It would be really great to do a totally environmental open thread today, but this is California politics so there’s a lot going on:
• Let’s start with news from the environment, specifically water issues. The state is making a big issue of water conservation. Santa Rosa is running out of water, so they’ll be hitting big users hard.
• A Lancaster facility is aiming to make fuel from trash.
• We’ve been focusing on Jane Harman, but DiFi has some ‘splainin to do in her own right.
• The one-day legislature pay hike story just proves once again that Sacramento doesn’t do politics very well. Clearly the public was primed to erupt at any talk of pay increases for legislative staff in the midst of this recession. I don’t agree that you have to hold people hostage (has every pay raise in the state in every industry been frozen?), but those are the political realities. Karen Bass and the legislature ignored those realities in the midst of a special election, which speaks very poorly on their political acumen. Speaker Bass’ speech to the right.
• Greg Lucas gets an interview with outgoing LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. He’s running for AG, and has to answer to some charges related to using office money for personal use.
• The Topeka Crazies are protesting Corona Del Mar High School’s production of Rent. The title of the article begins with “God Hates Corona Del Mar”.
I’m uncomfortable with what Karen Bass said in taking these pay raises back. She didn’t say they were given in error. She didn’t say the state can’t afford them. She said they were being canceled because they were interfering with the campaign for the propositions.
I would think even people who don’t particularly like public employees would understand that when setting their wages, there are factors that should be considered, such as work level, comparable jobs, the condition of state finances, the condition of the economy, etc. But one thing that should not be a factor is whether it helps somebody pass a proposition or not.
One day earlier, she said these raises were long overdue, and strongly deserved on merit. Then the very next day, she canceled them because they had become politically inconvenient. Unfortunately, this sequence of events sends two messages: (1) something is fishy about the claims of a state budget crisis, or else these would never have been adopted in the first place; and (2) the current leadership of the Assembly thinks it’s okay to cut people’s wages, not for reasons of merit or fiscal necessity, but simply to create an image in a political campaign.