these offenders... and polygraph tests for parolees to assess their "habits and offending patterns." That last recommendation seems particularly interesting, given that the report admits there are legal questions about forcing parolees to take a polygraph if the test happens to uncover any new crimes that might have been committed.

By the way, the report also dovetails with Proposition 83 on the November ballot in its call for lifetime GPS (global position monitoring) of sex offenders. Officials at this morning's event pegged the cost of GPS at about $23 per parolee, per day.