Sen. Barbara Boxer

On the eve of what will be the most important vote ever on health care reform Sen. Barbara Boxer spent 30 minutes making the Democrats’ case for beginning debate on a far-reaching $848 billion bill.

“What we have before us,’’ said Boxer, D-Calif., is an excellent piece of legislation that will make life better for every single American…

“This is our time. This is our moment. This is the moment for us to come together as a nation,’’ Boxer said.

Throughout today and until tomorrow evening in Washington, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have and will make the case for and against this legislation. Click here to read the text of the Senate bill.

In her half-hour speech, Boxer used case studies of constituents, including Madeline Foote of Costa Mesa, who wrote her a letter asking her to work for health reform.

Boxer said Foote, who is 25, aged out of her health care through her parents and was found it difficult to get her own insurance because of a pre-existing condition that she said amounted to taking a prescription drug. The only policy she was able to get had a $3,000 deductible.

“As a young person working in a restaurant repaying student loans and trying to make it this is a huge financial burden,. I can’t afford  insurance that charges so much,’’ Foote wrote. “Now I’m forced to hope that nothing extremely bad befalls me.”

“She’s another one praying not to get sick,’’ Boxer said. “That’s not a health care plan.’’

This is the furthest any major overhaul of the health care system has ever gotten. When President Clinton and then First Lady Hillary Clinton tried to get health reform passed in the mid-1990s, a bill never reached the Senate floor, much less get one passed in the House as was done two weeks ago.

The reason Saturday night’s vote is so important is because unless Majority leader Harry Reid can get 60 senators to agree to bring up his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to the floor, it all ends.

Reid has said he’s cautiously optimistic he’ll have the votes. It seemed today that all might come down Sen. Blanche Lincoln, the Arkansas Democrat who is from a conservative state and facing a tough reelection next year.

The reason Reid needs 60 votes is because under the Senate rules, if senators object to bringing a bill up for consideration, as the GOP has, it takes 60 votes to break such an objection.

If Reid gets his 60 votes, the real debate over changes to the bill, work that will ultimately shape the final Senate measure is not likely to being until after Thanksgiving.

The arguments for and against this bill are starkly partisan and philosophical. Democrats want more government involvement to help get the uninsured coverage. Republicans want to use free market tools to make insurance more affordable.

Democrats say their will has changes such as removing pre-existing condition as an impediment to health insurance, bans on health insurers dropping people who get sick, allowing parents to insure their children under age 26, creating an insurance exchange with a public option for people who have no other way to get insurance and more coverage for preventative  care.

But Republicans say Democrats aren’t being straight about the costs. They have been on the Senate floor today saying the ill will cost trillions in the next decade, raise premiums and that the mandates in the bill will lead small businesses to either cut workers or refuse to give raises because it ill mean increased costs. And GOP lawmakers also say that the measure will lead to cuts in services for the nation’s Medicare recipients.

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Corona del Mar attorneys Mike Schroeder and Lee Lowrey were leading the charge to recall their fellow Republican because Adams was one of six state legislators who joined Democrats in approving a February budget update that included tax hikes. Recall advocates say Adams betrayed his signed pledge not to support more taxes.

To place the measure on the ballot, activists needed the valid signatures of 35,825 voters in the district, which consists of parts of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. A total of 58,384 signatures were gathered but a random sampling of 1,839 signatures found that only 988 were valid. Bowen’s office projected that the total number of valid signatures would be 24,579, well short of the number needed.

State Elections Code says that if the projected number is less than 95 percent of the number needed, “the recall effort shall be deemed to have failed.”

At the outset of the recall effort, Adams said, “two very wealthy Orange County men who care less about our community and more about their own political ambitions. They want us to pay $900,000 in our hard earned tax dollars to pay for another election and their partisan political games.”

Adams will be up for reelection in June.

Click here to read the memo from Bowen’s office dismissing the recall effort.

Related stories:
Assemblyman blasts OC-based recall effort
O.C.-based effort to recall GOP assemblyman launched
Hitting the road for the Adams recall

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The vagaries of polling methodologies likely have something to do with the differences, as they have in surveys concerning the GOP primary in the race (click here for a rundown and my analysis of those polls). But the trend in Whitman’s favor is giving the campaign something to crow about.

“This is more clear evidence that Californians are attracted to Meg’s focused vision for California,” wrote senior campaign advisor Jeff Randle in a “state of the race” memo sent out to the press today.

With this Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Poll earlier this month showing Whitman with a 21-point lead over Republican Tom Campbell, Irvine-based pollster Adam Probolsky said Whitman’s barrage of radio ads in October had given her the advantage. Previous polls had shown the two Republicans in a statistical dead heat. However, there were differences in poll methodology which also played into it, as discussed in the previously mentioned analysis.

But it’s unclear how big a roll methodology played in the differences between the Field and Rasmussen polls. Whitman outperformed her previous Rasmussen poll, as mentioned, but that previous poll had her nine percentage points ahead of Campbell a month before the Field Poll showed them in a dead heat.

The new Rasmussen poll shows 48 percent of voters with a favorable opinion of Brown and 41 percent unfavorable. The Field Poll showed 44 percent favorable and 29 percent unfavorable. Although Brown, in his current post as attorney general, got some bad press in the interim when an aide secretly recorded conversations with the media (apparently without Brown’s knowledge), it seems unlikely that would narrow his favorable differential from 15 points to 7 points.

The new Rasmussen poll shows Whitman at a 47 percent favorable rating, 37 percent unfavorable. The Field Poll had her at 18 favorable, 14 unfavorable. But like an L.A. Times/USC poll from earlier this month, the Field Poll found that nearly two-thirds of voters had no clear impression of any of the GOP candidates.

The Rasmussen poll shows Brown with an 11-point lead over Steve Poizner and a 9-point lead over Campbell.

I asked Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll about the discrepencies with the Rasmussen poll, and he said he hadn’t examined that poll closely enough to offer an analysis. I have a call in to the Rasmussen folks to see what their thoughts are on the difference. I’ll post that here when I hear back.

More on the governor’s race:
Analysis of why the Probolsky and Field polls differ
Tom Campbell busts 25 political myths
GOP governor candidates tangle in Irvine debate
Jerry Brown shows his moderate side during O.C. visit
Gavin Newsom drops out of guv race
GOP governor candidates tangle in Irvine
Field Poll: Brown way out front in governor’s race
Columnist attacks Whitman’s budget math
My Q&A with Meg Whitman
My Q&A with Tom Campbell
My Q&A with Steve Poizner
My Q&A with Gavin Newsom
GOP candidate hopes to outrun the ghost of voting past
Democrats in background of 3 GOP governor candidates
Governor candidates wary of citizens’ power

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Just 9,172 - 4 percent - of the 72nd Assembly District’s voters went to the polls. But 30,745 voted by mail, accounting for 77 percent of all ballots cast. (Overall, a scant 18 percent of the district voters cast ballots.)

More people still make the trip in big elections - 55 percent of the county’s ballots last November were cast at the polling place. But that number shrinks a little each time around as more voters opt for the convenience of voting from home.

Fred Smoller is leading the call in Orange County for all-mail elections. He says it saves money and can increase turnout.

“Since voters are going that way anyway, why don’t we get ahead of the curve and start trying this on a trial basis?” said Smoller, director of the public administration masters degree program at Irvine’s Brandman University.

Smoller went to Sacramento to talk to lobbyists about getting the state legislation required for Orange County to try all-mail elections. He said he was told there was no way the Legislature would go for it.

But Smoller dismisses some Democrats’ concerns that all-mail elections would favor the GOP because Republicans vote by mail in higher percentages than their counterparts.

“When the system is in place and everybody votes by mail, there’s no proof that it favors one party or another,” he said.

He also waves off some Republicans’ worry that all-mail elections would make the election more vulnerable to fraud, citing the track record of a decade of all-mail elections in Oregon.

“The reason it’s slow to win support here is that there’s a whole group of political people who don’t want it, because they got elected with the old system,” he said.

Smoller shows no sign of backing off his advocacy. Indeed, he’s currently writing a book on all-mail elections.

“I’m going to be the Julia Child of vote-by-mail,” he quipped.

County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley has encouraged voters to cast mail ballots. Among other things, it makes elections easier for him because it minimizes polling place snafus. It also means earlier results.

But Kelley, who does a good job of staying off the political battlefield, has not taken a position on all-mail ballots, saying it’s a decision for elected officials to make.

Kelley does, however, have a cost analysis, and the savings from an all-mail election is not as much as you might think. That’s because an all-mail election means more printing and mailing, which are his biggest election costs.

Tuesday’s special election and January’s runoff will cost a combined $1.4 million, Kelley said. If both were run all-mail, the total savings would stop short of $80,000.

A typical statewide election costs the county roughly $3.8 million, which would drop slightly to $3.6 million if it were done entirely by mail.

Smoller counters that with the state’s dire fiscal situation, every dime of savings helps.

While the Legislature may not be ready to give Orange County the green light, it did pass a bill this year to let the smaller counties of Yolo and Santa Clara try all-mail elections. However, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the measure, saying, “Many prefer voting in person at their local polling
place.”

(Sierra and Alpine counties are allowed to do all-mail elections because they are rural with very small populations. The state’s 119 charter cities also have the ability to do all-mail elections.)

Regardless of Kelley’s neutrality, his colleagues in the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials endorsed the bill vetoed by Schwarzenegger. But Kelley remains skeptical of Smoller’s effort gaining traction any time soon.

“It’s a healthy debate to have,” he said. “I just don’t see it going anywhere.”

However, at least one hard-core proponent of polling places may be softening his view. County Supervisor Chris Norby, the top vote getter in Tuesday’s election, has argued for the polling places because he likes the civic ritual and because he thinks voters should wait to get as much information as they can before casting ballots.

But when I called him a couple weeks before the election, I learned he had cast his ballot by mail for the first time in his life. Of course, there was only one decision before voters in that race.

“I decided that I had all the information I needed to make my choice,” he said.

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Loyal Total Buzz readers will recall how Linda Ackerman just recently took heat for this sort of thing in her run for Mike Duvall’s Assembly seat. They say Orange County is one contiguous district, so it doesn’t really matter where you live, but carpetbagging does seem to anger some voters.

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Majority leader Harry Reid and Senate Democrats unveil health bill.

The long-awaited Democratic health bill that Majority Leader Harry Reid will bring to the Senate floor was unveiled tonight after the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill would cost $849, within the $900 billion ceiling set by President Barack Obama.

The bill is a melding of the bills voted out by the Senate’s Finance and Health, Education Labor and Pension committees. Click here to read the full bill.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle responded as expected. Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota called it a “monstrosity.” In a statement she issued soon after the bill went on line Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., called t he release of the measure “an important moment for our country.”

More on the bill and health reform:
Senate health bill is outlined by Reid

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Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina announced her candidacy for U.S. Senate on November, 4, 2009 at Earth Friendly Products in Garden Grove. Photo by Jebb Harris, The Orange County Register

Carly Fiorina made her Washington debut today as an official contender for the Republican nomination to take on Sen. Barbara Boxer next spring. And she made it clear that she doesn’t think Irvine Assemblyman Chuck DeVore could gather the wide swath of voters needed to beat the incumbent Democrat.

“Chuck DeVore is the opponent that Barbara Boxer hopes she faces,’’ Fiorina told a group of Washington reporters during her first trip to the nation’s capital since announcing her Senate candidacy in Garden Grove.  “I can and will beat Babara Boxer and winning matters. Winning is also about being able to find common ground with a broad spectrum of voters and being able to talk with them in terms that makes sense to them.”

DeVore has painted Fiorinaas not a true conservative and hopes to bring that point home during the campaign. Recent polls have the two running neck and neck for the nomination.

In the interview, Fiorina, a former Hewlett Packard CEO,  was short on policy specifics and didn’t say how much of her own money she’s willing to spend on this race.

And oh, she did something that’s become a tradition for Boxer’s Republican  opponents. She went out of her way to say how effective senior Democrat  Dianne Feinstein has been compared with Boxer. The last person to take on Boxer - former California Secretary of State Bill Jones-  had similar  kind words for Feinstein that Fiorina has.

“She’s a very effective senator, and I will work very well with her,” Fiorina said. “I have great respect and admiration for Dianne Feinstein.”

On immigration, Fiorina wouldn’t say whether she would ever vote to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. Instead she would want legislation that would first secure the borders and then create a new temporary worker program.

The two “biggest problems that Californians see” on immigration, she said, are “”that our borders aren’t secure and we don’t have a temporary  worker program that works.” Fiorina called it “unproductiveve” to answer hypothetical questions when pushed on what she believes should happen to the illegal immigrants here now.

When asked if she would support mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions - as the state legislature has passed - again Fiorina wouldn’t bite.

“We should have the courage to examine the science on an ongoing basis,” she said. “But frankly, I think we ought to deal with it as a real challenge today and do what we can to create opportunities for leadership for this nation in the process.”

On campaign financing, Fiorina disputed the conventional wisdom that Washington insiders liked the of her candidacy because she would be able to fund her own election and not drain donor resources needed  in other states.

Not so fast, Fiorina said. While she has lent an unspecified amount to her campaign, she has no intention of bankrolling this Senate run.

“It will not be necessary to self fund,  nor am I capable of self-funding this campaign and everyone I’ve been talking with is well aware of that,” Fiorina said. “I don’t have millions of dollars to put into the campaign.”

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U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter on Oct. 29 dismissed without trial a civil suit seeking to disqualify Obama as president. Click here for the story. Laguna Niguel attorney Orly Taitz, on behalf of 42 of the 44 plaintiffs in the case, then filed with Carter a fiery motion for reconsideration. Click here for the story.

The two remaining plaintiffs, Buena Park Pastor Wiley Drake and American Independent Party Chairman Markham Robinson, had a falling out with Taitz and hired lawyer Gary Kreep to represent them. Kreep has filed the appeal on their behalf.

Also percolating are affidavits filed by a man who claims to have been Obama’s lover - Larry Sinclair - and another who says he has Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate - Lucas Smith. Both allege that Taitz told them to lie to the court. Those allegations could be considered by the state bar, which is already expected to look at Taitz’s misconduct that resulted in a $20,000 sanction from another federal judge. Click here to read about the two men’s affidavits.

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But if Norby wins, there’s a chance that the new year lead to an empty supervisors seat in the fourth district. As we reported earlier, voters won’t cast their ballots to find Norby’s replacement until June, and Norby’s replacement might not be permanently resolved until after a runoff election in November. Still, the race could start heating up soon.

So here’s a quick recap of the five candidates who have filed paperwork with the Registrar of Voters saying they intend to run.

• Tom Daly: He is the county’s elected Clerk-Recorder and a Democrat with some early support from GOP insiders . Before that, Daly was the mayor and a city councilman in Anaheim, and probably the best known of the candidates. He has $45,462.99 in his campaign coffers.
• Harry Sidhu: He’s been on the Anaheim City Council since 2002 and owns restaurants in Riverside and Orange counties, and has previously displayed his ability and willingness spend his considerable wealth on his own campaigns. He has said he’s moving into the district to meet qualifications to run. He’s got $47,961 in the campaign bank, which includes $25,000 he loaned himself.
• Shawn Nelson: He’s been a Fullerton City Councilman since 2002 and has twice been the city’s mayor. Nelson is a civil attorney. For his campaign, he’s hired Dave Gilliard, the big cheese of GOP consultants working O.C. races. He loaned his campaign $50,000 and collected more than $17,000 in donations. He’s got $47,407 in his campaign account.
• Rose Espinoza: She was elected to the La Habra City Council in 2000 and has been mayor twice. She is the founder of Rosie’s Garage, Rose decided it was time to dedicate more time to Rosie’s Garage, a program addressing gang activity and education for children in her neighborhood. She has $1,197.30 in the bank.
  
• Lorri Galloway: She was elected to the Anaheim City Council in November, 2004 and is the founder of the Eli Home for Abused Children. Like Sidhu, she’s said she’s moving into the district to meet qualifications to run. She did not file a campaign finance disclosure with the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

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This comes, of course, after a brutal year of budget shortfalls in Sacramento. Just four months ago, the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed on a budget that closed a roughly $26 billion deficit. And that was just five months after they had closed a $42 billion deficit.

The LAO reports that this new problem is the product of a projected $6.3 billion deficit in the current fiscal year and a $14.4 billion gap between revenues and spending in 2010-11.

The LAO bluntly blames the problem in part on the state’s inability to enact previous budget solutions. The report cites Medi-Cal’s and the prison system’s inability to achieve billions in spending reductions assumed in the current budget. It also blasts the state for assuming it could sell the State Compensation Insurance Fund, a quasi-governmental workers’ compensation insurer, for a $1 billion, which it hasn’t gotten close to doing.

Of course, the biggest cause of the state’s monumental budget problems is the general state of the economy, which has eaten away at the state’s revenue picture.

Given the situation, the LAO writes that there is “No Way That California Can Avoid Reprioritizing Its Finances.”

“(T)he scale of the deficits is so vast that we know of no way that the Legislature, the Governor, and voters can avoid making additional, very difficult choices about state priorities,” the report states.

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