Daily Archives: June 24, 2006

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, Environment

California Blog Roundup, 6/24/06

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-04, CA-11, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, Jerry Lewis, David Dreier, corruption, environment, immigration, minimum wage, reform. And now back to Mexico v. Argentina.

Governor’s Race

Jerry McNerney / CA-11

  • The DNC interviews Jerry McNerney. Funny, where’s the DCCC on this? Isn’t this supposed to be their beat? Rahm?

  • Check out Congressional Quarterly for some evolving conventional wisdom on Jerry McNerney and CA-11.

  • Pombowatch reflects on the Republican Primary in CA-11. Worth reading for anyone who actually cares about the country.

  • Paid-For Pombo is finally doing something for college students: he’s offering jobs in his campaign. This is how patronage works, folks: you collect money from powerful interests by virtue of your position, then you do them favors, and eventually some small amount of the money you collect (which is a small amount of the money you made for the the powerful interests) trickles down to people willing to work for you. Oh, and when you’re done doing legislative favors for powerful interests, you work for them directly as a lobbyist.

15% Doolittle / CA-04

Other Republican Paragons

  • Down With Tyranny follows up on the nasty push-poll that Dreier’s campaign was using in the Democratic Primary in CA-26. Seems like it’s a standard Republican tactic — Lee Atwater and Karl Rove between them pretty much destroyed any integrity that Republican campaigns might have had.

  • Jerry Lewis still a crook.

  • Bill Cavala gets to the core of the Republican corruption problem: when you don’t believe in government at all, why not strip-mine it for your personal benefit? Republican leaders aren’t corrupt by their own lights — they don’t think what they’re doing is wrong.

The World Around Us

Immigration

What Is Villaraigosa’s Deal?

Reform

  • Voting reform and privacy concerns: why have the Republicans turned these into partisan footballs? Don’t they want reliable vote counting and a zone of privacy for all citizens? No? Why not?

  • Randy Bayne, who has really ramped up the posting recently, writes on the legislature’s proposed linkage of term limit relaxation with redistricting reform. I’m not all that convinced that the two are or should be related (except as it might be necessary to get incumbents on side), but it’s an interesting read.

  • Hannah-Beth Jackson writes on a bipartisan effort in the legislature to better fund non-profits that help developmentally disabled adults work. Of interest is that all four legislators (including the single Republican) involved have personal experience with developmentally disabled children. While I’m encouraged by this effort, I’m saddened by the failure of imagination and empathy implied, and which is most evident in California’s Republican party.

  • Kvatch is tearing his hair out. Schwarzenegger administration officials get an 18% pay raise to keep up with inflation. And yet, Schwarzenegger and his team are resisting inflation indexing of the minimum wage. Huh. And let us not forget that the Republicans in Congress voted themselves a pay raise while rejecting any increase in the national minimum wage.

  • Journeys with Jood notes that the pay scale for the AG is below many first-year associates at large law firms (my personal benchmark for overpaid uselessness). Repeat after me until your brain stops hurting: “There is no class war. There is no class war. There is no class war.”

  • For those who might wonder how our representatives should behave, they should look to Russ Feingold. “Everybody does it” is not a defense — it’s just as much utter crap as it was when you tried it on your mom, and Russ proves it’s also false.

Miscellany

California

Charlie Brown to Doolittle: Give Abramoff Money To Charity

(Ah yes, voters really hate when their candidates demand transparency and honesty. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Before I get into the story: what’s up with the Sacramento Bee? “Doolittle’s Foe Focuses on Cash”. What kinda headline is that? Foe? Last I heard Charlie Brown was the opponent of Congressman Doolittle in a democratic election. The whole headline implies something that is just not the story. The first picture I had in my mind after reading the headline was that Charlie Brown was on a mad fundraising hunt for his campaign. So, I say to the Bee’s headline writers: read the story before you make up a headline. Geez.

Now to the important stuff. Doolittle won’t give back the money he received by Abramoff. So, it’s a clever step by Charlie Brown to ask him to donate it to charity. It’s hard to argue against charity. At least anyone in his right mind would think so.

In today’s article by the Sacramento Bee Charlie Brown is quite clear that keeping Abramoff’s money is just wrong:

But Brown, a retired Air Force officer, said the report leaves unanswered the question of whether Doolittle engaged in a “pay-to-play” relationship with the lobbyist in which political contributions resulted in official actions.

“With public disdain for Congress at an all-time high, it’s time for John and Julie Doolittle to finally do the right thing,” Brown said. “Give back the dirty money, or better yet, give it to a charity.”

While there was no immediate comment by Doolittle’s office the Bee still managed to insert a nice anti-Pelosi quote:

Richard Robinson, Doolittle’s chief of staff and a top campaign strategist, said Brown should have learned from the last election that “adopting Nancy Pelosi’s phony ‘culture of corruption’ campaign isn’t a winning strategy.”

“The voters have already rejected these smear tactics,” he said, “and they will continue to reject them no matter how many times Brown tries to recycle them.”

Well, I believe the voters in California’s 4th Congressional District can see right through that pesky rhetoric. After all, what’s worse? A corrupt congressman or a liberal Italian Grandmother from San Francisco?

You can help Charlie here.

Cross posted from Turn Tahoe Blue

Los Angeles Area

Tom Harman: He’ll blot your blouse.

This, apparently, is something that Tom Harman’s office wants to get out, so much so that they sent it to the Capitol Morning Report.  A friend of mine thought I’d enjoy it.  He was right.

Tom Harman’s legislative director, Tiffany Conklin, sent over a tale she says highlights Asm. Bonnie Garcia’s reputation as “a fireball.” It occurred Tuesday evening when about a dozen Republican legislators shared a dinner at Katana Japanese Restaurant on Alta Arden Expressway to celebrate Asm. Russ Bogh’s 37th birthday. The group was seated around a hot grill as the chef was preparing various Japanese dishes. Conklin continues: “The chef was in the process of pouring a flammable liquid on the grill when the spout on the bottle came loose and a large fireball spread across the counter and caught Garcia’s blouse on fire. Senator Tom Harman, who was sitting next to Garcia, quickly put the flames out by vigorously patting her down with a wet napkin. Garcia was not injured but was badly frightened. After the flames were out she quickly announced, “See, I’ve always told you guys these are real. If they were plastic they would have melted.” She thanked Harman for his quick actions that prevented her from receiving any serious burns. Harman was reportedly heard to quip, “The pleasure was all mine.”

I’ll just leave it up to you to come up with your own funny comments. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold rejects Bush’s “request” for additional National Guard troops

( – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Arnold Schwarzenegger has rejected the Bush administration’s request for more troops along the border, but some Dems wonder if that’s the whole story. 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office said Friday that he turned down a White House request to more than double the number of California National Guard troops that will be deployed to the border, fearing the commitment could leave the state vulnerable if an earthquake or wildfire erupts.(LA Times 6/24/06)

More on the flip.

The Bush administration this week asked California to send an additional 1,500 National Guard troops to the Mexican border, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied the request, two California National Guard officials said Friday.

The National Guard Bureau, an arm of the Pentagon, asked for the troops to fill recruiting shortfalls for the mission in New Mexico and Arizona. But Schwarzenegger said the request would stretch the California guard too thin if an emergency or disaster struck.

The overall deployment for the border mission would remain at 6,000, the guard officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.  Schwarzenegger’s communications director, Adam Mendelsohn, said the governor felt sending more troops was an inappropriate burden on the state and would disrupt the guard’s training schedule. (MSNBC 6/23/06)

Well, I thought this was the case with the first 1,000.  But I guess this was some sort of straw that broke the camel for Arnold I suppose.  My bigger problem with the National Guard on the border is the effectiveness issue.  Are they really doing anything that’s worthwhile of our resources?  Has anybody explained to the American people what the hell they are doing there?  Well, to my satisfaction, the answer is no.  Our National Guard is already overburdened with Bush’s War, we don’t need to have them down on the border with some vague non-strategy.

UPDATE: The LA Times  also has a story about this. (H/t to It’s My Right to Be Left )  Some Dems have an interesting, and not too unlikely, take on this.  This “request” was really just an opportunity to give Schwarzenegger some political cover for the first 1000 troops. It’s a little conspiratorial, but doesn’t it just sound like a Rove/Schmidt tactic?

Schwarzenegger is running for reelection this year — at a time when his support among Latino voters is sagging. Recent polls show Schwarzenegger has the support of 25% of Latino voters — 7 points below what he received in the 2003 recall election
***
Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-Southgate) said of Schwarzenegger, “This is a way of letting him have it both ways — having the National Guard there, but at the same time letting him be the bulwark against placing additional troops on the border.”
***
Bob Mulholland, an advisor to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, said: “This so-called request [from the White House] was a phony political request to try to give Schwarzenegger political cover: ‘Look it. I’m standing up to Bush.’ But last week Schwarzenegger was a French poodle in Bush’s lap — authorizing 1,000 stressed-out, overextended National Guard members to spend weeks and months at the border, even though many of them have done two tours in Iraq.”(LA Times 6/24/06)

Yeah, it’s a bit cynical, but isn’t that really the problem?  We’ve been forced to cynicysm by manipulative administrations, both in Sacramento and Washington.

Uncategorized

LA: Romer not happy with Villaraigosa’s plan

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Roy Romer, former governor of Colorado and current superintendent of LAUSD, does not like Villaraigosa’s takeover of the schools.  He was hoping for more superintendent control and feels that the unions get too much power.

The powerful teachers union in the Los Angeles Unified School District would get unprecedented control over what kids are taught and how schools are run under a deal brokered by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to save his reform plan, LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer charged Thursday.
Villaraigosa insisted he will take personal responsibility for L.A. schools, but Romer – in his toughest remarks yet – said draft legislation shows the mayor’s deal would undercut gains in student achievement and send the nation’s second-largest district spiraling out of control.

“I’m concerned about the level of power the union would have. … This turns over massive tools of change to the union,” Romer said.

“If passed, this bill would transfer that power to the union to control curriculum at a site-based level. This is a very serious mistake and one the mayor and unions bought off on because they’re trying to serve each other’s interests.”

The mayor’s key education adviser defended the deal negotiated late Tuesday behind closed doors with United Teachers Los Angeles and the California Teachers Association, long one of the most powerful and biggest-spending lobbying groups in Sacramento.

“Yes, this was a negotiation between the mayor and the teachers union, and yes, as in most negotiations, each side gave up things that they wanted, but there was no giving of additional power to the teachers union,” said Thomas Saenz, counsel to the mayor. (LA Daily News 6/23/06)

I think the proper balance of power for LAUSD is still in the air.  The expirement of mayoral takeover has been mildly successful elsewhere, but in a city as diverse as L.A., success is by no means guaranteed.