Results are in for the three legislative special elections yesterday: voters returned Sharon Runner to the Senate in SD-21 and appear poised to put Republican former Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach in Mimi Walters’ old seat, with just over 51% of the vote as of this writing.
No such clarity in the hotly-contested race for SD-7, where Orinda mayor Steve Glazer took 32%, Susan Bonilla is in second place with nearly 25%, and Joan Buchanan appears to be out of the runoff with 22%. The only Republican on the ballot, Michaela Hertle, collected 17% of the vote despite withdrawing from the race and endorsing Glazer. What’s it all mean? Just ask Rob Stutzman.
From Fox and Hounds: “[Who] were the winners and losers among the groups that collectively spent north of $3.4 million?
Those with Glazer… an alliance of the business community, led by the California Chamber of Commerce’s Jobs Pac, and education reform… joined forces with LA businessman Bill Bloomfield to successfully push Glazer to the top of the election results. Bloomfield; who was also the key component in funding the effort that elected Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) over Sandra Fluke, last year; spent at least $600k on Glazer, largely providing balance to the massive labor funded campaign against the former Jerry Brown advisor.
Jobs Pac (disclosure, a long time client) stands tall with this win and is likely to find other large industry groups who sat out yesterday’s election will now come on board for the run-off.
Those with Bonilla – Over a million dollars was spent for Assembly member Bonilla. The California Dental Association and California Medical Association were in for just over $330k and $80k respectively. In some respects, a cynical analysis might suggest they ‘lose’ by ‘winning’ since they’re now on the hook for funding a Bonilla run off. Both groups are widely believed to have been supporting Bonilla because of her position as chair of the Assembly Business and Professions Committee.
The California Professional Firefighters poured in over $150k on Bonilla’s behalf and are also big winners today….
“The May runoff should prove to be a proxy battle comparable to last year’s June Assembly primary that featured Glazer.”
The California Franchise Tax Board has revoked the nonprofit status of healthcare giant Blue Shield, which has held the status since its founding in 1939. The decision leaves the organization liable for tens of millions of dollars in taxes each year. Chad Terhune has the story for the Los Angeles Times:
“A spokeswoman for the tax agency declined to comment on the reasons for revocation. The highly unusual action comes after a lengthy state audit that looked at the justification for Blue Shield's taxpayer subsidy. The insurer has paid federal taxes for years.
“Blue Shield said Tuesday that it's protesting the decision. In the meantime, state officials have ordered it to file tax returns back to 2013.
“Blue Shield has about 3.4 million customers and 5,000 employees and posted $13.6 billion in revenue last year. It trails only nonprofit Kaiser Permanente and for-profit Anthem Inc. in statewide enrollment.”
The discovery of homophobic and racist texts between police officers uncovered in a San Francisco Police Department corruption investigation has already resulted in some charges being dropped and could throw hundreds of cases into question. From Jaxon Van Derbeken, SFGate:
“At least three pending criminal cases may be dismissed as soon as next week in the fallout over San Francisco police officers’ racist and homophobic text messages, Public Defender Jeff Adachi said Tuesday…
“Adachi said Tuesday that his office was still reviewing cases involving the four officers, but that he expects that the total will eventually total 1,000 over the past decade. Prosecutors have promised to cooperate in the inquiry, Adachi said.”
The bad news from the drought continues to worsen – a study by the Pacific Institute found that the drought has lowered hydroelectric power generation by 6% and increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants from California power plants by 8%.
In the Central Valley, overpumping groundwater has led to dramatic subsidence, with parts of the San Joaquin Valley deflating “like a tire with a slow leak as growers pull more and more water from the ground.”
Such is the backdrop against which California adopts new conservation rules, including a restriction limiting homeowners to two landscape-watering days a week. Paul Rogers has the story at the San Jose Mercury News:
“The past three years have been the driest three years in California history dating back to the Gold Rush. On Tuesday, the Sierra snowpack was at 13 percent of its historic average, and many of the state's largest reservoirs were far below normal. Meanwhile, 2014 was the hottest year in recorded history in California and around the globe.”
Rules adopted Tuesday include:
“Ban all restaurants, bars and hotels from serving water unless customers ask for it.
“Require all hotels and motels to provide signs in rooms telling guests that they have the option of choosing not to have towels and linens washed daily.
“Ban Californians from watering lawns and landscaping with potable water within 48 hours after measurable rainfall.
“Require cities, counties, water districts and private companies to limit lawn watering to two days a week if they aren't already limiting lawn and landscape watering to a certain number of days a week.”
In other bad news, the city of San Bernardino has defaulted on nearly $10 million in payments since declaring bankruptcy in 2012.
California Senate Republicans blasted the Attorney General and Department of Justice for failing to seize guns from people prohibited from owning them, asking what happened to the $24 million specifically set aside for that purpose. From Jim Miller at the Sacramento Bee:
“Almost two years after lawmakers set aside $24 million to seize guns from thousands of people banned from having them, a new California Department of Justice report shows that the backlog of prohibited gun owners shrunk by less than one-fifth from a year earlier.
“There were almost 17,500 people in the Armed and Prohibited Persons System as of Dec. 31, 2014. That was down by about 18 percent from the more than 21,000 in the database as of January 2014, according to the department’s March 1 report to the Legislature…
“Senate Republicans said Tuesday the report highlights “the failure of the Attorney General and the DOJ” to address the backlog in the prohibited persons database, an issue that became a Capitol priority in the wake of the December 2012 killings of 20 schoolchildren and six adults in Sandy Hook, Conn.”
As news comes in that Senator Dianne Feinstein has endorsed SB 128, a proposed California law that would allow assisted suicide for the terminally ill, Capitol Journal’s Rich Ehisen looks at aid-in-dying laws across the country.
“According to the aid-in-dying advocacy group Compassion & Choices, lawmakers in at least 14 states and the District of Columbia have introduced or pledged to introduce bills this year to replicate Oregon’s “Death With Dignity” law, which voters first endorsed in 1994 and then again in 1997… It survived several court challenges after that before being upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006…
“On January 21st, Democratic Sens. Lois Wolk and Bill Monning introduced SB 128, also modeled after the Oregon law. They were joined in doing so by [Brittany] Maynard’s husband and mother as well as other aid-in-dying advocates who had either lost family members to lingering terminal diseases or who were in the throes of such straits themselves.”
And, speaking of illness, a proposed new law in Nevada would allow the use of medical marijuana – for pets. No, not kidding.
“Democratic Sen. Tick Segerblom is sponsoring the measure that would allow animal owners to get marijuana for their pet if a veterinarian certifies the animal has an illness that might be alleviated by the drug.
“Segerblom said he’s concerned that some animals might have adverse reactions, but ‘you don’t know until you try,’ he said.”