To the links:

• A California investment firm gave kickbacks to indicted political consultant Hank Morris for help getting contracts with CalPERS and CalSTRS.

• Ted Lieu announced on Twitter his first major endorsement in his campaign for Attorney General, garnering the support of LA County Sheriff Lee Baca.  Earlier this week, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg endorsed San Francisco DA Kamala Harris in this seat.

• CA-04: Tom “Baghdad Bob” McClintock doesn’t think there’s a water crisis in the state, despite the, er, three-year drought and major loss of snowpack.  Apparently there’s water everywhere but environmental regulations don’t let us touch it.  Stupid regulations!  And the Republicans retreat into a spider hole of denial yet again.

• We sold more bonds, yay! There are a slew of stories about this, but if you recall the post about all sorts of bond news, you’ll remember that these ones are federally backed.

• RNC member and former CRP chair Shawn Steel wants Mike Villines to resign. Something about tax increases or other craziness.

• The SEIU 1000 agreement is still in trouble. No Republicans have joined the Democratic majority to get to 2/3. This is nothing but political pettiness on the part of the minority.

• Jerry Brown, still doing his current job as Attorney General, sued Wells Fargo today for $1.5 billion dollars over defrauding investors with bad advice on auction-rate securities.  That’s one way to do an economic stimulus!

• Ooh, the Governator plants trees! That’ll really drive his poll numbers up.

* The Courage Campaign is polling its members on their May 19th endorsements. Their staff is recommending No on all, except for Prop 1B, where they are neutral. That is quite similar to Calitic’s own endorsements of No on everything.

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”.

 

Calitcs has a new Twitter account! You can catch updates from Calitics right here. Here we go with the links:

•  Arnold is going to campaign for the May 19 Special election initiatives. Really, Mr. 30-something percent approval promises to be all over the state. But all you skeptics and data-people, you need to look at his info. Because apparently everybody is coming up to him in the streets and telling him they are voting yes. It's a very scientific study.
• The House leadership is requiring all members to post a list of projects they want funded in the budget on their website. Not exactly Web2.0 or anything here. It's typically buried somewhere on a very web1.0 site, you get to do the clicking around to find it. On the other side, Rep. Jackie Speier had Stanford law professor Larry Lessig review projects to submit to appropriations.
• Sacramento has slowly begun to clean out their Bushville.  Prediction: We'll be dealing with some other tent city in or near Sacramento in three months.
• Hey, did you know budget cuts hit the most vulnerable in California? Well, the Bakersfield Californian did. It's a good thing senior citizens are wise, becaused they'll need every bit of that wisdom to choose between eating and taking their meds.  All kidding aside, the dramatic effects of these cuts are just beginning to take hold. This type of story is important for the people of California to see.
• The San Francisco school board voted 6-1 to oppose Fiona Ma's AB 223 that would require SF, and only SF, to offer JROTC in high schools. Even members of the board who supported JROTC are opposing this measure due to the precedent setting effect of having the state government regulate a single school district like this.
• Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is touring the Delta, reviewing flood control projects and the water concerns for the Central Valley. Salazar has announced $260 million in stimulus spending on California water projects, which is sorely needed.
• Asm. Bill Monning has begun a video mailbox feature. He'll be answering questions weekly.

Did you finish your taxes? Better get them in, the state needs your money. Maybe toss in a tip for your favorite state employee.  Here we go with the links

•  Yahoo is laying off more workers. But the say the best comopanies of the next tech wave emerge from the recessions, so maybe we're about to see the next big thing from Silicon Valley.
• Our Congress critters aren't the best at getting federal dollars. Well, we probably knew that already, as we are a big net donor state, but now we know how bad. 49th to be exact.
• Film production in Los Angeles has run away and hid, down 56% in the first quarter. TV production is way up, but that's a misleading statistic, because it's compared with the first quarter of last year, during the writer's strike. Really bad news for industry workers.
• The California Budget Project takes ann in-depth look at Prop. 1D. Alternatively, you can look at the Calitics endorsements!
• The investigation into the murder of former Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey is under some scrutiny, with allegations of insubordination and misconduct being bandied about. A former handyman for the Your Black Muslim bakery has been charged in the murder, but there is a lot of speculation about some leaders of that group being involved in the murder.
• Carla Marinucci is quite skeptical that Nevada can be a model for California's state government despite California Republican suggestions otherwise. She points out that Nevad's state government spends the lowest per capita on its citizens, rates terribly on quality of life issues, and Las Vegas is now the biggest US city without an art museum. Yeah, let's get moving on becoming that.
• Steve Poizner engages in some serious concern trolling with Jerry Brown and Antonio Villaraigosa, though I confess that I would love to see the Democratic front-runners debate someone serious about Prop. 1A, not a See-and-Say with only one working phrase (“No new taxes! No new taxes!”)
• Once and future(?) AD-15 candidate (and Walnut Creek San Ramon mayor) Abram Wilson is scheduled to speak at the Pleasanton tea-bagging event.  Nothing shows that you care about the district and about state government than throwing food products on the ground with some right wingers.  I don't know if Mayor Wilson noticed, but the district now has a 4.6% Democratic registration advantage.  Perhaps cowtowing to the right isn't the best way to get elected in such a district.

Some links in random order:  

• The state is having a tough time regulating payday loan outfits that are operating under the banner of Indian sovereign immunity. They regularly violate the state's regulations for such loans, but due to the immunity laws, state laws don't easily reach them when the loan is made over the internet.  The laws limit the loans to $300 and to a maximum interest rate of 459% for a 31 day period. (Yes, you read that right.)
• An example of the penny wise, pound foolish madness of budget cuts: Across the state, fraud investigation departments for in-home support services are being slashed, so the fraud rate has increased. IHSS is a vital program to allow care for California's most vulnerable, but it does carry a risk that people will lie about services they provide.  The hypocrisy is really pretty funny, if it weren't so sad.  The Republicans scream about waste, fraud, and abuse, yet cut the people who try to fight it.  Classic. Of course, the Times has to toss some union-bashing into the mix. Because, that's balanced, you know?
• In 1998, Congress started a program to sell homes to local governments for $1, which they could then fix up and sell as affordable housing for new families.  Eleven years later, the Times checks in to see how that went, and, um, it didn’t work.  The homes increased significantly in value and benefited nobody beyond contractors and investors.
• The state has returned a series of paintings stolen from Jewish art dealers in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, but copies will remain on display at Hearst Castle.
• An aviation blogger raised the ire of politicos in Long Beach for daring to report on comments from Jet Blue’s CEO that the Long Beach Airport stinks and the airline may stop flying there.  One would think that the Long Beach City Council should spend a bit more time on fixing their crappy airport and a bit less on denigrating reporters who dare to mention it.
• San Jose State is trying to make more students graduate within four years to decrease costs and allow for more incoming students.
• Santa Monica is connecting homeowners with backyards with people who want to garden.
• The Latino Water Coalition is organizing a march from Mendota to Los Banos to call for more water for the Central Valley and its farms. The water cuts to the Valley have hit Latinos who rely on temporary farmworking jobs.
• Wow, get out the wahhmbulance for Jack Kavanaugh, who is deeply hurt by Chris Cillizza leaving him off the list of the top political sites in California.  Uh, Jack, um, aren’t you just a link aggregator?  Couldn’t a BOT do what you do?

I can drop links like a whole pack of shrink-a-dinks.  So, let’s do it:

• The OC Transportation Authority is getting some OC Register scrutiny because of a doubling of their travel budget, from just under $25K to just under $50K. I must admit that I’m not the most informed on the budget issues of OCTA, but the spending they cite hardly seems profligate. That being said, if traveling these days on the government dime, I would try to stay at Motel 6 or something.

• In Garden Grove, a woman lost her COBRA coverage because the bank cashed the check with the wrong amount.  Apparently her 56 cents looked like 50 cents.  The insurance company, CERIDIAN, said that’s it out you go for your 6 cent underpayment. She eventually got the insurance back when they discovered that she in fact wrote the right amount.  It’s all rather disgusting.  But, look at the Register fighting for the common man.

• The co-founder of Guess Jeans will run for Governor as an independent.  I can’t think of what this state needs more than a political neophyte with lots of money and a pretend sense of post-partisanship despite a quite conservative message.

• Turning to news of the rich know-nothing Governors we have, ugh.  I think this bear sculpture is to Schwarzenegger what that stupid rug was to Bush.

• Burt Reynolds owes the state $250,000 for back taxes. Pay up, Bandit! Dionne Warwick is on the list, I guess the Dial-a-pyschic business doesn’t pay what it used to.

• This is some bad data. Of the state’s 480,595 seventh graders in 2001-2002, over a quarter of them dropped out before graduation in 2007.  You can find dropout rates across the state here.

To the links:

• More reports from the CBC’s personal time with Fidel Castro. Rep. Barbara Lee found that the US could do some business with the Cubans on supplying medical technology. Rep. Laura Richardson talked about the ports in her district and Fidel responded with a comment on the threat of climate change to those ports. Oh, that Fidel!

• Richardson is also teaming up with Dana Rohrabacher (R-Crazytown) to block the loss of 5,000 jobs in the Long Beach area from the proposed phase-out of the F-22 fighter plan.  The fact that the F-22 has suppliers in 44 states shows you the near-impossible task of breaking through the military-industrial complex.

• My morning LA Times featured a not-so-cleverly disguised ad for “Southland” on the front page.  I think Sam Zell’s big idea is to eventually get the news out of the newspaper and fill it entirely with advertorials.

• Sen. Boxer has hired long-term Chronicle reporter Zachary Coile to be her new press secretary.   Meg Whitman has also hired a former scribe, Mary Anne Ostrom of the San Jose Mercury News, as a policy and online outreach advisor.  See above.

• CalBuzz thinks Jack O’Connell, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, might be heading back into the Governor’s race.  He’s actually exploring a run, seeing if he could get the money to compete with Jerry Brown and the gang. Interestingly, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix and a longtime O’Connell supporter, has dumped almost a million dollars into an IE for his candidacy.  That makes things a lot more interesting, especially if there’s more where that came from. Reed Hastings is very wealthy, and unlike most others, his fortune is still growing in the downturn.

• OC Progressive points out that state Controller John Chiang has endorsed incumbent Eric Bradley for the controller spot at the CDP.

• This isn’t a sports blog, but some stories transcend sports and just remind us of the human condition and just how frail we all really are.  The death of Nick Adenhart, a 22 year old starting pitcher for the Angels, is really just a tragedy.  After pitching Wednesday, he was killed by a hit and run driver in Fullerton.  Our best wishes to his friends and family.

A stroll through California politics today…

• We had a post on the first radio commercials yesterday, but Arnold’s Budget Reform Now ad didn’t make the cut.  It talks about stabilization over a background newsy tone about cuts for senior citizen health care.  Enjoy.

• It does appear the Governor will use stimulus funds for education for their intended purpose, to fund education, instead of filling the budget gap.  That’s the right move.

• Hmm, what’s this? A catfight between Jerry Brown and Anna Nicole Smith’s Rasputin character, Howard K. Stern. Brown is involved in the prosecution of Stern, so I guess it’s not so surprising.

• Some hard medicine from CalBuzz to John Garamendi and his governor’s campaign. They go through the possibilities of where his votes go if he leaves the race for the CA-10 race, and end up with “it doesn’t matter.” Ouch.

• The LA City Council was poised to approve higher water rates for those who don’t conserve at least 15% in the midst of the drought today, but at the last minute the measure was temporarily scuttled until the Council has time to study it.  I hope this will be combined with an intense education campaign, since those who don’t know a thing about the conservation initiative are highly unlikely to conserve.  At that point you’re just raising water rates.

• Laura Richardson, Barbara Lee, and Fidel Castro.  Is there a group picture?  Hopefully this greases the wheels for continued engagement with Cuba and an end to the failed isolation policy.

• Another hurdle in bringing an NFL team back to LA has been cleared. Diamond Bar has settled its lawsuit over a proposed stadium in City of Industry.

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!