• While many of us are frequently miffed at Rep. Cardoza, he does deserve some credit for the takedown of Rep. Foxx’s ridiculous claims that it was Republicans who passed the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. See the video.

• The UC fee hikes went final. A sad day for the Master Plan. While it’s not necessarily the fault of the regents, the questions about how to pay for higher education in California seems increasingly likely to be answered as “the student pays.”

• Yay for Carly Fiorina! She got the endorsement of Sen. Jim Inhofe, you know the guy who runs around denying climate change.

• Good News/Bad News from LA County: Hate Crimes overall are down, but hate crimes against the LGBT community are up.

• Mayor Gavin Newsom is a little peeved with the SF press. SF press dutifully reports it.

• John Garamendi got his committee assignement: Science & Technology and Transportation & Infrastructure.

• Fun times with web video from CalBuzz.

• Rep. Xavier Beccera got into a bit of trouble with Speaker Pelosi about comments on giving up on the robust public option.

• Hey, the New York times took some interest in the California’s governors race to … notice that Hollywood supports the Democrat. A big revelation for its readers, I’m sure. Nary a look at the polcies of any of the candidates in the story, but J.J. Abrams gave some money to Jerry Brown, so headlines must ensue.

• Ron Dellums tenure as Oakland mayor has been tumultuous, to put it mildly. He’s now dealing with a scandal involving failing to report a trip to South Africa.

• Joe Mathews argues the biggest beneficiary of a contested Democratic primary would be Meg Whitman. This analysis doesn’t include Brown’s issues with generating enthusiasm among the Democratic base, something a contested primary could resolve.

Links:

• Some news from CALPERS: They will tighten rules on disclosure to “placement agents.” They are also thinking of allowing “salesman” to now pitch them directly.

• There is some dispute over whether Asm. Bill Emerson is eligible to run to replace Sen John Benoit in the 37th Senate seat.

• Tom Campbell made some funnies at an appearance in Sacramento. Apparently, he’s in fact not a fantastically wealthy soup heir.

• Some good news from the Port of LA, shipping is up.

• The 405 widening project in OC is causing some concern since LA County isn’t going to match the widening, repeating the bottleneck effect experienced on I-5 at the LA/OC line. The real issue here isn’t just that OC is still in the 1960s when it comes to transportation planning, but the absence of state funding for big projects leaves it up to counties, producing regional problems like this.

• The recession is hitting California’s migrant communities so hard that families are sending remittances from Mexico to the US instead of the other way around, despite the fact that Mexico’s economy isn’t exactly strong. Further sign that North America is a much more integrated society and economy than the artificial borders would have us believe – and further sign that the “immigrants” are actually intending to make the US their home. More power to ’em, I (Robert) say, literally and figuratively.

• Dan Walters finds it amusing that we “young” folks at Calitics are annoyed by Jerry Brown’s weathervane theory of politics, where he just blows with the prevailing winds. I don’t think Brown is going to find it very amusing when the progressive base isn’t motivated to turn out for him in November 2010.

Congratulations to Laurence Zakson and Becca Doten on their DNC wins over the weekend. Now, to the links:

• A What to Do and What Not to Do for medical marijuana dispensary policy. [West Hollywood has built a sustainable and uncontroversial program, while Los Angeles is still struggling to come up with anything resembling a working policy.

• John Wildermuth politely asks Dianne Feinstein to share her plan for the state budget, at least as long as she is going to toy with the idea of running for governor.

• Jerry Brown is having a huge fundraiser in Hollywood for his campaign for governor.  A note here on “exploratory campaigns” and state finance rules.  Specifically, at the state level there isn’t such a thing. His campaign account says that he’s running for governor. Might as well just announce it. Meanwhile on his facebook page, he says he will announce something next year.

• Arnold is stopping in Milan to talk about climate change on his way home from his Middle East trip. What a jet-setter, that Arnold.

• This just in–or maybe not: Chuck Devore is a birther.  Not that Devore has a choice–he needs the teabagger fringe if he’s going to beat Fiorina.  UPDATE: follow through for recently released statements from Devore dissociating himself from the birther movement.  Both ends, meet middle.  All three, meet Chuck Devore.

• Los Angeles City Councilwoman and candidate for Lieutenant Governor Janice Hahn launched her website today.  If you’re interested in learning more about Janice Hahn, check out the Calitics interview.

Links for your weekend:

• Susan Kennedy might leave the Schwarzenegger administration to shepherd the water bond through the 2010 election process. Meanwhile, Arnold is doing everything he can to explain away the $11.1 Billion pricetag of the bonds.

• While the initiative system is clearly causing some problems, the Center for Gov. Studies has an interesting point that most of the expensive ones come from the Legislature. Also of note, the most expensive measure to pass since the late 1980s? Yup, Arnold’s Prop 49 for after school programs.  Not that it’s not a worthy program, but on occasion, you have to quote the famous philospher Pogo: We have met the enemy…and he is us.

• The Whitman and Poizner campaigns are spitting back and forth about who responded or didn’t respond to calls for debates. It’s a fascinating issue for the electorate, I’m sure.

• Joel Anderson gave back $100,000 at the heart of an FPPC investigation into whether Anderson laundered money improperly though the Placer County Republican Party Central Committee.

• Milken Institute released their rankings for business climates (PDF). No California cities finished in the top ten, and Bakersfield was our top performer at # 36.

• The Capitol Notes podcast is back with KQED’s John Myers and Capitol Weekly’s Anthony York.

I (Brian) am looking forward to the CDP’s E-Board meeting; Robert will be there as well. If you are there, be sure to say hi!  Now, to the links.

• The FDIC and the state shut down United Commerical Bank. The bank caters to the Chinese community, and has been taken over by East-West Bank. East-West serves the same community from its Pasadena HQ. As a side note, United Commercial’s logo was a triangle with the Chinese character for luck.  When turned upside down, the character means uncertainty. The triangles are now upside down at many of the branches and ads around the city.

• Conveniently enough, all three GOP guv candidates are calling for Jerry Brown to appoint an independent investigator into the secret recording of conversations with reporters. I guess it doesn’t hurt that the media loves to report on itself and that the GOP candidates get to “stand up” to the likely Dem. nominee.

• Not sure what to say about this, but as the Lobbyists pretty much rule California, here’s your “meritocracy” in the form of Capitol Weekly’s Lobbyists Awards.

• CalBuzz asks if Fiorina’s strategy of ignoring Chuck DeVore is going to blow up in her face. At any rate, the GOP Sen primary should be fun.

• CalBuzz also found the video to the right of Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s purse on Politico.

Links:

• From Chuck Devore, the guy running for United States Senate: “Unlike many veterans, I have been fortunate not to see combat.  I was “officially” shot at only once; during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 (well, there was that time in Lebanon, but that wasn’t official; and I was carjacked in 1988 by Panamanian paramilitaries).” That guy is a character.

• OC Attorney (and dentist!) Orly Taitz is at it again. Apparently, she is very upset about the fact that several people that she tried to get as witnesses in her case trying to prove President Obama was not born in the US filed affidavits saying that she tried to get them to lie in the court.  Hopefully the State Bar will take up the case of Ms. Taitz. This conduct is egregious; we can’t have lawyers suborning purjury.

• Timm Herdt takes a look at the LG selection through the prism of offshore drilling. Garamendi was a strong opponent of drilling from that perch, but a replacement is unlikely to have such objections. This could make a big difference as the State Lands Commission might flip to supportive of drilling under a Schwarzenegger appointment.

• Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office ruled that the actions of their former colleague, Scott Gerber, were not illegal. Gerber has been embroiled in controversy after admitting to recording phone calls with reporters without their permission.

• Michela Alioto-Pier, San Francisco Supervisor and 1998 Secretary of State Dem. nominee, got a big endorsement: former Vice President Al Gore. She has very little name recognition, but neither do the two Assembly members  in the race, Dave Jones and Hector De La Torre. Also,as the only announced female candidate in a three-way race, she gets a demographic boost.  That might end up being a pretty interesting primary.

• A federal judge has cleared the way for a lawsuit against former Bush legal aide and UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo based upon his memos to authorize torture. Yoo’s lawyers say that it will open a flood of litigation against Bush administration officials. Perhaps that is because they took a flood of illegal actions.

Links:

• Not really, California, but I (Brian) found this so offensive that I thought it worth a mention here. As we speak, David Horowitz, the “conservative” winger at frontpagemag.com, is going around writing stories that say “The Fort Hood killings are the chickens of the left coming home to roost” because diversity is a bad thing.  According to Horowitz, we should be segregating them and going around telling people about the dangers of Islam.  As a Jew myself, this sentiment both shocks and saddens me.  How soon some Jews can forget what becomes of such McCarthyism. It never ends there.

• More on the Scott Gerber, recording phone calls story. Apparently, he recorded 6 calls after being told not to do so.

• Aww, snap. Carly Fiorina’s web team got all fancy with a new website.  It’s at CallMeBarbara.com and it goes after her request to be called Senator rather than ma’am. Apparently, it was a big outrage on the right. How dare she request to be called the title to which she won election!

• Clint Reilly, a big-time political consultant in San Francisco, has been hired by Repair California, as they try to get their broken Con-Con measures on the ballot.

• DiFi loves to people guessing, so say CalBuzz.

• OFA is having their California headquarters grand opening tomorrow in Los Angeles starting at 6pm in Los Angeles–well, technically, Culver City: 6700 S. Centinela Avenue.  A plethora of Party officials and elected officials will be speaking or in attendance.  Might be a good place to catch up with (or harass, depending on your preference) your favorite electeds.

Hey, so as you may have noticed, Calitics is a bit slow these days. With David Dayen leaving us for FireDogLake, and others of us just being busy, we haven’t had as much content on Calitics as we’d like.  So, we’d like to invite others to join us. It’s not a lucrative gig, as Calitics is a labor of love, not so much profit.  If you are interested let Brian know at brian at calitics dot com.

Now, to the links:

• The LA Times poll that has been trickling data for the last few months reveals that apparently California progressives aren’t that “disappointed” with President Obama.

• PG&E is putting on a measure on the ballot to make community choice aggregation, ie a public competitor to the power companies, more difficult by requiring votes of the people when it passes. They’ve dumped a big pot o’ money into the effort.

• John Benoit delayed his swearing-in http://blogs.pe.com/politics/2… as Supervisor to allow the special election to be combined into the June primary.

• The federal government settled a lawsuit concerning citizenship applications in SoCal, and will now have to make decisions on those applications within 6 months.

A quick reminder to all of you Android and iPhone users, check out the Calitics App, available in their respective AppStores. It’s pretty rocking!  To the Links:

• Check Speaker Bass’s video regarding the water deal –>

• Meg Whitman has already spent $19 million, and plans on spending a lot more. If her pace continues according to the normal trendline, we’re talking about a campaign that will rival the presidential campaigns from just 10 years ago. In 2000, George Bush raised $193 million and Al Gore raised $133 million. Well, I guess this will be the test of whether money can buy the governor’s race, because Whitman looks set to dump as much money as necessary.

• The AG’s office and medical marijuana advocates are trying to overturn an appeal’s court decision to invalidate the ID cards associated with the program. The interesting part is that both parties in the lawsuit are opposed to that portion of the court of appeal ruling.

• Tom Del Beccaro, a CRP bigwig, praised David Harmer, despite Harmer’s failure to get within 5 points of Garamendi. At any rate, it looks like this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Harmer. AD-15 perhaps…

• Speaking of Garamendi, Speaker Pelosi wants him in DC and sworn in for the health care vote on Friday.

• More from the Chronicle, Carla Marinucci has got VC John Doerr on the record as not being interested in running for governor.

• Republicans want a probe of the taped phone calls incident in the AG’s office.