Jerry Brown will be sworn in today for a historic fourth term as California’s governor. He’ll deliver a combo State of the state/inaugural address this morning, followed by a public reception on the North Lawn, hosted by the Orange County Employees Association.
Capital Public Radio and KQED will offer joint live coverage of the inauguration festivities starting at 10AM, co-hosted by John Myers and Beth Ruyak. Scheduled guests include former Senate pro-tem Darrell Steinberg, APCO senior VP Cassandra Pye, Orville Schell, author of a Brown bio, and more.
Jeremy White has the details for the day’s events, along with a vaguely confusing schedule, at the Sacramento Bee.
“While you need an invitation to get into the swearing-in ceremonies, there are a couple of options for public celebration. The “People’s Inauguration Party,” sponsored by the Orange County Employees Association, runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the north lawn of the Capitol. Just like four years ago, there will be free hot dogs, chips and soft drinks.”
All that pomp and circumstance (and hot dogs) may be fine for some, but what happens next? Jeremy White and Laurel Rosenhall have a look at what’s hot in the upcoming session. Three T’s on their short list: taxes, tuition and technology. Bee columnist Dan Morain wishes that legislators would spend more of their brief tenure working bills that will have a significant impact rather than tweaking existing legislation – or legalizing ferrets.
“Thinking big and building consensus is difficult. Too few legislators attempt it. Too many of California’s 120 legislators spend too much of their term-limited time focused on bills that tweak code sections understood only by a select few lobbyists and their clients….”
Ferrets, taxes and tuition may be top of mind at the Bee HQ, but they missed one topic that will be ripe for legislative activity in 2015: vaping. Victoria Colliver has the story at SFGate:
“This year will see ‘big fights about this, especially as a lot of major tobacco companies continue to take over the e-cigarette market,’ said Stanton Glantz, a longtime antismoking activist and director of UCSF’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. ‘The big question is, are the politicians going to side with the tobacco companies or the public?’”
And, back to tuition, Jerry Brown has appointed legislative affairs secretary Gareth Elliot to the UC Board of Regents.
Governor Brown may be partying in Sacto today, but he’ll be headed to Fresno tomorrow to headline a party he’s long been waiting for: the official groundbreaking for High Speed Rail. Ralph Vartabedian has the story in the Los Angeles Times.
“The start of construction is a crucial political step that will make the bullet train harder to stop. And the decision to break ground at the Fresno depot site — even though the train station is not being built under the current rail contract — is a recognition of the support the city has given the project amid opposition elsewhere in the Central Valley.
"’High-speed rail brings attention and focus back to city centers,’ said Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, who is among a handful of Republican officials supporting the project. ‘It is going to be easier for people to live in the middle of the state and do business elsewhere.’"
Liberal democrat Richard Pan may have a surprising group to thank for his November 4 victory over Roger Dickinson: Republican voters.
From Jim Miller at the Bee: “There’s no way to tell how people of different party affiliations voted Nov. 4. But final election results from Sacramento County – which makes up 95 percent of the Senate district – show larger-than-average Republican participation in precincts where Pan topped Dickinson.
“Republicans represented 29 percent of the turnout in the 281 precincts carried by Pan. In the 81 precincts where Dickinson won, Republicans represented about 21 percent of the vote.”
And, today we mark the birthday of Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, the man who discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Howlin Wolf, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and many more artists who shaped popular culture in the 20th Century. He would have been 92.
Phillips started life picking cotton alongside his parents in the rural south, falling in love with music at an early age. In 1951 he recorded what is widely considered the first rock n roll record: “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (led by a teenage guitar player named Ike Turner.) Phillips launched Sun Records in 1952, releasing some of history's most seminal rock recordings over the label’s 16 year run.
To honor Sam’s legacy we give you some Sun Records classics: “That’s Alright Mama,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “I Walk the Line,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On,” and “Ooby Dooby”
Or, you can remember him as many do: drunk as a monkey on the David Letterman Show back in 1986. Salut, Sam!