California Blog Roundup for this rainy Easter Sunday. Teasers: Prop 82 con and con, Field Poll results and spin, 15% Doolittle, CA-11, rabid Republicans, some news in the campaign for Governor, some global warming, some sound principles for infrastructure, and some miscellany.

Prop 82

• Governor Schwarzenegger swings from appearing moderate by backing Proposition 82 to appeasing his corporate backers by opposing. Again, I wonder what big business doesn’t like about a tax which falls solely on high-earning individuals… What could it be? What could it be?
• Bill Bradley reports that John Burton, liberal firebrand, comes out against Prop 82 because the guarantee of universal preschool subsidizes people who don’t need the subsidy. I’m sympathetic to this criticism — you put the money where it’s needed — but one of the things we’ve learned in the United States is that once you make something into a program for the least fortunate among us, it turns into a target for the least generous among us.

Field Poll Fun

• ABC has the headlines from the big 3 NorCal papers’ Field Poll articles on Schwarzenegger. I think they can be summed up as “lukewarm”. Also, here’s the Schwarzenegger vs. Angelides / Westly summary.
• ABC again on the lead that Steve Westly has purchased himself. They note that Mark DiCamillo thinks the lead is surprisingly large. I’m not surprised by DiCamillo’s spin on that; I’ve read some comments by DiCamillo in the past suggesting strongly that DiCamillo is not politically neutral, at least in his commentary.
• Frank Russo of the California Progress Report notes that the same Field Poll suggests that the anti-immigrant nativists are a definite minority in California.

Doolittle / CA-04

• Dump Doolittle notes that John “15%” Doolittle visited his district last week, but stuck to hand-picked audiences. Doolittle will also be at a photo-op with President Bush on Earth Day. Truth is stranger than fiction. I expect the audience there will be hand-picked as well — that’s par for the course with the modern Republican Party.
• Last, Dump Doolittle has a quick blurb on the FEC reports of 15% Doolittle and his Dem challengers. As one of the commenters notes, $287K raised by 15% Doolittle last quarter means that he put just over $43K in his own pocket.

Pombo / CA-11

• Progressive 11th notes that Richard Pombo will be receiving an award from Exxon on April 25, thanking him for his service.
• Say No To Pombo has a bit more information on the FEC filings of the major Dem candidates. For some fun inside baseball, make sure to read the comments. Apparently Filson’s financial director has been less than forthcoming about his relationship to the Filson campaign.

Campaign for Governor

• California Republicans: Nothing will ever satisfy them.
• I don’t know why Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t want to be seen with George Bush. After all, he’s surrounded himself with Bush Republicans.
• Frank Russo posts on the need for the candidates for Governor to address California’s structural deficit. Twice.
• Bill Bradley thinks it’s all a muddle.
• Schwarzenegger has “released” his 2002-04 tax returns. On Good Friday. By allowing reporters to go through the returns for a few hours in a closed room.

Environment

• The California Progress Report has a guest post by Craig Noble of the NRDC on the principles that should underpin an infrastructure program that would be sustainable over the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren — those for whom we hold the present in trust.
• ABC on the Schwarzenegger’s ineffective and politically weak middle position on Global Warming.
• Uneasy Rhetoric rips Daniel Weintraub for his schmibertarian global warming denial.

This ‘n’ That

• Apparently, thinking that a line-item veto is a bad idea makes one a rabid Bolshevik. No, seriously.
• At least these Republican spouses pay each other salaries, not commissions like 15% Doolittle. Did you know there were any meaningfully pro-choice Republicans left? Me neither. Mayor Sam’s Sister City tells us that one of them is term-limited out in AD-38, and reports on the race for his seat.
• From Brian Dennert Here: this is just funny.

California News Roundup is on the flip. It’s brief — quarter-end is a drag. Teasers: Shwarzenegger team campaign finance violations, blogs in CA-50, solar power, salmon, Filson interviewed, Pombo too extreme for other Republicans, anti-government group loses in court, research to be done on CA schools. There’s immigration news, but nothing all that new, so not in the roundup today.

• ABC spanks Arnold for campaign finance violations in the failed Special Election power grab.
• CQ Politics has coverage on the blogs’ effect on the CA-50 campaign, mostly around the Kaloogian photo fiasco.
• Lake Elsinore, in SoCal, goes live with big solar power project.
• CQ Politics interviews Steve Filson. One wonders if they’ll do Jerry McNerney next.
• Capitol Weekly has dueling environmental position pieces by the two main Democratic candidates for Governor: Angelides | Westly.
• A Santa Clara County Judge dismissed a case from an anti-government group trying to stop the voters from deciding on a sales tax adder in June.
• Richard Pombo’s intended gutting of the Endangered Species Act may be too radical for the Republicans in the Senate. They’re scared of even touching the subject because of what he’d do in conference committee.
• There’s gonna be a big ol’ pile of reports on the California school system sometime around the end of the year. One hopes that they will be both nonpartisan and informative.
• Klamath salmon get some help going home to spawn: fish ladders. Closure of the fishery still looms, though.
• San Jose is hosting a conference for Asian-American and Indo-American Democratic leaders. This is a good thing.