In the final days of the legislative session, the Brown administration brokered a deal between farmers and labor, helping to settle a wage dispute that goes back to 2013 – assuming Brown actually signs the bill. David Siders, Sacramento Bee:
“The solution, passed in a bill on the Legislature’s final day, reflected a multimillion dollar compromise: In exchange for back payments to thousands of employees for rest periods and other work hours, farmers would receive protection from lawsuits – and potentially far stiffer penalties – for past failure to pay.
“The agreement went little noticed in the flurry of late-session bills. But it marked an unusual achievement for an industry beset by labor discord. Initial talks on the issue failed last year amid high stakes. The bill’s author, Assemblyman Das Williams, put estimated back payments to workers at about $200 million, while farm industry officials feared their liability could reach five times that amount or more.
“Gov. Jerry Brown’s labor secretary, David Lanier, called the settlement a ‘remarkable deal.’
“’Thousands of workers are going to get checks for back wages that they have no idea are coming,’ he said.”
The governor took action on 40 bills Wednesday, including a measure that allows drivers to challenge traffic tickets without paying the fine first. Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times:
“The measure, which takes effect immediately, was one of 37 bills signed by the governor Wednesday. Others help homeless youths get high school degrees and allow early release for some terminally ill jail inmates.
“The bill on traffic tickets is in response to widespread complaints that the current system lacks due process and that many motorists cannot afford to pay escalating court costs and can lose the use of their car if their license is suspended, making it harder to go to work or school.
“’The system was broken,’ said Sen. Robert Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys), who introduced the bill. ‘Is it reasonable or fair to require the poor to pay a huge fine before getting a hearing? I say no, and I’m grateful the governor agreed.’”
Remember back at the beginning of the year, when Senator Barbara Boxer first announced her retirement and there was rampant speculation about who would be challenging Attorney General Kamala Harris for the seat? We’ve heard nothing but crickets about the race since Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez’ war whoops led the news back in May. The LA Times breaks the Senate race coverage drought with a solid profile of the Attorney General from Michael Finnegan:
“Her transition to electoral politics was messy, starting in 2003 with a brutal but winning campaign to unseat San Francisco Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan, her onetime boss.
"’She survived a good old-fashioned San Francisco political bloodletting,’ said Eric Jaye, a San Francisco campaign strategist.
“In the middle of the fight was Willie Brown, then mayor of San Francisco. A decade earlier, when he was state Assembly speaker, Brown had dated Harris and put her on the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and California Medical Assistance Commission.
“The posts gave Harris nearly $100,000 in annual pay above her Oakland prosecutor's salary. Rivals used the patronage jobs against Harris in the district attorney race; Hallinan portrayed her as part of ‘the old Willie Brown machine.’
“Harris, now married to Los Angeles lawyer Douglas Emhoff, called the attack ‘troubling.’ Brown is a mentor and friend, she said, and her dating history is nobody's business.”
Speaking of nobody’s business… if you were wondering who former Playboy CEO Christie Hefner is backing in the Senate race, it’s Harris.
A new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California finds that many Californians back some of the taxes that Democrats failed to get through the legislature this year, including increased tobacco taxes and a split-roll on Prop 13. Jessica Calefati, San Jose Mercury News:
“The survey found two-thirds of likely voters, including a majority of Republicans, support increasing taxes on cigarettes and more than half want to overhaul Proposition 13 and start taxing commercial properties at current market rates.
“But Californians remain divided on other tax proposals, the poll shows. Fewer than half of likely voters want to tax oil and natural gas extraction or extend Proposition 30's temporary sales and income tax hikes, which are set to expire fully in 2018.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy made his first boo-boo only 48 hours into his campaign for House Speaker, linking the decision to hold congressional hearings on Benghazi to Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers in an interview with Sean Hannity. Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times:
“’Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?’ Mr. McCarthy told Sean Hannity of Fox News on Tuesday night. ‘But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable.’”
While Democrats are frothing over that slip, he’s also taking fire from the right.
Sometimes reporters can’t leave well enough alone. Thanks a bunch to the killjoys at the San Diego Union Tribune for quashing the viral news story that a drunken Camp Pendleton sailor used a raccoon to defeat a breathalyzer.
“The far-fetched story about an inebriated military man and a commandeered raccoon emerged on Imgur ("The most viral images on the Internet") several days ago, with a photograph of what was purported to be a police "incident report" from Saturday.
“After a night of drinking, it read, a petty officer 1st class failed the breathalyzer test that allows his car to start. In a moment of alcohol-fueled ingenuity, he visited a nearby park, kidnapped a raccoon, and forced the creature to blow into the machine.
“It worked, the report claimed, but the experience was too much for the furry animal, and it lost consciousness. The sailor tossed the limp raccoon aside and started driving.
“But the creature woke up, according to the account, and with a fury that only a raccoon who is forced to blow into a breathalyzer can possess, began to scratch and bite the drunk man, who then smashed his car through a fence and into a pool….
“Asked if it was fact or fiction, 1st. Lt. Savannah Frank, a public affairs officer at Camp Pendleton, checked and replied: ‘I called police records, and while they were highly entertained, they confirmed (the story) is absolutely a hoax.’”