A new poll from Stanford’s Hoover Institution finds support for Prop 45, the insurance regulation measure, countering an earlier PPIC poll showing the proposal underwater. Marc Lifsher reports in the Los Angeles Times.
And, speaking of Stanford, researchers at Stanford and Dartmouth have apologized for a misleading voter survey that was sent to some Montana and California voters. Katy Murphy has their mea culpa in the San Jose Mercury News.
Support for marijuana legalization may be growing nationwide, but California localities struggle to regulate legal medical weed in the absence of statewide rules. Lisa Leff has the story at the Associated Press.
“At least 13 cities and counties stretching from Oroville to Encinitas have a combined 17 measures on general election ballots next week that seek to sort out where and how marijuana may be grown and sold.
“’We felt it was important to respond in some way, and the question became, do we respond with a competing initiative that would allow dispensaries but heavily regulate them or do we respond with an initiative that would continue to ban them in a way that wasn’t really working,’ said Karen Haluza, interim executive director of the Santa Ana Planning and Building Agency. ‘The city’s hand was forced at that point.’”
You knew it was coming: the Washington press weighs in on Jerry Brown’s fourth term. Todd Purdum offers a long, generally laudatory look at the career and current prospects of California’s quixotic governor. We won’t be surprised if Brown starts using the article to convince people that he really is the best choice for president in 2016. From Politico…
“It may just be that the most effective public sector leader in America today is a balding, flinty-eyed 76-year-old former mayor who is not only the oldest sitting governor in the nation but both the oldest and youngest man ever to lead his home state, coasting toward reelection next month with a 58 percent job approval rating in an age of bitter anti-incumbent feeling.
“And if California, the megastate so often dismissed as ungovernable, is on something of a roll, it owes a large part of that fate to its improbable chief executive, Edmund G. Brown Jr., who has already surpassed Earl Warren’s record as the longest-serving governor in the Golden State’s history and is poised to win an unprecedented fourth term just one day shy of 40 years after he won his first.”
Meanwhile, his GOP campaign rival Neel Kashkari slogs on amid long odds. Seema Mehta spoke with Kashkari about the race – and his plans for the future if he doesn’t win - for the Los Angeles Times.
“Candidates who know they are going to lose typically don't acknowledge it, at least not publicly. But Kashkari comes close, presenting an optimistic face while nodding to the long odds for victory in this deep-blue state….
"’Look, when you're in the Super Bowl , if you're down in the fourth quarter, you don't pull your starters,’ he said in an interview at a recent appearance in Costa Mesa. ‘You blitz the quarterback, you attack the defense. And I'm going to fight hard till the last second with everything I've got.’"
A biennial report (here) from the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties concludes that the state’s roads and bridges are in bad shape – and will continue to get worse. Capital Public Radio’s Katie Orr has the story.
“…C-SAC Executive Director Matt Cate says conditions could get worse.
"’In a decade, if we continue on the current path, we estimate that 25 percent of California’s roads will be in a failed condition,’ he says, ‘meaning that the engineers who do these inspections can no longer certify them as being safe to drive on.’"
And, just three weeks before open enrollment begins, Kathy Robertson finds reports of glitches at the Covered California website. From the Sacramento Business Journal:
"’Some consumers are experiencing errors,’ Covered California spokesman Larry Hicks said. ‘We still investigating this and trying to figure out what the problem is. (The website) is working for some. We are working with great urgency to fix the problem.’"
Let’s call it the Elliot Spitzer Rule: if you’re in charge of punishing people for visiting prostitutes, don’t go to prostitutes yourself. Seems simple, right?
David Nieland, The investigator who led the Department of Homeland Security’s internal review of the 2012 Secret Service prostitution scandal, apparently couldn’t follow it. Michael Schmidt reported the story for the New York Times.
“Sheriff’s deputies in Broward County, Fla., saw David Nieland, the investigator, entering and leaving a building they had under surveillance as part of a prostitution investigation, according to officials briefed on the investigation. They later interviewed a prostitute who identified Mr. Nieland in a photograph and said he had paid her for sex.
“…Homeland Security officials then tried to question Mr. Nieland, but he refused to respond to them or to a subpoena they served on him.
“On Aug. 9, he resigned, citing health problems. Four days later, he posted on Twitter that his career in government had come to an end.
“’Thank you to all who congratulated me on #retirement. On to the next chapter. Lets fix these problems and keep #USA#1!’ he said.”
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