Capitol Alert

University of California President Mark Yudof said today that he will ask UC's governing board to freeze tuition for the coming school year, responding to the state budget just as Gov. Jerry Brown had hoped.

Brown and lawmakers added provisions to the state budget this week that would give an additional $125 million to UC and the California State University in 2013-14 if the systems didn't raise tuition for this year -- and if voters approve the governor's tax initiative in November.

"The budget legislation signed by the governor is a significant step toward bringing stability to public higher education funding in California," Yudof said in a statement. "Based on the incentives in this budget package, I intend to recommend to the Board of Regents that our current tuition levels remain in place for the upcoming year."

Previously, UC officials had said they would consider a 6 percent tuition increase this summer.

The situation is more complicated at CSU, whose trustees have already approved a 9 percent tuition hike that has been collected from current students. If CSU wants the $125 million Brown promised, it would have to issue refund checks to students after the election in November.

California's popular Department of Motor Vehicles' website, which allows motorists to register their vehicles and renew licenses online, has been down sporadically since Monday, DMV spokesman Mike Marando said today.

Marando said the site is working for most customers today, and that the agency is working with the California Technology Agency to find a permanent solution. He added that the agency is 95 percent of the way to fixing the problem.

A message on the DMV's website attributed the problems to an "ongoing internal connection issue" and directed customers to a toll-free number and self-service terminals inside DMV offices. Marando said the problem was caused by a "larger than normal influx of website traffic," the cause of which is unknown.

Marando said that the DMV would work with individual customers who believed they may miss renewal deadlines and be penalized as a result of problems with the site.

"For those individuals who believe they may incur a late fee, we are willing to work with them on a case-by-case basis," Marando said.

After the site went down Monday, the DMV announced the difficulties occurring via Twitter. The Department has continued to provide Twitter updates to its customers.

After Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic lawmakers enacted legislation that should push the governor's tax initiative atop the November ballot, a rival campaign filed suit Thursday to block his measure from taking first position and appearing ahead of its own income tax proposal.

Brown signed Assembly Bill 1499 late Wednesday to redefine how the Secretary of State's Office orders ballot measures, having the likely effect of pushing Brown's tax plan to the first position.

A rival campaign to raise income taxes on all but the poorest Californians for education filed suit against Secretary of State Debra Bowen to block AB 1499 from taking effect. The suit also claims that the competing initiative by attorney Molly Munger deserves a higher placement on the ballot because its campaign submitted signatures before Brown did.

Under AB 1499, that initiative would appear near the bottom of the ballot as a statutory change that made the ballot near the end of qualifying season -- albeit on the same day as Brown's. The rival initiative has been financed by attorney Molly Munger.

The Brown administration said today that it is rapidly moving ahead on California's health care expansion following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding President Barack Obama's signature law.

"This is a very great day," state Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley said. "California has been a leader in health care reform for a very long time. We've had many starts and stops, and we are now in the full go mode here."

At stake for California was billions of dollars in federal aid for the state's expansion of coverage.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the state is expected to receive $45 billion to $55 billion from the federal government from 2014 to 2019 to expand Medi-Cal, California's version of Medicaid. An additional 1.2 million to 1.6 million Californians are expected to be newly covered under the program.

In addition, through the California Health Benefit Exchange, a public health insurance marketplace prescribed by the federal overhaul, officials estimate about 2 million Californians -- many of them currently uninsured -- will obtain insurance beginning in 2014.

"This ruling removes a distraction from the job that thousands of Californians have come together to address," said Peter Lee, the exchange's executive director.

Lee said the state is "moving full-speed ahead" to establish the exchange, including a "major media and outreach campaign" next year.

"We look forward to making the purchase of insurance through California's exchange as easy as buying a book on Amazon or shoes on Zappos," Lee said.

Gov. Jerry Brown was among state Democrats celebrating the ruling. He said in a prepared statement, "Today's dramatic Supreme Court ruling removes the last roadblock to fulfilling President Obama's historic plan to bring health care to millions of uninsured citizens."

Assemblyman Dan Logue, citing a finding in Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on health care, vowed to begin organizing an initiative drive to keep California from implementing the federal health care reform.

The Marysville Republican objects to the plan, pushed by President Barack Obama, that would require nearly every American to buy health insurance or pay a penalty under a program to be launched in 2014.

Logue contends there is room to kill the program in California because the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the federal government cannot strip states' existing Medicaid funding for opting not to take part in the law's expansion of that program.

Medicaid is a giant federal program that provides health-care assistance to seniors, the poor and people with disabilities. In California, it's called Medi-Cal.

"There's a real good chance that we could put this to a vote of the people," Logue said of implementing Obama's health care plan.

Logue vowed to launch legal research into specifics of a ballot initiative and to talk with potential financial backers.

"We're just starting it up," he said. "But I believe you're going to see thousands of doctors in California step up to the plate and say, 'You know what? I can't stay in the game unless this thing is revoked.' "

Two years ago, Logue helped lead a successful drive that placed a measure on the ballot proposing to suspend a state law requiring major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Proposition 23 was soundly rejected in November 2010.

Nearly all of the 70 California state parks originally slated for closure Sunday will remain open for now, despite a line-item veto of parks funding by Gov. Jerry Brown, state parks officials said today.

The Department of Parks and Recreation has already struck deals with private donors, foundations and non-profit groups to continue operating 40 that were on the endangered list, including the Governor's Mansion in Sacramento. At the direction of Brown and lawmakers last year, the parks department had targeted the parks for closure based on attendance and how much revenue they generated.

Because the state has found outside partners interested in sparing an additional 25 parks, it will keep them open using a sliver of special funds that Brown retained in the budget he signed Wednesday night, parks officials said. Democratic lawmakers added $41 million back into their budget to keep parks open, but Brown line-item vetoed $31 million of it.

That leaves five parks for which the state has struggled to find donors or other agencies willing to chip in: Benicia State Recreation Area; the California Mining and Mineral Museum in Mariposa; Gray Whale Cove State Beach near Montara; Zmudowski State Beach near Moss Landing; and Providence Mountains State Recreation Area in San Bernardino County.

It remains to be seen what will happen to those parks come Sunday, but at least one - the Mining and Mineral Museum - is planning to shut its doors and pack up more than 13,000 objects in its collection, according to curator Darci Moore.

"At this point, we have no choice," Moore said. "We will be packing up the mineral collection and putting it in storage."

Even if they face closure, the two state beaches on the endangered five-park list would remain open to visitors but without trash pick-up and restrooms, said Natural Resources Agency spokesman Richard Stapler.

Natural Resources Secretary John Laird said today he still sees a path to keep all of the parks open using $10 million that Brown agreed to restore as a stopgap measure. Stapler said the department is examining possibilities over the next 24 hours that could save the last five parks without donors.

"What this does is give us the money to allow us to focus on the next 30 without a tight June 30th deadline," Laird said. "We will work through every agreement that is possible with a proposed stakeholder. And then when we get to the end, I expect that there will likely be a few parks for which nobody has stepped forward, and then we will cross that bridge with what we do at that point."

An initiative that seeks to regulate health insurance rates will not qualify for the November ballot, but proponents say California voters will have a say on the measure in 2014.

"We're disappointed, but we're also hopeful that the extra time will make the cause even greater," said Jamie Court, president of the initiative's backer, Consumer Watchdog.

"The Supreme Court's upholding of the mandate today made this more crucial than ever," Court added. "It just means the finish line is postponed a little bit."

The initiative's fate was determined this morning when Los Angeles County submitted its random-sample count of valid signatures. The county reported that 66.6 percent of signatures were valid, falling short of the 69 percent threshold necessary to have enough valid signatures statewide to avoid a full count.

Court said delaying the measure until the 2014 ballot will give his organization more time to raise money to "make sure this gets done right, no matter how much the health insurance companies spend against us."

"We have a better chance of victory by gathering resources over the next two years," he said.

He also said the delay may wind up helping his cause because the individual mandate part of the federal Affordable Care Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled constitutional, will require all Americans to buy health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty in 2015.

"So voters will be really educated about the cost of health insurance at that moment," Court said.

When movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor three years ago, he and the Legislature enacted a five-year program of tax credits for film production in California, aimed, he said, at curbing runaway production to other states and nation.

Although the credit, as much as $100 million a year, still has two years to run, legislation is moving to extend it for another five years.

Today, the Senate Governance and Finance Committee, on a bipartisan, 5-1 vote, approved Senate Bill 1167 by Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello.

While film industry groups, including its unions, have lined up behind the extension bill, it's being opposed by education unions and health care groups because it would divert state funds that otherwise would be spent on schools and social and health services.

SB 1167 includes new layers of oversight aimed at determining what effect the tax credits have on bolstering the state's film industry.

The Assembly rejected legislation Thursday to permanently exempt BMW from a state law requiring automakers to provide locksmiths with electronic code information enabling production of replacement keys.

Senate Bill 750, needing 41 votes to pass, died by a vote of 29-25, with 26 abstentions. Both Democrats and Republicans were split on the measure, proposed by Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina.

"This is preferential treatment," Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, said of the legislation to accommodate a single foreign car maker.

Assemblyman Charles Calderon countered that allowing BMW to withhold code information from locksmiths would not be a big financial windfall to the foreign car maker.

"How much money could they make if they doubled the price of the key?" the West Covina Democrat said.

"Besides," added Calderon, a BMW owner, "it's kind of nice to know that your car is secure."

Six years ago, BMW received a temporary exemption from legislation passed to require automakers to provide electronic key code information to locksmiths so that stranded motorists could receive immediate assistance.

The exemption applied to any automaker that was the sole source of replacement keys for its cars in 2006 and that operated a telephone or electronic request line to serve customers' needs within 24 hours.

SB 750 would have made permanent the temporary exemption, which is due to expire in January.

Only BMW was actively seeking a permanent exemption, though automakers qualifying for the temporary exemption included Mercedes Benz, Jaguar, Land Rover and Porsche, according to a legislative committee analysis of SB 750.

BMW contends that its 24-hour key replacement request line is a suitable alternative and eliminates the possibility that its key codes could be stolen and used by theft rings.

The California Locksmiths Association counters that locksmiths carry $1 million in liability insurance and that transmittal of key code data is tracked, so an unscrupulous locksmith who made a duplicate key for theft could be identified quickly. For some luxury vehicles, key code data can be transmitted wirelessly, so locksmiths never see it, the group added.

Gov. Jerry Brown used his line-item veto authority to strike $128.9 million in spending from the $91.3 billion general fund state budget he signed, his office reported today.

Brown vetoed another $66.8 million in spending from special funds and federal funds, for a total veto amount of $195.7 million.

The Democratic governor's cuts affect child care and preschool for low-income children and Cal Grant scholarship aid at private schools, two areas that Brown wanted lawmakers to slash deeper than they did.

Those receiving Cal Grants at private schools face 5 percent award cuts in the 2012-13 school year. Brown's vetoes also result in an additional loss of 3,400 child care openings for low-income families, for a total of 14,000 fewer because lawmakers had already cut slots.

"It could have been, as with everything, it could have been much worse, could have been much deeper," said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. "I don't like it, but I'm prepared to move on."

The governor used his line-item veto power to cut $31 million in special funds that Democrats tapped to keep state parks open. Department of Finance officials said about 30 parks lack deals with other government agencies or private entities to remain open, but that negotiations are continuing. The latest state park to be spared was the Governor's Mansion in downtown Sacramento.

Brown did keep $23 million for state parks in the budget beyond what he proposed earlier this year. Natural Resources Secretary John Laird said those extra dollars will buy the state more time to find outside deals to keep the 30 parks open beyond the slated July 1 closure date - and he still sees a path to avoid any closures.

"What this does is give us the money to allow us to focus on the next 30 without a tight June 30th deadline," Laird said. "We will work through every agreement that is possible with a proposed stakeholder. And then when we get to the end, I expect that there will likely be a few parks for which nobody has stepped forward, and then we will cross that bridge with what we do at that point."

But Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said the parks veto was "really inexplicable to me." She was among the Democrats who pushed to use off-road vehicle, water board and energy accounts to keep parks open.

"The veto is extremely disappointing and is really a slap in the face to Californians who love their parks," she said.

Evans added that Brown's decision "means he obviously wants to continue with the closure of the parks or at least turn them over to private operators. My suspicion, my belief, is that this is being done in an effort to privatize the state parks system."

Read the final budget summary from the Department of Finance. The line items are at the end of the document.

Kevin Yamamura and Torey Van Oot reported details for this post. Updated throughout the morning with lawmaker and Brown administration reaction and clarification that the $66.8 million includes special and federal funds.

Legislation to expedite the process of firing teachers for sex, violence or drug offenses involving children was killed Wednesday by an Assembly committee after sparking strong opposition from the state's largest teachers union.

Senate Bill 1530, by Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of Los Angeles, was rejected by the Assembly Education Committee.

The measure was proposed in the wake of a scandal surrounding Mark Berndt, a third-grade teacher at Los Angeles' Miramonte Elementary School who was arrested in January on 23 counts of lewd conduct.

Padilla said the vast majority of teachers "take seriously the sacred trust we put in them." But some, very few, have "engaged in conduct so egregious that it warrants immediate action," he said.

"We have to do right by children and families," said Monica Garcia, president of the Los Angeles Unified School District, in supporting Padilla's bill.

SB 1530 would modify the current process for dismissing teachers -- or administrators -- after they have engaged in sex, violence or drug offenses with children.

Today's U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a key part of the federal health care law has sparked strong reactions from both sides of the debate.

A collection of statements and responses from California officials and groups is posted after the jump. You can send your statement to hmadans@sacbee.com. Read more coverage of the decision at SacBee.com.

Dan Walters says that the dozen or so "heavyweight" measures crowding onto the California ballot in November will give voters plenty to ponder.

Have a question you'd like Dan to answer? Post it on our Facebook page.

See other Dan Walters Daily clips here.

VIDEO: Dan Walters says in today's report that the dozen or so "heavyweight" ballot measures coming up in November will provide "a bonanza for campaign consultants."

Now that Gov. Jerry Brown's deadline for signing the budget has come and gone, what got whacked at the last minute?

As Kevin Yamamura, Torey Van Oot and Jim Sanders report in today's Bee, the $91.5 billion spending plan that the Legislature passed not only relies on voters passing Brown's ballot tax measure but contains some optimistic assumptions. Come back to Capitol Alert later today as we continue to comb through the fine print.

Meanwhile, today's the much-anticipated day that the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to release its ruling on President Barack Obama's health care law. The SCOTUS Blog says the high court will start issuing its decisions at 10 a.m. EDT -- that's 7 a.m. Pacific Time -- with the health care ruling "probably" about 15 minutes after. The SCOTUS Blog's Lyle Denniston -- who has reported on the Supreme Court for 51 years -- summarizes the four issues before the court in this post. He's also written a primer on how to read the opinion.

You can also read up on how Californians may be affected in this story by The Bee's David Siders.

Back in Sacramento, both houses have scheduled floor sessions for 9 a.m. Click here for the Senate's daily file, and click here for the Assembly's.

Meanwhile, the California Air Resources Board is holding a public hearing on a proposal to let California and the Canadian province of Quebec link their cap-and-trade programs on greenhouse gas emissions. That meeting starts at 9 a.m. at the Cal-EPA building, 1001 I St., Sacramento. Click here to read the agenda.

CAKE AND CANDLES: Assemblyman Marty Block, D-San Diego, celebrates his 62nd birthday today.

Editor's Note: This post has been updated to reflect that the press conference scheduled by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner has been cancelled. Updated 10:10 a.m. June 28, 2012.