John was a pioneering journalist who recognized early how these digital outlets were critically important in serving the public with the best news and information we can provide. John’s reporting through this blog and social media demonstrated how coverage could be expanded to offer you new options to stay informed, and the opportunity for you to add your voices to the conversation.

We’re proud of John’s many achievements during his tenure at KQED, including Capital Notes. We thank him for his dedication to the craft of journalism, his passion for reporting on California governance, his extraordinary work habits and his generosity as a colleague. All the best John.

Capital Notes will go on hiatus as KQED searches for a new Sacramento Bureau Chief for The California Report. KQED is committed to providing excellent coverage of the California state house, the Governor’s office, and political, economic, budget and other news and trends in the largest and most populace state in the nation. In the meantime, our general news site is at kqednews.org, and The California Report is at californiareport.org.  I can be reached at bkoon@kqed.org.

Bruce Koon
KQED Public Radio News Director

Photo: Craig Miller/KQED

Within weeks, I was on the hottest political story in a generation -- the recall of a sitting governor -- and by my first anniversary, I was forever hooked on public radio.

Today, after more than nine years, I'm signing off.

In April, I'll start a new endeavor but on the same California politics beat here at the state Capitol, as political editor for Sacramento's ABC-TV affiliate KXTV News10. My goal will be, as it's always been here, to help bring some clarity and context to a part of California that affects every single one of us... after all, it's our government and taxpayer dollars.

This political news blog began back on October 18, 2004 as me begging my bosses to let me experiment with online journalism. Now, almost 1700 blog posts later, it's become a staple of my political reporting career -- a place for both the small stories of the day that don't always sync with our radio mission, or the additional context that didn't quite fit into the big radio piece of the day.

In 2006, I went back to my bosses and begged to try something else new in online journalism: a weekly podcast. Those first few editions of the Friday Capital Notes Podcast were, well, a real experiment. But now, it's become one of the favorite parts of my week... and my friend and fellow political junkie Anthony York and I have been blessed by having a number of smart Capitol reporters sit in and dish on the week's events. I'm incredibly humbled by how many of you actually listen -- and have written in when we missed a week or two.

And yes, the KQED leadership team was bugged once more on Valentine's Day 2009 when I decided to take the 140 character plunge into Twitter. The irony of a public radio reporter, whose stories are lengthy analyses, becoming known for the staccato nature of tiny tweets...

Through it all, my KQED managers have been, in a word, extraordinary. And while you may not know them by name -- The California Report's senior producer (my editor) Ingrid Becker, executive producer for news and public affairs Raul Ramirez, news director Bruce Koon, and KQED Radio's general manager JoAnne Wallace -- you surely know them by the journalism they foster and encourage every day.

It's been an incredible ride here in our bureau across the street from the statehouse. From the largest budget deficits in state history to IOUs, protests, elections, reforms, and more... I've loved every single minute of it. And while I won't be a KQED journalist after today, I will still be covering California politics.

I'll also still be a loyal listener and advocate of public broadcasting and public media. I hope you will be one, too.

There are some forks in the road ahead for Governor Jerry Brown and his backers of a budget balanced, in part, with a new temporary tax increase.

And a fork in the road right here and now for your weekly aural dish on California politics.

On this week's Capital Notes Podcast, I'm joined by Anthony York of the Los Angeles Times and Marisa Lagos of the San Francisco Chronicle to talk about the road ahead for the tax measure and the governor.

This is, as I'll describe in detail later today here on the blog, the final podcast for the time being. Consider it a pause, perhaps, for a personnel reboot. In any event, we hope it'll tide our loyal listeners (and your emails really make it clear, you're loyal) until the next chapter begins here on the blog.

Budget bills passed Thursday await the actual budget. (Photo: John Myers/KQED)

Such a bill is referred to as a "spot bill," in that it's an empty bill holding a spot on the legislative calendar... so that once a budget deal is struck, the actual details can quickly be inserted into existing bills and enacted.

Today, Republicans in both houses rose from their seats to decry this now familiar part of the state budget sausage making.

"Do not give conscience and sanction to this charade, this disgrace, this corruption," railed Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber) during floor debate.

As with so many fiery political tiffs, there's some truth on both sides. The process of approving not-yet-written budget bills has become commonplace in recent years, a reflection of the tough political lift it takes to pass a state budget. While the vast majority of Governor Jerry Brown's proposed budget is examined at the subcommittee level in both houses, a number of those ideas will ultimately get rejected by the Legislature. Some ideas already have been nixed, most notably Brown's proposed cuts in welfare-to-work assistance, which required approval by March 1.

And so legislators then must craft alternative ideas. Some will get discussed in these same subcommittees, but others will only materialize in the final hours of leadership negotiations. The modern history of those high-level talks involved a final handshake behind closed doors in a "Big Five" meeting of the governor and the four legislative leaders from both parties. That process had to include Republicans, given the long-standing supermajority budget vote.

But Proposition 25, the constitutional amendment lowering that threshold to a simple majority, has changed that process. This will only be the second budget crafted in the post-Prop 25 world, and certainly last year's agreement also relied on a last-minute private set of negotiations.

But the majority vote budget has cut GOP legislative leaders out of those talks -- a change that undoubtedly helped spark today's floor debate lamenting the "spot bill" process. GOP legislators spoke out not against the weakening of their own power, but rather the power of each house -- as legislative rules say that once a bill is approved by either house, it can only accept ("concurrence") or reject the language written by politicians in the other chamber.

"When the Senate loads them up with whatever they're gonna load them up with," said Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries (R-Lake Elsinore) about budget bills that come back on concurrence, "you will not get to change what's in it."

While few Democrats rose to defend the process, those that did also took shots at whether Republicans were truly engaged in the budget vetting process that's been going on this winter.

"One of the problems we have when you talk about the process," said Assembly Budget chair Bob Blumenfield (D-San Fernando Valley), "is that a lot of folks in the minority party don't even take the time to show up for the subcommittee hearings."

But in fairness, those subcommittee actions are not reflected in any of the 40 generic bills each house that were sent to the other this morning (and the bills did, ultimately, get sent on a majority vote). In fact, the particular process that happened today -- the spot budget bills -- is reflective of an even larger quandary: controversial budget actions don't seem to be able to survive public scrutiny.

The reason so many spot bills are needed is because the eventual budget deal will quickly be queued up in identical legislation in both the Assembly and Senate. And the reason is purely political.

Once the bare minimum number of legislators in either chamber agrees to the deal, the vote needs to be taken immediately -- before constituents or interest groups convince a lawmaker he or she is wrong or on politically thin ice. Then, the bill is quickly tossed to the other chamber. That's why the eventual budget package is often a mashup of ABs (Assembly bills) and SBs (Senate bills), as the final deal waddles its way from one house to the other in search of the magic number of votes.

"You have to strike while the iron is hot," said Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. "There's often a moment... where you achieve a breakthrough."

But that also means that those "breakthrough" elements can be patched into a bill with no real public input (remember, there are two versions of every single part of the budget thanks to the "spot" bill approval today).

"It's a bit of a Catch-22," Steinberg said this morning as I pointed out the criticism of quick votes on controversial budget language. "The art of compromise, of course, is imperfect. And some of the interest groups can pick on those imperfections, in a way that can take a very fragile [legislator] coalition, a very fragile vote. And all of a sudden you don't achieve the public policy that everybody agrees you ought to achieve."

Whether the current process -- skeleton bills moved along to meet legislative deadlines and then stuffed with all sorts of budget fun and uglies at the eleventh hour -- is evil or just necessary, it should be noted that there's a chance all of this could change. A pending initiative written by the bipartisan governance group California Forward would, among many other things, require that all bills at the state Capitol be in print for at least 72 hours.

On a special Monday edition of the Capital Notes Podcast, Anthony York of the Los Angeles Times and I offer a recap of the very busy last few days -- the big deal struck between Governor Jerry Brown and liberal activists and the road ahead.

But that vetting doesn't settle on an estimate of how much tax revenue the new initiative will bring in, thus repeating an ongoing disagreement between forecasters that could create some tough politics over how this year's state budget should be crafted.

A fiscal analysis is required of all initiatives, one jointly prepared by the independent Legislative Analyst's Office and the state Department of Finance. Number crunchers have, by law, 25 days to do their work.

The one released Friday afternoon was likely done so quickly because Brown Tax Initiative 2.0 hews so closely to the structure of Brown Tax Initiative 1.0 -- the sales/income tax increase that the governor amended as part of a political truce with the campaign led by the California Federation of Teachers.

Like we saw in Brown Tax 1.0, there's still a healthy disagreement between LAO and DOF experts about how much revenue can be expected. The Legislature's analysts believe the revised initiative will bring in $6.8 billion in its first year, while the governor's advisers pegged the number Wednesday at $9 billion.

The $2 billion disagreement continues in the 2013-14 year and in the remaining years of the temporary tax hikes:

In the following five fiscal years, the LAO currently forecasts an average annual increase in state revenues of $5.4 billion, and DOF currently forecasts an average annual increase in state revenues of $7.6 billion.

The new analysis continues a months long disagreement between the state's top fiscal forecasters, one seemingly rooted in different perspectives on the investment incomes of California's most wealthy taxpayers. Everyone agrees that they hope for some clarity, and narrowing, of their numbers once tax receipts are tallied in April.

As for what the new analysis does to the messaging for Brown Tax Initiative 2.0, the likely answer is not much. For now, at least. Backers will continue to insist it would bring in needed dollars for K-12 schools, higher education, and the overall unbalanced state budget. But the early flourish of stories calling it a $9 billion budget fix will be hard to maintain now that there's a more conservative estimate as part of the official analysis.

And that leads, perhaps, to the still relatively quiet budget debate under the Capitol dome. Legislators continue to hear budget proposals and ideas in various committees (though not as explicitly as GOP legislators would like), but Democrats no doubt realize they may ultimately have to weigh in on the $2 billion revenue debate. If they're ultimately inclined to use a more conservative number, then that means deeper cuts now; if they choose to be more optimistic and that optimism doesn't pay off, it means deeper cuts down the road.

And rest assured that the cuts/taxes narrative will be playing out on two fronts this spring: here in Sacramento through legislative debate and on a street corner near you as someone hawks the new tax increase initiative for voter signatures.

NOTE: Apologies to podcast fans for missing our usual Friday installment of political analysis and smart-alecky-ness. My schedule at the end of the week caused me to be absent from Sacramento during normal podcast taping hours. Stay tuned, though, next week. Not only do we expect a Monday installment to make good on our absence... but Friday's podcast will be very important -- with an announcement about the future, and a grateful thanks from yours truly. --JM

Is there time for a compromise tax initiative? (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty)

Multiple sources confirm a compromise is being crafted that would adhere in some ways to Brown's existing initiative -- mainly, by still including a small sales tax increase -- but would boost the income tax increase on the wealthy above where the governor has proposed, while still making all of the taxes temporary.

Neither leaders of the millionaires tax campaign nor Brown's political team have confirmed any of the details, after the story was first reported this morning online by the Los Angeles Times. But conversations with several Democratic and Capitol sources reveal a tax proposal that feels much more like the governor's than the one being promoted by a coalition including the California Federation of Teachers.

The signs of a negotiated truce between the two sides seems to be taking some in political circles by surprise, after weeks of increasing tensions between the two camps and Brown's own prognostication on Monday that multiple tax measures appeared a done deal for November.

But two questions seem most prominent as this news breaks. First, can the deal actually withstand the scrutiny of daylight? That is, will the most die-hard supporters of solely an income tax hike on millionaires... and one that's earmarked for a number of programs... accept an initiative that still includes a sales tax increase and does not permanently raise taxes on the wealthy?

Similarly, after a week which saw the state's powerful business groups formally oppose all but Brown's tax hike, what will those groups say if Governor Brown embraces a different measure? Sources report the proposed compromise goes beyond the Brown initiative's 11.3% tax on incomes over $1 million. It also would apparently be a longer temporary tax than the five years in the governor's current measure.

These are all questions that will no doubt be answered in the hours/days/weeks to come. But there's also a huge logistics question to answer: is there time to draft and qualify an alternative tax initiative?

Here's where it gets tricky. By law, an initiative must have collected sufficient valid signatures at least 131 days before election day -- that's June 28. But to hit that date, the Secretary of State's office is already suggesting that the second week of May is probably the de facto deadline for actually submitting signatures to elections officials.

Plus... any proposed compromise still has to receive an official title and summary from the Attorney General's office, which also takes time.

All of this means that a compromise tax initiative may have to break records in how fast it qualifies for the ballot... and how much money is spent gathering signatures. Keep in mind that Governor Brown's proposal, which is taxes plus language codifying the 2011 state/local realignment, is a constitutional amendment. That means 807,615 valid signatures.

There doesn't seem to be any official record of the fastest qualifying initiative in state history, but the consensus among politicos seems to be the November 1998 initiative authorizing Indian gaming, for which backers submitted more than a million signatures in just 28 days.

Even at that blistering pace, a compromise tax increase initiative would have to be on the streets by mid-April. And that means political and policy wrangling aside, the real question here could come down to campaign cash and logistics.

4:45 p.m. Update: Perhaps not surprisingly, the initiative's language had already been drafted and it's just now been officially filed with the Attorney General (PDF), though a more easy-to-digest version can be found in the governor's official news release on the deal from this afternoon.

Instead, this week's Capital Notes Podcast focuses on a raft of public and private polling swirling around the upcoming election on the issue of new taxes.

I'm joined by Marisa Lagos of the San Francisco Chronicle and Anthony York of the Los Angeles Times in an examination of the data itself and the larger narrative both Brown and his rivals are trying to write about who's tax is the right one and why.

52% in the new poll support Gov. Brown's tax plan. (Photo: Getty/Justin Sullivan)

But a more interesting question, it seems, is why isn't it ahead by more?

The survey just released by the Public Policy Institute of California finds 52% of likely voters support the Brown initiative after being read its official title and summary. 40% say they'd vote against the measure this November.

Not surprisingly, Democrats (71% support) and Republicans (65% oppose) have the strongest reactions to Brown's income/sales tax hike. Independent voters (49% yes, 41% no) are more conflicted.

But what's fascinating is that overall support for the governor's proposal appears to have dropped in just a matter of weeks by an astounding 20 points. PPIC's January survey found 72% support among likely voters.

So what gives?

PPIC pollster Mark Baldassare cautions against a direct comparison of the numbers, because the January poll was done before Brown's initiative had a formal title and summary for his team to read during their telephone surveys. As such, that poll question was shorter and slightly more general, whereas the new poll question hews very closely to the official ballot label (PDF) created by the office of Attorney General Kamala Harris. And so where January's poll question simply said that the tax revenues would go to K-12 schools, the new one also uses the title and summary language about public safety realignment and freeing up dollars for "other spending commitments."

But that's part of what makes comparing the two survey results so interesting. Might the measure's many moving parts be partly to blame for the blasé reaction it got in the new poll?

"The title and summary adds a whole other layer of complexity," says Baldassare.

Even more fascinating in trying to understand why Governor Brown's measure isn't doing better is what Baldassare says may be the political context in which the new poll was conducted. Unlike January, the governor's proposal is now competing for press and public attention with two other income tax raising measures: the millionaires tax authored by the California Federation of Teachers and the generally across-the-board income tax hike for K-12 schools from wealthy activist Molly Munger.

"People sense there's a disagreement," says Baldassare. And perhaps, goes the thinking, they're no longer convinced that Brown's proposal is the best way forward... even if they're not asked about alternative ideas by a pollster.

As Baldassare puts it, "Whenever there are competing ideas, they don't have to even be on the ballot."

If this competition for attention does, in fact, help explain why Governor Brown's tax initiative is now closer to a coin toss than a sure thing... then the question is what can he do about it? Increasing amounts of time, energy, and political muscle are being used to try and keep the rival measures off of the November ballot. But how does Team Brown keep people from thinking about the upsides of those measures when asked to consider the Guv's measure on its merits?

The answer to that question might -- just might -- be at the crux of the entire tax campaign this fall.

In a nutshell: tobacco is king... and Governor Jerry Brown's dialing for dollars is paying off.

First, a look at the two initiatives on the June 5 statewide primary ballot. Neither has received much attention -- in part, perhaps, because of all the focus on the looming November initiative war.

When it comes to money, one June campaign stands out: opposition to the Proposition 29 tobacco tax increase.

Prop 29 seeks to add $1 in taxes to each pack of cigarettes sold in California, with the money (backers estimate $700 million a year) earmarked for cancer research. As you might expect, the battle lines here are drawn largely between anti-smoking groups and Big Tobacco.

The main campaign in support of Prop 29 has had only one significant contributions so far in 2012, a $1.5 million check from cycling champion Lance Armstrong. The campaign reported less than $250,000 in cash at the end of 2011, and will clearly need more big bucks like those from Armstrong... as the anti-Prop 29 campaign has come in with guns blazing. In just the first eight weeks of 2012, the campaign collected $12 million -- most of which came from two large checks, one from Altria/Philip Morris ($7 million) and one from R.J. Reynolds ($3 million).

The only other initiative on the June ballot (thanks, in part, to last fall's controversial decision to boot all pending measures to November) is Proposition 28, the long-debated modification to the state's term limits law for members of the Legislature. If approved by voters, future legislators would be allowed to serve up to 12 years in either the Assembly or Senate -- thus eliminating the current practice of politicians jumping from one chamber or the other and get a full 14 years of service under the Capitol dome.

As of now, the Prop 28 campaign has an empty gas tank. Fundraising has largely been dormant since its backers missed their original target of the November 2010 ballot campaign records show only about $11,000 in cash on hand at the end of 2011. But Democratic consultant Douglas Herman, who's working on the campaign, says fundraising efforts are underway and may include some of the groups that have been talking about government reform in recent years. Official records don't show an opposition campaign committee as of now, though backers of the existing term limits law are unlikely to let voters consider Prop 28 without a rebuttal.

The real money moves, though, are on the tax increase initiatives targeted for the November 6 ballot. The most active fundraiser, perhaps not surprisingly, is Governor Brown. This morning, his campaign for a temporary sales/income tax increase reported some $632,000 in new donations, bringing the total to date close to $3.5 million. Labor unions and Indian gaming tribes continue to dominate the cash reports, and Brown's dialing for dollars has netted an average of $45,000 a day. That will no doubt need to increase to run a full fall campaign.

By comparison, the campaign to qualify a millionaire's tax for the November ballot has raised $915,000 with almost all of the money coming from the California Federation of Teachers, whose union leaders have been getting a lot of pressure by Brown and others to step aside... something that certainly would have been unpopular at Monday's big higher education protest at the Capitol.

The other income tax initiative, written and championed by civil rights attorney Molly Munger, won't need to be watched for whether it has the resources to get on the ballot... because it does, thanks to Munger herself. The wealthy Pasadena activist has pledged to spend "whatever it takes" to not only gather voter signatures on her initiative, but to run the fall campaign itself.