Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. I’m having a hard time keeping up: more people are writing as the election approaches. Teasers: Angelides, Westly, Schwarzenegger, Bowen, Paid-For Pombo, Francine Busby, Winograd v. Harman, Props 81 and 82, Jerry Lewis / CA-41, discussion of various reforms,immigration, and recent legislative actions.
Statewide Races
- Get ready for the independent expenditure smears of the Democratic candidate for governor in the general — the Swift Boat Veterans’ main contributors are jumping in. As I’ve said before, this is exactly what should be expected, given the campaign team Schwarzenegger’s assembled. What is interesting (and *may* be different from my prediction) is that Schwarzenegger seems to be backing away from close and obvious association with Tom McClintock. Of course, this may just free up McClintock to play hatchet man; we’ll see.
- And here are the locals responsible for Schwarzenegger’s campaign in your county.
- Mr. Schwarzenegger, could you please define “special interests” from whom you won’t take money in something other than a Humpty Dumpty sort of way?
- Allegations that Westly flat-out lied about Angelides in a recent ad.
- Angelides and Westly are both really good on a number of issues (most of them, actually), and the freedom to marry is one of them. The Citizens have a post up about that issue, and discuss recent polling which suggests that knowing someone who is GLBT is the biggest factor in whether or not you support equal rights for them. It’s tough to look someone you actually know right in the eye and tell them that you won’t give them the same privileges you enjoy.
- Alliance for a Better California is happy that the Democratic gubernatorial primary is happening, but is ready for it to be over, at least the way it’s being conducted. ABC also rounds up the newspaper endorsements in the Dem primary.
- Randy Bayne has had it with the primary.
- Jonathan Zazloff of The Reality-Based Community endorses Angelides. I’ll let you go read why.
- Hugo Schwyzer explains why he (as a feminist) chose to endorse John Garamendi over Jackie Speier.
- Kid Oakland (a very smart guy and a good read) endorses Debra Bowen.
- Bill Cavala gives us his take on the Field Poll.
- The California Observer points us to the current state of the California electorate.
- Ms. Geek is going to vote for Colleen Fernald in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, instead of DiFi.
Paid-For Pombo / CA-11
Busby / CA-50
Winograd / Harman / CA-36
- This Paul Rosenberg diary at MyDD re Marcy Winograd’s endorsement by another Democratic Club and the ensuing discussion are interesting. I’ll keep pressing Paul to crosspost his stuff.
- The BradBlog interviews Marcy Winograd. Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of stuff in there about election reform and voting machines, but also a lot of other topics, so don’t be afraid to go read it.
- Alicia of Last Left Before Hooterville spent a night phone-banking for Marcy Winograd, and feels really good about it.
Other Electoral
Propositions
- Tom Hilton of If I Ran the Zoo says yes to both Prop 81 and Prop 82.
- Hannah-Beth Jackson at Speak Out CA runs through some of the groups opposing Prop 82. There are a startling number of pro-big-bidness groups involved. Why would they care? Prop 82 levies a tax on the personal income of very few people. Oh, wait. That’s right — those people are likely to be big-bidness executives. Funny that.
- Beep takes the Next Ten state budget challenge and finds that she probably can’t support Prop 82, because she’d rather use the tax imposed for other things. Well, fair enough, but Beep, there is nothing else on offer today, nor is there likely to be in the foreseeable future. The anti-government groups who prevent any kind of sensible fiscal policy have seen to that.
Reform
Immigration
Legislative Action
- In the general category of “this is interesting”, the State Senate continues to push back on Schwarzenegger’s most recent appointment to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System board. This is fallout from Schwarzenegger’s 2005 attempt to change the pension fund from a traditional pension to something more like a 401K, shifting the risk from the state to the individual teachers. Remember, he wants to put the screws to the unions, just like any hard-right Republican extremist.
- Anthony Wright of Health Access California has a guest post at California Progress Report summarizing recent state legislative actions on some health-related bills. Of note: lack of Dem discipline on one bill, Republican-schmibertarian fantasies about the nature of health care and insurance in discussing another.
- Skippy informs us that the Assembly has passed the Vampire Slayer Act, regulating the amount of energy that electric devices can draw on standby. I always wondered why TVs, set-top boxes, and tuners couldn’t just use a little-bit of flash memory to save settings. That way, you could actually turn them OFF without losing every pre-set you have. Couldn’t increase cost much, and you’d make the money back in the first year of electric bills.
- Frank Russo has a list of pretty much everything the legislature actually got through yesterday.
Miscellany
