It’s spring break in Sacramento, so there’s not much left to report, but here’s a little…

• It was mentioned before, but John Garamendi is reportedly “checking out” the CA-10 race, which to me makes perfect sense.  Garamendi’s knowledge base and his experience in Washington would probably make him an excellent Congressman.  However, for the moment Garamendi is still a candidate for Governor, and he recently hired former liberal talk radio host Peter B. Collins as a “messaging and communications consultant.”  Interesting hire.

• The showdown between Antonio Villaraigosa and local unions continues, with the Mayor demanding concessions or the prospect of 2,800 layoffs.  This is going to be an ugly battle, necessitated by a nearly $1 billion dollar deficit.  

• Californians have significantly lowered gas use, and the economists cited in the piece offer the correct rationale – the unemployed have less reason to drive.  Now would be the perfect opportunity to create a host of public transit options that could attract residents before an economic upswing puts people back on the roads again, but of course, we’re cutting all transit operations budgets, despite increases in mass transit use.

• Arnold’s pro-Special election campaign sent out an email highlighting Tom Campbell’s support.  Unfortunately, they didn’t mention that Campbell opposes 1B and 1C.  Oops.

• Alyson Huber is carrying two bills that would increase public transparency in campaign finance and lobbying records.  Sounds good to me.  All contributors and lobbying sessions should be public.

• And going by Stephen Colbert logic, the number one threat to America is now the hallway to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office inside the Capitol, because the Governor just placed an 800-pound bronze bear there.  These godless killing machines will be sure to chew up visiting dignitaries and any wayward lawmakers acting in contravention of the Chamber of Commerce’s dictates.  This is the Threat Down!

It's Spring Break!  Do you think all the legislators are off doing Spring Breaky things?  Drinking too much Anchor Steam and fine California zinfadels?  Well, wherever they may be, I'm sure they are having a blast.  Let's head to the links.

• Jude Barry, fresh off the Garamendi for Guv campaign, says that Silicon Valley will be huge in the contest. He compares all the candidates to Silicon Valley companies.  Shockingly, Whitman is eBay.
• 3,100 immigrant workers in the construction industry won a major settlement against their employers for labor violations, including wage and hour concerns.  The settlement comes to $8.5 million dollars.
• The SacBee compares our three year-long drought to Australia’s Millennium Drought.  Their survival plan offers a hint for what can happen here.
• Gov. Schwarzenegger hired Laura Chick, LA City Controller, to watch the stimulus funds.  Chick is a great person and all, but don't we have somebody for this job in the first place?  You know, the state auditor.  I know Auditor Elaine Howie is all busy making up rules for the redistricting commission, but watching the money coming into the state is really the point of her gig. Plus, you know, the state already has an elected controller, John Chiang, who does this type of thing too.  Boy, does he know how to blow up the boxes, doesn't he?
• The Screen Actors Guild and the studios are apparently getting close to a deal.  There were a lot of concerns of another strike, so good news is very welcome in Hollywood.
• You probably heard about IBM pulling its offer for Sun, but don't count this deal out yet.  There's not a whole lot of other competition for Sun, but the fit with IBM makes a lot of sense.
• With the passing of Dick O'Neill, who lead the state party in the pre-Jerry Brown days, Bill Cavala looks back at the era before professionalization of the CDP. O'Neill brought new ideas, like direct mail, to the CDP while reaching out to new areas of the state.

(Sorry, guys, I wrote this one, as well as any “Open Thread” comment.  I forget to log out sometimes…

– promoted by David Dayen)

State Democrats are buzzing about this weekend’s Carla Marinucci article entitled “California Dems target 8 GOP districts”, which claims that Republican voter registration is dropping fast, providing a major opportunity to pick up Congressional seats in 2010.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted 35 districts across the country represented by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives – including eight in California – that were won by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, said Jennifer Crider, the committee spokeswoman.

The Democrats plan increased appeals to voters in those areas and will make aggressive efforts to recruit Democratic candidates to run against the Republican incumbents, she said […]

The vulnerable California districts with Republican representatives that were won by Obama are those of Reps. Dan Lungren of Gold River (Sacramento County), Mary Bono-Mack of Palm Springs, David Dreier of San Dimas (Los Angeles County), Elton Gallegly of Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), Brian Bilbray of Solana Beach (San Diego County), John Campbell of Newport Beach (Orange County), Ken Calvert of Riverside and Howard “Buck” McKeon of Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), the committee says.

It would be nice if I thought any of this would work.  First of all, the registration changes didn’t just spring up in December 2008.  These trends have been occurring for some time, and were all present during the last election.  Despite this, we had a candidate in CA-25 (McKeon) who spent less than $10,000 or her entire campaign.  The candidate in CA-24 (Gallegly) won her primary because of her ballot designation and without spending any significant money.  (By the way, CA-25 is now the seat held by the GOP with the closest registration gap between Republicans and Democrats in the whole state.  Did you know that?)   In the races where we managed to compete, our candidates significantly underperformed the top of the ticket, and in most cases underperformed Barbara Boxer’s performance in 2004, when a less dominant John Kerry was at the top of the ticket.

I don’t think there are that many other people who have followed California congressional races closer than I have, and I have to say that we simply suck at elections in these kinds of races out here in California.  The state party is dysfunctional at best and downright criminal at worst.  Put it this way: we had the same chance to win all these seats in 2008.  Nate Silver, making a separate point, provides a list of the 30 districts where Obama won between 50 and 52 percent of the vote.  As you’ll see, we did extremely well in those seats, except for in California.

Barack Obama won 51 percent of the vote in NY-20 on November 4th. How did congressional candidates perform in other districts where he received between, say, 50 and 52 percent of the vote? Again, we see essentially an even split; Republicans won 16 of 30 such districts and Democrats won 14:

Won by Republicans (16): CA-24, CA-25, CA-26, CA-44, CA-45, CA-50, FL-10, FL-18, MI-4, MN-3, NE-2, NJ-7, NY-23, VA-4, WI-1, WI-6

Won by Democrats (14): FL-22, KS-3, MI-1, MI-7, MN-1, NC-2, NJ-3, NY-1, NY-19, NY-20*, NY-24, TX-23, VA-2, WA-3

Winning percentage in these seats in states other than CA: 58.3%

Winning percentage in CA: 0.0%

By the way, the other two districts not mentioned above that are now being “targeted”?  CA-03 (Lungren) was 49-49 Obama, and CA-48 (Campbell) was also 49-49 Obama.  Heck, even CA-46 was only 50-48 McCain.  Obama got 46% in CA-19 (Radanovich), where there was no Democratic candidate, and 47% in CA-40 (Royce).

Some would argue that, properly resourced, these seats would suddenly become very winnable.  I give you CA-50, where Nick Leibham consistently beat Brian Bilbray in fundraising and maxed out at the 45% ceiling on Democrats in that district.

CA-44 is somewhat winnable because Bill Hedrick came close in ’08 and is running again.  We lost our best candidate in CA-03, Bill Durston, and everywhere else, I’m just extremely dubious, because the state party has systematically psyched itself out of winning these seats (thanks to the Faustian bargain of incumbency-protected gerrymandering designed by… imminent state party chair John Burton), and the commitment at the national level has been known to wane.  We’ve left dozens of winnable elections on the table the past two cycles, dramatically underperforming the nation.  A little DCCC money won’t change that.

Enjoy your weekend, and that is a direct order.  Some items:

• The Obama Administration is finalizing the formulas for how much stimulus money will get delivered to each state, and based on my press releases from the White House, it looks like so far, we’re getting $42 million dollars from the Dept. of Transportation to fund airport repairs across the state, $48 million from HHS to expand and support community health centers, and $351 million in block grants from the Dept. of Energy to support energy efficiency measures.  This last part includes retrofits of community buildings, projects to capture methane from landfills, and financial incentives for weatherization and efficiency projects.  Further, the Obama budget would provide direct college aid to 27,547 additional students if passed with current language.

• In other White House news, on May 16 First Lady Michelle Obama will deliver the very first commencement address at UC-Merced, which opened in 2005.  Hopefully that will be all right with Darrell Issa.

• In CA-32 news, Judy Chu received a few endorsements.  She earned the support of the League of Conservation Voters.  Then the California Teachers Association endorsed, though given their financial commitment to Prop. 1B it’s unclear whether the endorsement will come with any resources.  The other was from Baldwin Park Unified School District Board President Blanca Rubio, who had previously announced as a candidate.  She dropped out and endorsed Chu.

• Southern California Reps. Howard Berman and Lucille Roybal-Allard introduced this year’s version of the DREAM Act in the House, which would offer a path to permanent residency for undocumented students who have spent most of their lives in this country, and would like to apply for college or serve their country in the military.  These are good quotes by Berman:

“It makes no sense to me,” said Berman, “that we maintain a system that brings in thousands of highly-skilled foreign guest workers each year to fill a gap in our domestic workforce, and at the same time do nothing to provide an opportunity to kids who have grown up here, gone to school here, and want to prepare themselves for these jobs or serve their country in the military.  This is the illogical outcome of our current immigration laws that the Dream Act will fix.”

“The issues addressed in the American Dream Act”, continued Berman, “are just a fraction of the problems in our immigration system.  This bill came about because our immigration laws are, and have been for some time, broken.  It is my great hope that we will put together a comprehensive immigration reform package that includes the Dream Act as it was introduced today, and it is my intention to work for and pass that comprehensive immigration reform package this year.”

• Please read Charles Lemos’ amazing post about recent events in Oakland.  And by the way, the Modesto Bee Ed Board gets it completely wrong – the fact that Lovelle Mixon responded violently because he missed a parole meeting doesn’t argue for more stringent parole, it argues for a less insane system where parolees don’t feel like hopeless fugitives because they miss one meeting.

• This is completely embarrassing work by the LA Times.  Apparently they’ve fired all the headline writers or something.

• John Myers is up again with your second favorite California politics podcast. This week he and Anthony York discuss the special election amongst other topics.

• CalPERS wants a better deal on its hedge fund investments. They are demanding lower rates and more transparency from funds in which the massive pension fund invests in.

• OC Progressive has more than you need to know about Rep. John Campbell and his friends the Ponzi schemers, including Asm. Diane Harkey.

It's Thursday, so that means, well, it's the day before Friday. So let's get to the links:

• Dave mentioned the PPIC poll this morning, which foretold doom for the special election props, but also in there was a question about marriage. The results were not particularly inspiring. Apparently, we are backsliding in support.  By a margin of 49-44, Californians now oppose marriage equality.
• One of the budget gimmicks the Legislature used to close the deficit (or well, slightly alleviate it is a better word I suppose) was the sale of surplus state property. John Myers has a look at the state auditor's report that signals we may not actually be able to get all that much money into the general fund from the property.
• Sen. Loni Hancock has introduced a bill to track ammunition magazines for assault rifiles. The technology is fairly new, so it wasn't included in the 1999 bill to ban assault rifles, but with the attention focused on loose ammunition due to the Oakland police shootings, now seems a good time to bring this up.  The bill needs to be passed quickly, and should draw broad support.
• Speaking of assault rifles, one of the leading opponents has been our very own Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Given the other things up for debate in Congress, it's not likely to get a lot of attention, but we certainly should be considering renewing the lapsed assault weapons ban.
• A $280 million check from the feds for water projects is creating a split between rural and urban economically depressed regions.  As it stands now, rural areas would be eligibile for grants, but urban areas would only be eligible for loans.  You can guess how that is going to play out. Legislation has already passed the Senate, but the Assembly wants to amend it to make urban areas eligible for the grants.  We should get an answer in the next week or two.
• How about a little Steve Poizner news for you? Check out his NotAnotherDimeCalifornia.Com. It's as wingnutty as you would expect with that name. It's a full-throated anti-tax scream, just to make sure the primary electorate really understands his street cred. And of course, a little nudge to the nativist base. Well, I'm glad that they are all running for the Republican Governor of California, because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that they are going to kill that job well and good with their primary performances to date.
• Appellate lawyer Tracy Emblem will challenge Brian Bilbray in CA-50.  My feeling is that CA-50 is a tease of a district where Democratic candidates always peter out at 45-46%, but Obama did beat McCain there, so theoretically a better candidate could yield results.  Emblem is focusing on, and this will floor you, health care, infrastructure and clean energy!  She also is calling for bankruptcy courts to be able to cram down loan modifications on the lenders.  Hopefully we’ll be able to bring you more from Tracy Emblem in the coming months.  The article announcing her candidacy is here and her website is here.
• Have I mentioned lately that Darrell Issa is a dick?  His latest move is to “regulate the first lady,” which has nothing to do with the public interest and everything to do with embarrassing the President.
• Maria Shriver was on Capitol Hill yesterday, pushing for increases in Alzheimer’s research.  The hearing was the result of a bipartisan study into the disease and the exorbitant cost of treating it currently.
• That Fran Pavley is back on greenhouse gas patrol working to reduce emissions should be a breath of fresh air, literally, for every Californian.  She’s currently digging into how the state will use the money likely to be gained by auctioning carbon credits under AB 32.