California Blog Roundup on Immigration is on the flip. No Teasers.

California Blog Roundup on Immigration is on the flip. No Teasers.

Words

• From last Thursday, Julia Rosen asks if Arnold Schwarzenegger has an actual position on immigration or if he’s really just a weathervane. We may never know, as Arnold pulled a Brave Sir Robin on Monday.
• Bill Bradley has a thoughtful post on both the political response (none) and his thoughts on the long-term consequences (complex).
• Blue Santa Clarita wants to know if the Republican Party thinks that EMTs should be the enforcers of immigration laws: no treatment for the undocumented?
• Steve Soto of The Left Coaster suggests that Harry Reid should let the Republicans sort their immigration neuroses out.
• Nancy Urban’s guest post at California Progress Report reminds us that we’re all complicit in the inconsistency between our formal and informal immigration policy. The corollary would seem to be that we’re all responsible for helping to fix that inconsistency in a humane and just way. See also Speak Out California.
• From Frank Russo, California Dems want to do just that, while Cal Republicans seem far more interested in posturing for nativists.
• Marta Donayre speaks out on the nature of law. Kid Oakland has some choice words about “Law Day”.
• The Blue Voice replies to concerns about the May 1 Rallies “alienating” people.
• Cindylu from Lotería Chicana, on how she decided to go to the rallies.
• MsAbcMom pondered the same question as a teacher and a mom.
• Craigorian Chant reminds us that undocumented immigrants are not a dead weight loss, any more than anyone else in the country, nativist assumptions to the contrary.
• The Blue Voice reminds us again that we’re all immigrants.
• D-Day has the definitive post on the farce that the nativists have made out of the Star Spanish Banner.
• LAist explains the editorial decision it made to use the word “undocumented” rather than “illegal”.
• Marc Cooper went to the afternoon LA rally, and found it well-disciplined and probably effective. Mayor Sam’s Sister City was also there.
• The Ojai Post was at the Santa Barbara rally and has a brief account.
• The Stockton rally was apparently surprisingly large, even for the organizers.
• Shanikka from Political Sapphire on her May First.

Pictures

• San Francisco from Daily Pepper.
• San Francisco, from happening-here.
• San Francisco, from Left in SF: one, two, three, four, five.
• The Inland Empire, from The Blue Voice. Also from The Blue Voice, more photos and a story about a local school response to the May 1 rallies.
• San Rafael from The Ruth Group.
• Los Angeles, from Carrie’s Bar and Grill.
• Los Angeles, from Shockwave at My Left Wing.
• San Jose, from left i on the news.
• Santa Ana, from The Disgruntled Chemist.

Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Feingold in LA, CA-11, CA-50, CA-36, gas gouging, a little on the Dem Gov Primary, and a lot of neat stuff in “Other”.

Feingold Blogger Lunch

OK, first of all, some Los Angeles bloggers got to lunch with Russ Feingold yesterday. Here are their reports:

• Joseph Cannon of Cannonfire (a new blog to me, to be added to the big blogroll)
• Howie Klein of Down with Tyranny
• RJ Eskow of Night Light (and HuffPo)
• Steve of SteveAudio
• Brad Friedman of the BradBlog

CA-11

• Progressive 11th attended the Tracy Candidates’ Forum and reports back. Prog11 supports McNerney, near as I can tell, but assuming his report of Filson’s attitude toward the grassroots is correct, it isn’t very happy-making. More important, those grassroots are the people you need to run through brick walls for you in the general, so you might not want to dump on them in the primary.
• Jerry McNerney was interviewd on the Quake today.

CA-50

• In addition to the new polling data that WHP notes in his diary, Chris Bowers of MyDD has an interesting discussion about determining the baseline for success in CA-50.
• Busby reports that she’s got a narrow lead over Bilbray in her tracking polls. Interesting.
• Brian Bilbray refuses to repudiate the swift-boating of Francine Busby. Let’s check again. Nope, still won’t call for the ad to be taken down, even though he’s done it in a different campaign. Funny, we saw the Bush Campaign do the same nothing in the incident that gave rise to the term. Guess we know what kind of Republican Bilbray is: too chicken to do the dirty work, too nasty to call it off.
• Eric Roach may run against Bilbray in the Republican primary to be held the same day as the special election runoff. I think that’s a good idea: primaries are healthy.

CA-36

Marcy Winograd, the primary challenger to Jane Harman in CA-36, introduced herself at MyDD (and yes, we need to send them an email). The comments are interesting. Down with Tyranny is all for Marcy.

Black Gold! Texas Tea!

• Arnold. Oil. Beholden much? And even more fun, the guy that Arnold wants to look into price-gouging is a pro-extractive industry, anti-regulation lame duck. It’s impressive that Arnold could take action that’s ineffective on almost every level.
• Frank Russo has a rundown of current efforts to tax oil windfall profits and push back the price gouging.
• You’ve seen it all over the place, but I’m going to give D-Day the link for Nancy Pelosi’s short sermon on the effect of putting two oilmen in the White House.

Dem Gov Primary

• ABC has videos of the new ads for Angelides and Westly.
• ABC draws a contrast between Bill Bradley’s negative take on the Angelides campaign with the Washington Post’s take.

“Other”

• Terry Preston of Blue Bear Republic got the same robo-call I did from the forced-breeding lobby in their attempt to resurrect Prop 73. (Also, remember Proposition 75, intended to reduce the power of public employee unions? If you check the Secretary of State’s initiative website, you’ll find pretty much that propostion all over again.) There’s an important lesson here for progressives: the Republicans never consider a matter settled, and neither should we.
• Jesus’ General (not a California blog) comes to the defense of 15% Doolittle.
• janinsanfran reports the immigration discussion from a meeting between the Episcopalian laity in San Francisco and the candiates for the bishopric thereof.
• Mayor Sam’s Sister City reports on some poo-flinging in the race for AD-38. More poo-flinging ensues in the comments. And people say we aren’t related to apes…
• The Assembly Health Committee has been busy with a whole boatload of pro-consumer bills.
• Terry Preston again with an explanation of why teachers teach where they do.

Everything but CA-50, which is coming up next.

• California Progress Report picked us as their site of the day. Thanks! A guest poster stands up for Prop. 82,
• The Mindful Mission dissects Tom McClintock’s editorial advocating the minimum wage as low as possible. Remember folks, Tom McClintock is Arnold’s running mate, the Dick Cheney of the Schwarzenegger campaign.
• Surfk9 has an interesting meditation on personal history and immigration.
• Bill Bradley reports that the Angelides campaign has hired a new consultant. He also has an interesting post on Arnold’s failure to sell his environmental efforts as better than the leaders of his party. (Better should not be taken to mean good enough.)
• Lying Media Bastards was at the San Diego immigrant march, and shares impressions.

California News Roundup on the flip. Teasers: Immigration, a little CA-50, a lot of rain, and some news on the gubernatorial campaign, and RAIN.

• CA-50 votes today, and the Republican voters are not motivated. The last round of campaigning among the Republicans was, no surprise, negative.

California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Arnold & George: a visual history, California Progress Report, putting one’s money where one’s mouth is, a day of canvassing, the benefits of vagueness, lots of Doolittle and Pombo, and a bit of immigration.

This ‘n’ That

• The California Progress Report continues to be a great outlet for content from progressive groups in California. Here’s an article on TV competition. And two different pieces from the CNA on Clean Money: One, Two. And last, a piece on the California Compassionate Choices Act — who do you want making your decisions: you and people you love, or some religious extremists you’ve never met?
• Tom Hilton has some questions for anti-choice “moderate” Monika Rodman. I like this approach — make people deal with the legitimate consequences of their stated beliefs.
• Kaloogian supporters in CA-50 either “canvassed churchgoers” or “stuffed flyers under windshield wipers” in church parking lots on Sunday, says the discussion at SD Politics. I thought Sunday was a day of rest for the faithful, not a day of politicking. Must have been some other Bible I read.

Goobernatorial Race

• EmilyD of Daily Kos found a whole buncha pictures of Governor Schwarzenegger and President Bush together. No, Arnold’s not a Bush Republican. Pay no attention to these photos or his campaign team.
• Alliance for a Better California notes Arnold’s new ad, and says it ain’t surprising he’s running on his environmental record. It’s not bad (not awesome, either), and that’s about the only policy area where that’s true for the Governor.
• Bill Bradley ruminates on the Angelides and Westly ad strategies. And, he does some math resulting in an opinion that Angelides will have to raise taxes to do the things he wants to do. Westly, by comparison, simply hasn’t disclosed how he thinks he’ll pay for what he wants to do, so he dodges that bullet for now.

Doolittle, Do Less

• Dump Doolittle suggests that we should judge John Doolittle by the company he keeps. And, of course, he keeps company with his wife.
• Both Nite Swimming and Dump Doolittle report that John Doolittle posts at redstate.org (home of racist plagiarist Ben Domenech, among others). Doolitlle doesn’t, ah, acquit himself as admirably as one might hope.
• Last, Nite Swimming has a roundup of recent bad news for Doolittle.

Tell Me Pombo, Pombo, Pombo

• Say No To Pombo has an email interview with the three Democratic candidates for CA-11, asking them questions about the recent bankruptcy bill. Full o’ substance, and we like it.
• Richard Pombo, ever on the lookout for a handout, is “sponsoring” Medicare Part D seminars using industry front groups to explain the program. Of course, if the program weren’t such a train wreck, designed to subsidize the pharmaceutical industry, one wouldn’t need industry front groups to explain it. The thing would just work.
• Progressive 11th suggests that Richard Pombo should call the waaaahmbulance and stop blaming other people for reacting entirely appropriately to his badness.
• Pombowatch thinks that you can place a lot of the blame for the salmon closure squarely on Richard Pombo’s enviro-hating shoulders — he ignored the structural problems on the Klamath, and chose to externalize the effects to fishermen while he helped the farmers in his district. Oh, and then he blamed the Endangered Species Act.
• Defenders of Wildlife Action have a series of events, the first on April 15, 10.30 am, San Ramon Public Library for leafletting. Progressive 11th has a listing of other CA-11 events as well.

• ABC thinks about what I do of Schwarzenegger’s immigration op-ed — not much, because it says not much.
• Marc Cooper wants to blame the Senate Democrats for the failure of the half-baked compromise bill on immigration. D-Day explains why that’s ridiculous, even citing Orrin Hatch. Marc Cooper still blames the Democrats, and spins some implausible scenarios in which the immigration bill comes out of committee and doesn’t get completely perverted by floor amendments and conference committee. I kinda wonder if he’s been watching the way that Congress actually works under the Republicans.
• Cooper asks a good question here, though: “Where is the backlash?“
• The Citizens point out media bias in photo selection and cropping. Nifty.
• janinsanfran has photos from today’s immigration press event.

Today’s California News Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Schmidt spins, Salmon season chopped, immigration mess, telco infrastructure in California, Angelides interviewed.

Schmidt Spins

• John Myers’ Capital Notes notes that Schmidt said both that the election will not be a referendum on Schwarzenegger and that Schwarzenegger will run on his record. Newspeak is alive and well in the Schwarzenegger campaign.
• This AP article running on Inside Bay Area focuses more on the contrast between the Schwarzenegger team’s Bush-Cheney roots and their insistence that Arnold is not that closely tied to Bush.
• Daniel Weintraub notes the number of attacks on Westly and the promise of negative campaigning, though without personal attacks from the Schwarzenegger campaign. That’s a promise, but not the promise it appears to be. The swiftboating of John Kerry was not done by BC04, though they didn’t stop it. Expect whisper campaigns and third party ads from people like the US Chamber of Commerce to do Schwarzenegger’s dirty work.
• Oh, and Carla Marinucci does some steno work.

Everything Else

• The Pacific Coast salmon season will be drastically cut back this year, based on the decimation of the Klamath coho run by excessive damming and agricultural water use. At least it’s not closed, and there may be some remedies over the next few years. Local ocean-caught salmon will be expensive this year, but if you can afford it, support the local fisheries. Farm-raised salmon is not the same thing, and it’s not particularly good for the environment. Tom Stienstra has the rules for anglers. [Side note: the best coverage on this issue today was from the LA Times — not a fishing town paper. Odd, that.]
• Something’s happening in the Senate on immigration. But nobody seems to know what. The SacBee says the bill is tanking. Knight Ridder (through the CC Times) seems more optimistic, but the quotes from the deport-them-all wing of the Republican Party are not encouraging. Either way, the proposal sounds like a mess, dividing up immigrants without a documented date of entry into different groups by length of stay with different citizenship tracks. And even if it passes the Senate in some form, it will go to conference committee, where the radical House Republicans will remake the bill in their image. Whatever happens, more marches are coming.
• Fabian Núñez introduces a bill to allow telcos to compete with cable companies for television services. It sounds like a good idea — more competition and all that — but the devil is in the details (some of which are laid out in the linked article.
• The OC Register has an AP syndication of an interview with Phil Angelides on a number of issues, with requisite counter-quotes from Westly’s campaign and former Bush adviser Steve Schmidt, now running Schwarzenegger’s campaign.
• Steve Westly will be returning $15,000 in campaign contributions raised by a VC fund he later recommended to CalPERS.
• The Chronicle has a brief piece on the upcoming renewal (one hopes) of certain portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The three provisions up (1) require federal approval of new voting procedures in jurisdictions with histories of discrimination, (2) require federal observers in jurisdictions where there’s been intimidation of minority voters, and (3) require bilingual ballots in areas with substantial non-English speakers. These provisions affect different California counties to different degrees, but pretty much every county has the bilingual ballot requirement.
• A new form of Generic Dan Walters Column may have been spotted: Structural Problem X exists. Blame Union Y for it, even though the problem results largely from the anti-government constitutional amendments passed in the seventies and eighties. Today, X = School Funding, and Y = the California Teachers Association.
• This not important to anyone but me, but the Red Vic will now be allowed to sell beer.

California Blog Roundup is on the flip. There’s a lot, as I’ve been busy with other things (mea maxima culpa). Teasers: Call to Action from Debra Bowen, Eric Roach, Busby campaign responds to NRCC ad buy, lots of CA-11, some CA-4, Schwarzenegger’s ratings and his campaign staff, clean money advances (slow boring through hard boards), more immigration, and a fun little potpourri of links at the end.

Call To Action

• Debra Bowen wants us to email Bruce McPherson to ask him to repeal the “exact match” regulations which are more restrictive than HAVA requires and are causing legitimate voter registrations to be rejected in unprecedented numbers. Yes, we know we need to work on our outreach to get those things here. A big shout out to Mary Scott O’Connor for saying our name in the comments at DKos! Thanks, MSOC.
• In vaguely related news, the California Teachers Association endorsed Bruce McPherson for Secretary of State instead of Senator Bowen. No, we don’t really know why.

CA-50

• Calitics Front-Pager Words Have Power is simply thrashing Eric Roach at his own shop. Why hasn’t Roach bothered to participate in politics before now? Why does Roach have to hire temp workers as “volunteers”?
• The Busby campaign responds to the NRCC attack ad buy in CA-50. The “scandal-plagued” lobbyist in the script is a member of the Keating 5 who gave Busby $500. So is John McCain. One might want to note as well that jailbird “bribe menu” Duke Cunningham gave more than half a million dollars to the NRCC. So they’re using his bribe money to attack Francine Busby for that. Satire is dead.

CA-11

• Say No to Pombo has a great explanation of how the California Democratic Party chooses an endorsement in a primary, in the context of explaining how Jerry McNerney almost got the supermajority necessary to get the tentative endorsement, despite armtwisting on Steve Filson’s behalf by Dem officeholders.
• SNTP again has an interesting discussion on the relative benefits of voting in the Democratic primary vs. voting for McCloskey in the Republican Primary, and the need for movement-building. It continues in the comments, so keep scrolling.
• Progressive 11th reprints Jerry McNerney’s press release: he raised over $50K in the first quarter of the year. If someone has the cash-on-hand numbers and the Filson fundraising info, that would be great — we’ll add them. Otherwise I’ll go dig up the reports.
• PomboWatch wonders if Pombo is using the House Resources Committee as some sort of personal vendetta against the environment.

CA-4

Doolittle keeps Abramoff money. Doolittle is the guy who bought little gold hammers to hand out in support of indicted felon Tom Delay. Doolittle: the Delay of Northern California.

Governor’s Race

• ABC finds an interesting Op-Ed from Ukiah, which argues that Schwarzenegger is in trouble: people just don’t think he’s doing a good job, pretty much based on the job he’s doing, not any easily blamable extrinsic factors.
• On that note, I like Frank Russo’s extraction of wisdom from the most recent poll. Schwarzenegger has 90% name recognition among poll respondents compared to half that for Angelides and less for Westly. And Schwarzenegger is neck-and-neck with two comparative unknowns.
• Frank Russo also catches this article profiling the Schwarzeneggger campaign team. They just hired Alex Castellanos, attack ad hitman from the Bush Campaign, and the creator of the infamous “White Hands” ad from the Jesse Helms 1990 campaign against a black opponent. We’ve discussed the kind of campaign Schwarzenegger is likely to run, based on the team he’s assembled and the McClintock partnership. It’s going to be vicious. More at ABC.
• Angelides comes out with the fiscally responsible and painfully obvious position that in order to have the schools our children deserve, we will actually have to pay for them. Daniel Weintraub was agitating for that a while back — I expect him to now punish Angelides for that honest and responsible position.
• Julia Rosen of Alliance for a Better California found both positive and negative things in Phil Angelides’ performance in the debate. She also penned (typed?) a think piece on momentum in the Democratic primary which is worth reading.

Reform

Don Perata supports AB 583, the clean money bill. Note that the current version is no longer just a display bill, but would have teeth. Time to really pay attention to this one.

Immigration

• Down With Tyranny starts a meditation with Dana Rohrbacher, swerves into punk rock, then back to Rohrbacher. Just go read it.
• People who read the right-wing blogs will have read about Josh Denhalter, the SoCal high school student who staged an anti-MECha protest. Turns out he had some support from the Minutemen and from Save Our State — just a smidge nativist. Everyone should know who the Minutemen are. I have to admit I didn’t know anything about Save Our State. I’m not sure I’m a better person for knowing. Here’s one example of their thinking. And one should read the interchange on their forums where Denhalter asks for support. It’s enlightening. I particularly like that his location is identified as “Third World Cesspool”. Don’t know if he chose that or it’s automatic in the Save Our State forums. Either way, it says a lot.

Everything Else

• John Drzal (recent Calitics diarist — we love you, man!) reports that Wally Herger (Republican CA-2) has a problem with consistency on civil liberties, and when candid, seems to think that “suspected terrorists have no rights”. That sounds jim-dandy as a bowlegged swaggering Marion Wayne sound bite, but it should scare most people. Herger clearly thinks he’s the one who gets to decide who’s an unperson. That’s un-American.
• BE for Change has a link to the webcast of the recent debate in the Lt. Governor’s Democratic primary.
• We’re still paying off Schwarzenegger’s Special Election — but the good news is that the state stiffed the counties!
• California Progress Report has an interesting piece by State Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Garden Grove) arguing that the oil companies have basically created a seller’s cartel in California.
• Tom Hilton of “If I Ran The Zoo” follows up on the “Battle Cry” convention in San Francisco last week, and the way it hoodwinked the Chron’s editorial board into thinking that it was just “religious” not “political”.

News Roundup from the last couple days on the flip. Teasers? We don’t need no stinking teasers! Oh, alright then: Millionaires, Schwarzenegger, pay-to-play(?), more immigration, San Diego corruption, emissions, energy, salmon, water water everywhere, Prop 82, and earthquakes.

Special roundup of news coverage of the Univision debate up next and then much later today, a belated blog roundup

Pure Politics

• The CC Times reminds us that only millionaires are running for Governor. This may be in part an unintended consequence of limiting contributions while allowing unlimited spending on a campaign from one’s own wealth. Of course, lifting the contribution limit will allow millionaires to buy their own candidates, so I fail to see where that would help. Sounds like public financing is the way to go.
• Dan Walters thinks that 2006 is setting up the pool of California’s elected officials for the next big things. But isn’t that true of pretty much every major election?
• Daniel Weintraub reports, mostly without injecting his personal biases, on a pending problem: a recent court ruling that initiative petitions need to be translated from English into the language(s) spoken by any large minority of the population of the relevant political unit.
• Schwarzenegger’s approval ratings rising . . . some. This story is mostly notable for the Schwarzenegger spokesman pushing the “it’s a choice” message. Wouldn’t want Schwarzenegger to have to run on his record — no accountability for Republicans.
• Steve Westly probably didn’t do anything really wrong when he suggested that CalPERS have a look at a VC fund that raised contributions for him (especially when one considers how little outside funding he really has. But still, it looks like pay-for-access. Public financing, people.

Environment

• There’s a lot of coverage of the global warming pollution restrictions being discussed in the California State Government. The CC Times has a good summary of the larger picture. There’s a nifty quote from an oil company lobbyist, who admits that “climate change is real”. Wow. After all those millions (and probably billions) of dollars spent by the oil industry attacking the science and delaying any effort to deal with the problem, now global warming is real. Of course, the oil companies don’t want do do anything about it, so that hasn’t changed.
• In other news, moderate Republicans who aren’t in the pocket of the extractive industries seem to be educable on the problem. Now if only they’d buck the Bush-Cheney-Oil wing of the party and do something about it.
• Re that issue, for example, see this SacBee editorial calling out the Bush DOT’s usurpation both of state regulatory authority and the EPA’s authority.
• Vinod Khosla and Steven Bing are teaming up to sponsor a ballot initiative to tax the oil industry and fund alternative energy technology.
• The looming salmon fishery closing has effects beyond just the commercial fishing industry. There’s a big group of people who fish recreationally and a lot of merchants who serve them.

CA-50

CQ Politics has a great piece on how corruption in San Diego politics is driving the Republican side (sides?) of the race in CA-50.

Immigration

• CQ Politics rounds up some academic opinion on the political effects of the immigration debate. Not too much consensus there.
• “Immigration hardliners not gaining much traction” says the SacBee. The Merc reports that people have mixed feelings about immigration. Apparently, so does Congress, and it shows. Yesterday’s CC Times reminds us that nativism is a bad electoral policy, no matter how good it feels.

Water: Not Enough, Too Much

• Generic Dan Walters: There’s a problem with X. Politicians need to stop listening to special interests and fix X. Today, X = Water Policy.
• Non-generic Dan Walters: Local governments shouldn’t be able to freeload on the state’s liability for flood damages by building in known danger areas.
• Some federal money may be coming to strengthen the levees.
• And from a professor who actually studies, y’know, ecosystems ‘n’ stuff, a flood control plan that doesn’t rely on building artificial canyons or lakes.

Other

• Think tank doesn’t like Prop 82 much. And it doesn’t seem to be ideological.(Link fixed by Brian)
• If the big one hits before we fix some (well, a lot) of stuff, the Bay Area is screwed. Oh, the Delta too: levees down, floods everywhere. And does anyone think that a Republican-controlled federal government will help us godless librul eleets, even if by some miracle, they’re competent to do it right?

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Old Clark, Immigration (but you have to say it with an Austrian accent), Policy Day, some Dems go without, Doolittle, a couple events, Issue 1 of The Daily Roach, money, and some nice photos.

• The Big Dog has a video of a Wes Clark speech from 2005 up at his shop. It’s not news at the moment, but Wes Clark is clearly a contender for 2008, so have a look.
• Frank Russo at California Progress Report explains why immigration is so very scary for our favorite Austrian immigrant. I haven’t done the research, but I wonder if Governor Schwarzenegger was ever out of status — that would have made him a felon under the House immigration bill (Some speculation here). Oh, and look! The President! With a Mexican Flag! It’s just a symbol, but if people want to blow it up into something more, let’s party.
• Alliance for a Better California notes that the two main Democratic candidates for Governor took a break from sniping at each other and introduced some policy proposals. Sweet!
• Ament Stone of California (Who I believe is our “Nathaniel, Burbank native”) posts a diary at MyDD which notes that a fair number of California House Democrats won’t have Republican challengers this year.
• Words Have Power notes that the company John Doolittle keeps seems to be moving prisonward, and leads us to a Houston Chronicle piece explaining how some of that came about.
• Dump Doolittle tells us that Julie Doolittle seems to have worked for a lot of companies attached to current and soon-to-be jailbirds. Nite Swimming continues to do a great job picking up letters to the editor from angry Doolittle constituents.
• Also from Dump Doolittle, there’s gonna be a get-together, with lots of NorCal Democratic candidates on April 10 in Sacramento.
• The Democratic Daily has the text of the letter from Senators Boxer and Feinstein to the Bush Administration, requesting that the Bush Administration stop stepping on the states’ efforts to reduce emissions. Equal billing this time.
• San Diego Politics reports on the reporting on Eric Roach’s “newspaper” mailer. The comments are a hoot.
• Bill Bradley’s doing the money and advertising horse race in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. On the subject of money and the horserace, the California Observer has a great find from the Stockton Record on the extent to which there really aren’t any small donors in California campaigns.
• Marc Cooper notes that the Minutemen seem to be losing steam by the, er, minute. Again, the comments are priceless.
• Left in SF tells us of a Barbara Lee fundraiser in the Transamerica Pyramid on April 10. Click through, then put the pun down, and back away slowly.
• Last, it looks like janinsanfran got out of the city last weekend and took some nice pictures between showers.

California News Roundup on the flip. Teasers: Peter Schrag on California, Pelosi profiled, Schwarzenegger profiled, voter registration, Dean, salmon, emissions regulation, insurance, and of course, lots of immigration.

Not Immigration

• Shorter Peter Schrag: California is just very confused. Discuss at the California Progress Report.
• The Chron has the first in a three-part profile of Nancy Pelosi. This installment, at least, is very pro-Pelosi, and pro-machine.
• The LA Times profiles Schwarzenegger. I don’t have any idea what to make of the profile, except that I’m sure I would never want to work for this guy.
• Voter registration is still hosed, requiring registrars to manually confirm hundreds and sometimes thousands of new registrations in time for the June primary (and in CA-50, by April 11).
• Ballot Watch Graphic from the SacBee on the race to replace Steve Westly as State Controller.
• Capitol Roundup from the Merc / CC Times, showing what they thought was important in state politics last week. Oddly, that doesn’t include the minimum wage bills under debate.
• Two different views on Howard Dean’s recent visit to the area: one from the AP, focusing on his statements on immigration, and one directly from the local reporter focusing on the Asian-American Democrats’ conference.
• California steps up with emissions regulations to try to slow global warming. Of course, business interests want it ignored handled at the federal level. The Bush Administration apparently agrees, and is attempting to override both the EPA and state regulations with adminstrative rulemaking by the Transportation Department. Federalism and deference to the legislative branch are core principles of the Republican Party. No, seriously. Stop laughing. Stop it.
• Great piece from the San Francisco Chronicle laying out the constituencies affected by Klamath River damming and water usage decisions, and why now is the time that perhaps past mistakes destroying the salmon fishery can be rectified.
• The Sacramento Bee reports on a privacy screwup by the California State Employment Development Department. Before all y’all anti-government types get twisted up, though, the EDD’s screwup pales beside corporate screwups.
• Last, one of my hobbyhorses: setting auto insurance rates based on driving record, not zip code.

Immigration

• Gregory Rodriguez’s LA Times Op-Ed provides some additional context on the issue of Mexican immigration. Seriously, this is a complicated question, and there’s going to be a lot of “more context” stuff.
• A SacBee piece “analyzing” the effect of the immigration discussion on the California gubernatorial race. And by “analyzing”, I mean turning mostly to political consultants for each major party to criticize the other side’s approach.
• A series of pieces from New America Media about the interaction between black Americans and immigrants. I might read them slightly out of chronological order: (1) Straight Reporting, (2) Earl Ofari Hutchison (3) The Black Commentator / Bruce Dixon, and (4) The Black Commentator / Bruce Dixon again.
• Everybody running for CA-11 against Richard Pombo is more sane on immigration than he is. One finds this article as well, profiling the more nativist of the Republicans in California’s U.S. Representatives. Frankly, my head just spins when I hear Republicans from the House talk about “rule of law”.
• New polling says that in California, immigration is a partisan issue. Nationwide, not so much.