Links:

• Sen. Mark Leno’s Harvey Milk Day Bill has once again passed the Legislature. It will now go through to the Governor, who has already vetoed it once.

• Meh: Another Commission that will likely end up with nothing: Joint Reform Commission. Mark DeSaulnier, fresh off the campaign trail, and Mike Feuer will co-chair it. And as a bonus, it feeds into the right-wing canard that government is wasteful. Sure, not as wasteful as banks and AIG-type companies who give out massive bonuses. But you know, really wasteful. Check the video –>

• Shane Goldmacher has some serious power around the capitol. His article in the LA Times got the vote delayed on a $9 million PR contract for the HSR board. More over at Robert’s HSR Blog.

• While the recall effort for Alyson Huber has stalled, that of Asm. Anthony Adams appears to be “on track.”

• The US Forest Service had permits to clear brush near the Station Fire zone in the Angeles National Forest for months, but only managed to deal with 193 out of 1,700 acres.  As it turns out, this highly flammable brush gave fuel to the fire.  Right-wing LA Supervisor Mike Antonovich blamed “environmentalists” for preventing controlled burns.

• California’s university system may be starved of funding, but the UC system still had the top three schools in the Washington Monthly’s annual college rankings.  Congrats to Berkeley, UC-San Diego and UCLA.

• Good luck trying to widen the redistricting mandate to Congressional districts.  Speaker Pelosi will never allow it, and the nominal Democratic support – and lack of much opposition – to Prop. 11 barely allowed that measure to squeak by.  My (Dave’s) personal view on this, as I’ve said for a while, is that redistricting is a total red herring, and if someone wants to show me how to redistrict Bakersfield or Santa Monica or the Bay Area without it turning into re-gerrymandering, they can show me that plan.

Links

• An LA Stadium proposal is bouncing around the Legislature. Apparently the developer is trying to get around environmental and other complaints from the Town of Walnut.

• The Assembly passed a resolution calling on Barack Obama and Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.  It drew 47 out of 49 Democratic votes, too (Anthony Portantino, Mike Davis and Anna Caballero abstained or were absent from the vote; independent Juan Arambula voted yes).  On this issue, California Democrats stood basically firm.

• John Burton tossed out the name of Richard Riordan to replace Lt. Gov. John Garamendi. He’d likely cruise through the leg, especially if he says he doesn’t plan on running again. I’m not sure if I would want the job if I were him though.

• You may remember Howard Kaloogian, he was the Republican running for the Duke-Stir’s seat in CA-50 who in 2006 claimed he had been to Iraq and saw everything was fine, and as photographic proof passed off pictures of Istanbul, Turkey.  Not that you were the least bit interested in what he’s doing now, but he and other California GoOPers are funding the Tea Party Express tour.  That makes perfect sense.

• This supposed “recall” of Alyson Huber has now stalled twice.  Even should Democrats fail, we can always count on the fact that the Yacht Party is filled to bursting with incompetents.

• More news from the right-wing freak-out: a bunch of gun nuts took their firearms to an Escondido mall and scared the crap out of everybody.  For freedom!

• Another indication that California Democrats aren’t quite pleased with the field of candidates for the governor gig: Steve Westly is once again denying that he is going to enter the race

• Jerry Brown’s plans, you ask?  He hasn’t technically entered the race, so he’s going to retreat to a monastery for a few weeks to “consider my options.”  Um.

• eMeg made a rare audible appearance.  

Just a bit more from a day in state politics:

• The Station Fire moved to the west today, and is still raging, having burned 74 homes to this point.  Mount Wilson remains threatened as well.  Yesterday, two firemen died when their vehicle fell off a hillside in the Angeles National Forest.

• The Assembly passed their half a prison bill today, but Darrell Steinberg cautioned that the measure was “not a complete package.”  Calitics will have more on this tomorrow.

• Good news in LA, as the Board of Supervisors has vowed to test every rape kit in the large backlog, and funding that testing completely by expanding staff.

• Is Arnold Schwarzenegger floating a bag tax to fund recycling efforts?  You may remember that it went down to defeat last year.  It’s amusing to see Arnold scrambling around to find things to tax, given his stance during the budget talks.  Some would call it “hypocritical.”

• Employees of the State Compensation Insurance Fund are exempt from furloughs and due back pay with interest, according to a superior court judge’s ruling today.

May you have an interesting weekend:

• Attorney General Jerry Brown is getting involved in the Michael Jackson homicide case.  That seems perfectly sensible and needed.

• Northern California lawmakers would rather get Brown to pay some attention to Sutter Health’s business practices, which could threaten the San Leandro hospital’s ER.

• Rep. Dennis Cardoza is pushing hard for federal relief in the Central Valley, calling his district an “economic disaster area.”  Obviously the threat of a half-decent challenger in 2010 is making him do some extra leg work, but Cardoza is representing his district here.  And clearly, the Central Valley faces unique challenges at this time.

• This is GOTV weekend for the CA-10 primary.  Howie Klein talks about his support of Anthony Woods.  Calitics has not made an endorsement in this race.

Sorry for the down time today. We had some problems with our server that have since been resolved. Thanks for bearing with us. Now, to the links.

• The state tax brackets are shifting down this year. Every year, the brackets are adjusted for inflation. However, this year we had deflation, so they will be shifted down about 1.3%. The media is going around calling this a tax increase. It’s no more a tax increase than the inflationary shifts are tax cuts. This is a measure of the real value of a dollar. Taxes are staying the same, but far be it from me to prevent the media from whipping up a frenzy amongst the right-wingers. Don’t worry, the story is already ablaze amongst the Freepers.

• Maybe they can take a look at the fact that furloughing state workers at the tax and equalization boards is leading to up to $1 billion dollars in lost revenue because the agencies cannot keep up with the workload.  But the idea that government has to actually employ people to run properly does not compute, I guess.

• California’s High Broderist George Skelton lays it on thick for California Backward. What’s not to love? A plan that will shift blame to the Democrats without the accompanying power? Sounds great to me.  Toss in the overturning of the Sinclair Paints decision to make it more difficult to raise revenue through fees? Yeah, that sounds like just what we need right now.

• Tony Strickland acknowledges that he’s rather corrupt-like. He’s supporting a policy of banning candidate’s family members from taking a slice of political contributions for acting as fundraisers. Shockingly, Strickland and his wife Audra did this. But, It’s OK If You Are a Republican.

• Michael Hiltzik on Carly Fiorina: She’s not very good at politics, so she’ll run on business. She’s not very good at that, but, boy, is she “fabulous.”

• John Garamendi has a podcast out on research (MP3).  

Links:

• A while back, a former UCLA chancellor named Charles Young filed a suit to reverse the 30 year-old 2/3 requirement for tax increases, claiming that its enactment as part of Prop. 13 violated the single subject rule.  The State Supreme Court today dismissed the suit without comment.

• Oh noes! I (Brian) think I might agree with Abel Maldonado. The GOP is thinking about barring Decline to State voters from their primaries. In sheer electoral terms, that would be some colossal stupid. So, GOP, go for it.

• Dan Walters has a perceptive column today, arguing that tying teacher evaluations with student performance “could evolve into simplistic fingerpointing unless it’s done fairly and contextually.”  There are so many variables with student performance – in particular (but not limited to) the expanding class sizes, rise in state poverty and the slashing of the social safety net – that such data must be carefully circumscribed.  The Obama/Duncan plan for education reform has multiple blind spots.

• The Cal Fire Chief was arrested on DUI charges.  He did apologize, however.

• Timm Herdt points out to the legislators that the federal court isn’t really kidding. You really have to reduce prison population, and it has to be sooner rather than later.  Playing the same old ToughOnCrime Games isn’t going to work this time.

• Federal judges are not pinpointing the state prison system, either; the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the Federal Bureau of Prisons cannot exclude violent criminals from sentence reductions for completing rehabilitation programs, mainly because officials have given no rationale for such a policy.

• CalBuzz makes some funnies in their “Dr. Hackenflack” column.

• The BART labor strife is finally over as the last union approved the contract.

Links:

• CashCall got a call today. And not one that they really wanted to answer, as they were slapped with a $1 million fine and an injunction against their rather outrageous debt collection practices.  I guess this means Gary Coleman will have to find another gig?

• Not California, but just something of note. People at a McCain town hall booed him when he said that President Obama believed in the Constitution and his policies. (h/t Pam’s House Blend Nice crowd there –>

• This is absolutely nuts. Apparently the US Chamber of Commerce thinks they know more about climate change than the Nobel Prize awarded IPCC. They want to do a “Scopes” type trial for the evidence of global warming as a function of man-made pollution.  I don’t know if they remember how this turned out. Sure, Scopes lost and was convicted, but the evolutionary theorists won the war. Sort of, anyway, until modern day creationists decided that their dreams were a better means of evidence than the scientific method, but that’s neither here nor there.

• Mike Berryhill, a cousin of Assembly members Bill and Tom Berryhill, is planning on running against Dennis Cardoza in the 18th Congressional District. I can’t say Cardoza is my favorite Congress critter, and I would wish he would sign the Health Care for America Now pledge, but Berryhill would be no improvement. Given the two options, Cardoza seems the better option. His lifetime Progressive Punch score of 84.17 could be better, but could be worse too. And Berryhill’s would certainly be worse.

• Good Streetsblog post, arguing that high speed rail dollars should basically go to California, because we’re far ahead on preparation and the proper density for HSR to work.

• CalBuzz calls out the Wall Street Journal for some sloppy reporting.  It looks like they are taking to this blogging thing after all: media criticism and random celebrity pictures in one post? The next thing we’ll be seeing is the LOLcatz.

• Shocklingly, Orange Couny birther/dentist/attorney Orly Taitz isn’t a very good attorney. Her lawsuit trying to disqualify Barack Obama for the presidency is procedurally deficient again.  I’m sure here courtroom skills will wow the judge nonetheless, I know she won over Stephen Colbert.

To the links:  

• San Francisco district attorney, and Attorney General candidate, Kamala Harris was in DC today to talk about gangs and gang violence protection.

• More from Carla Marinucci: Ron Nehring is doing his level best to attack McCain-Feingold. Because corporations need to express themselves too, and ol’ Ron hates to see a monolithic corporation pseudo-person held down.

• CalPERS says that it won’t start taking big gambles to recover losses from the recession.

• Dan Walters has a good column on the devestating appellate decision that gives even more teeth to the already odious Costa-Hawkins Act.  Costa-Hawkins says that new rental units cannot have rent control. The latest decision says that cities cannot require developers to include a certain number of below market units.  This is a huge blow to affordable housing activists, and really to the state in a time of a housing crisis.  Costa-Hawkins should be reformed under a more progressive Legislature and a Democratic Governor come 2011.  However, it is hard to be confident that it will happen given the balance of political power between developers and renters.  And by the way, Jim Costa is still a Democratic Congressman from the Central Valley.

• California students are leaving high schools and entering universities unprepared to face the rigors of the coursework there.  And should they get to college, the fees keep rising, multiple times in the same school year, even.  That’s why some CSU students are suing the state, claiming that the second fee hike in the same school year amounts to a breach of contract.  This bears watching.

• California finds itself off of Moody’s bond-rating watch list, but that’s hardly a ringing vote of confidence for our economic future.  Meanwhile, the bond ratings themselves have not upgraded, showing how Wall Street eked out more interest payments from California even though the odds of getting paid back were never in doubt.

• Lots of empty office space in San Jose and across the state.

Some links for the weekend:

• Henry Waxman held a town hall meeting on health care today at UCLA.  There were about 400 supporters of reform and maybe a dozen opponents.  Which is why you’ll never hear a thing about it, or see it on the evening news.  But here’s some documentary evidence.

• Arnold is signing car sun visors before the cars go out for auction, apparently in an effort to fetch more money. It’s tough to even comment on this, but perhaps he can sell that big knife too.

• Just in case you wanted 5,000 words or so on why Carly Fiorina is such a farce of a candidate, Media Matters provides.  This is the oppo document to end all oppo documents.

• Sen. Yee’s SB 242,  civil rights bill to allow Californians the right to speak whatever language they prefer in a place of business, was passed with 47 votes in the Assembly. It will now go to the Governor for a questionable future. Yee says the bill comes out of the move by the women’s golf tour (LPGA) to suspend players who do not speak English. There are exceptions when required for the nature of the business, but notice is required.

• Care to find out how the military industrial complex got so big? Well, check this, President Obama and SecDef Gates say they do not need any more C-17 planes from Boeing. Apparently they are good with the ones they have. But, Boeing has its jobby tentacles to practically every state in the country, and the zero order could cost over 30,000 jobs, including 5,000 in Long Beach.  So, our two Senators are going to bat for getting the planes back in the Defense Appropriations Bill, despite the Pentagon not wanting any more.  Really, isn’t there some more efficient method of creating jobs than producing tools of war that the military doesn’t even want?

Links:

• Rancho Santa Margarita is a lovely suburban town with a wingnutty City Council as you’ll ever find. Check out this little faux pas. The RSM City Council sent the President a letter calling on him to cut it out with the “Socialized Medicine.” I guess what’s good for the goose isn’t so good for the gander, as they are digging on their government provided health care plan that costs the City $83K over the fiscal year.

• It looks like San Diego may well lose another superintendent, this to Houston. “America’s Finest City” has had something of party up top, with nobody sticking around too long.

• Anthony Wright discusses some key health care bills going through the legislature in the next few weeks, including some pretty good insurance market reforms.

• Asm. Hector de la Torre asked for an audit of the Regional Center system. It is a quasi-governmental body that assists developmentally disabled Californians purchase services. However, the agency is not subject to state whistleblower laws, and there have been some speculation about retaliation against workers who call out waste in the system.

• Anthony Woods snagged the endorsement from the Bay Area Reporter in the CA-10 primary September 1, and given the BAR’s slant to the LGBT community, this isn’t much of a surprise.

• The area around Sebastopol produces some really good Gravenstein appples. Yummy! Unfortunately, the numbers of the trees are dwindling, causing some folks to worry that they might disappear forever. So, a group of food preservationists and slow food folks have been marketing the apple to the greater Sonoma area.  Next time you are in the area, you should definitely grab a few pounds of the Gravensteins and taste what people are so worried about disappearing.

• You want to see what a health care crisis really looks like? Well, after a slew of community health care clinics close down, it won’t be so tough to visualize.  3 of the clinics have closed down over the past month, and a large group are in desperate conditions.  These clinics serve rural and other underserved communities, regardless of their ability to pay. The bulk loss of these facilities will be tragic for the state.

• Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter) wants to extend the non-tribal card playing monopoly for the current card rooms for another five years. I guess it’s not really that shocking considering Florez has received over $150K from card room interests.  Ah, monied politics, you really have to um, hate it.  That is not to say that adding new card rooms or other gambling facilities is a good idea, just that money is too big of a player in our system.