Daily Archives: December 27, 2006

California

McNerney Staffs Up

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Congressman-elect Jerry McNerney has staffed up and says, “I believe this is the most talented and experienced team I could have assembled to serve the needs of our community and bring about real change in Washington.”

Full team after the jump and feel free to jump in the comments with your thoughts.

Erich Pfuehler, the recent California Director of Clean Water Action and former Chief of Staff to Representative David Bonior (D-MI) will be his Chief of Staff located in the district.

Angela Kouters, a political staffer at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and former aide to Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC) will serve as DC Chief of Staff in Washington.

Additionally, Nick Holder will be joining the staff as Legislative Director after having served for several years as a Senior Legislative Assistant to Congressman Tim Bishop (D-NY).

Andy Stone has been tapped to fill the role of Communication Director. Most recently, Stone has worked as a communications strategist at M + R Strategic Services consulting on the Angelides for Governor campaign.

McNerney has chosen Angel Picon as his Regional District Director based out of the Stockton office.

Also joining the staff in Washington, D.C. are Tobin Dietrich, Teresa Frison and Andreas Mueller serving as Legislative Assistant, Scheduler and Legislative Aide, and Staff Assistant, respectively.

H/T to Lisa Vorderbrueggen.

Uncategorized

SJ Merc editorial

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The Merc published an editorial on global warming, (climate change, whatever) and boy was it a strong one.  The title? Climate change at crisis level. A snippet:

Global warming is the greatest environmental threat that humanity has ever faced.

Caused mainly by the unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by automobiles and industries, the rise in temperature is already starting to melt the polar ice caps and disrupt weather patterns.

The potential consequences for California are dire. At current rates of warming, state researchers project that the sea level will rise as much as three feet by the end of the century, flooding many low-lying areas and tainting important sources of fresh water like the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Higher temperatures will drastically shrink the Sierra snowpack that stores much of our water. They will increase smog, boost the risk of wildfires and upset California’s vital agricultural industries.

Go check it out, it’s pretty good.  But boy oh boy, Dan Walters at the Merc’s (UPDATE:  former) sister publication, the Sacramento Bee, will not be pleased with this one.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California

The disappearing fractured governor

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I’m sure Arnold’s fractured leg was painful for him, but it apparently also got the press talking about something that we’ve mentioned in the past: his frequent absenteeism. (e.g. here, here, and here).  From today’s LA Times:

Schwarzenegger fractured his femur Saturday while skiing on Bald Mountain in Sun Valley, Idaho – one of many out-of-state trips the governor has made without public notice. The episode focused renewed attention on Schwarzenegger’s continuing quest to keep his private life out of the public eye – standard procedure for a movie star but unusual for a sitting governor.

Indeed, as Arnold-pal Pat O’Brien (yeah, he of Extra or whatever stupid celeb-watching show) says, “Arnold lives life to its fullest”.  The question is whether Arnold is a good example for the young people of this state.  He rides, without a proper license, on motorcycles (with his 12-year-old son).  And while this doesn’t seem like a daredevil ski accident, it also seems a bizarre incident for the governor of the 5th largest economy in the world.  While I don’t have specific reason to doubt the governor’s story on the incident, it just highlights how Governor Schwarzenegger has made this job into something of a side-business. 

More over the flip…

But now the press has noticed this habit as well.  According to Cruz’s records, Arnold has been out of state 18% of his 1136 days in office.  As a comparison, Gray Davis was out of state just 6% of the almost 1800 days that he was in office.  And sure, Arnold does go on a lot of trade missions to China, etc.  But the Times notes that state business is not his only reason for leaving the state:

Though Schwarzenegger has often been away as part of his job, he has also gone to Nevada and Ohio for bodybuilding competitions that had no connection to state business.

Locating the governor can be a game of cat and mouse. In 2004, Schwarzenegger addressed the Republican National Convention in New York. Aides said he was returning afterward to California. Instead, he veered off to Sun Valley. No one from his staff announced that his itinerary had changed.

In August 2005, he made a trip to the Bahamas that was never announced.

And oh yeah, in 2004 he went to campaign for George W. Bush. (But we knew that from the CDP’s commercial). And on this trip he only told the press that he would have no public appearances Dec 23-25, but it turns out that he told Cruz that he would be gone Dec 22 to Jan 1.  I don’t begrudge anybody a holiday season vacation, but let’s be honest with the people of California.

Whether justified or not, the question of what exactly he is doing out of state so often will arise with all of this secrecy.  But don’t the people of California deserve to know when their Governor finds it more important to be judging bodybuilding competitions or running bodybuilding magazines than doing the job that he was elected to do.

Arnold Scwarzenegger called for the legislature to be made part-time a few years ago.  And perhaps that’s how he treats his own job. But shouldn’t the people of California know when our 80% of a governor is otherwise engaged?