Forty years after its creation, some want to revisit and strengthen California’s Political Reform Act – including its author, Bob Stern. Stern and others want to guarantee Californians a constitutional right to regulate political money and force disclosure. John Howard has the story at Capitol Weekly:
“It would require the disclosure of the source of donations of $10,000 or more to nonprofits, when the money is used for political purposes. It would provide $13 million to the state’s election officer – the same job [Jerry] Brown had before he became governor — to upgrade the official web sites that list spending and fundraising. It would make explicit who is paying for political ads and it would double the “revolving door” period to two years, governing how soon a former legislator can work the Capitol as a lobbyist.
“It outlaws lobbyists’ gifts to elected officials, and cuts the maximum value of a gift from a member of the public, now $460 annually, to $200 a year.
“Skeptics aren’t convinced that this or any other law will succeed in curbing money in politics. ‘It all sounds good, but will it really have an impact? I don’t know,’ said one political strategist who has handled numerous campaigns.
“But others note that the proposed initiative doesn’t limit contributions or spending. Rather, it forces disclosure of the sources of the money.”
A group of political asylum seekers who are detained in an immigrant-detention center in Adelanto are eight days into a hunger strike, vowing not to eat until they are freed. Kate Lincithum, Los Angeles Times:
“The hunger strike at California's largest immigrant detention center comes on the heels of similar strikes at other ICE facilities in Louisiana and Texas.
“In each case, detainees have complained that they should be set free on their own recognizance or on reasonably priced bonds. Some have languished in detention for years while their cases are decided in immigration courts.
“[Mohammed Zakir] Hosain, 28, has been here for one year. A member of an opposition party in Bangladesh, he says he fled the country in 2014 after being beaten repeatedly by members of the party in power….
“Hosain has family in New York, and ICE officials could have released him there with an order to appear in immigration court. But instead they sent him to Adelanto to wait his case out.”
Following the old “if it’s good enough for the Governor, it’s good enough for me” motto, hundreds of Californians have asked the state’s oil regulation agency for maps and other information related to potential oil and gas deposits on their property. David Baker, San Francisco Chronicle:
“They’re following the lead of Brown, who in 2014 directed the agency’s staff to prepare a report showing the fossil fuel potential of his family’s land in Colusa County. As the Associated Press reported last week, the state’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources gave Brown a 51-page report judging the likelihood of finding oil or gas reserves there ‘very low….’
“Division officials defended Brown’s action by saying that anyone could request the same kind of report, insisting the governor did not receive special treatment.
“So to test that theory, the nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog — which frequently tussles with California’s oil industry and the state government — encouraged anyone interested to send the division an e-mail asking for a report.
“The group even posted a form letter online to speed up the process, encouraging people to ‘Ask for Your Free Jerry Brown Oil Map.’
“Division spokesman Don Drysdale said Tuesday that about 200 people had e-mailed so far, most of them using Consumer Watchdog’s form letter. All received a reply from the division requesting more data specific to their property, he said. Only a dozen responded. Those who did received a custom map and a summary of oil and gas drilling in their area.”
It was a mighty quiet Veterans Day in Sacramento, so we have a mighty short Roundup today as a follow up. But, one story really stood out in the news yesterday – the incredible story of identical twins separated soon after birth. One was raised Jewish, the other as a Nazi.
“…[The story of Jack Yufe and his brother was not just about their stark differences. Yufe, a San Ysidro businessman, died Monday in a San Diego hospital from stomach cancer, his family said. He was 82....
Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on Jan. 16, 1933, they were 6 months old when their parents split up.
[His twin brother] Oskar went to Germany with his Catholic mother, Elizabeth, and grew up as the Nazis rose to power. Like his fellow students, he greeted the school principal with ‘Heil, Hitler,’ and was warned by his grandmother to never let on that his father, Joseph, was Jewish. As an act of survival, Oskar joined the Hitler Youth movement….
“In 1954, before heading to the United States where his father had settled, he decided to stop in Germany to look up his brother. They were 21 when they met for the first time as adults….
“When they met at the train station, Jack and Oskar were chagrined to find that not only did they have the same neat mustaches and receding hairlines, they were wearing similar wire-rimmed glasses and matching, light-colored sports jackets.
“’We had identical clothes. I got mine in Israel and he got his in Germany. Exactly the same color, with two buttons,’ Yufe recalled in a 1999 BBC documentary. ‘I said, “Oskar, you are wearing the same shirt and same glasses. Why?” He said to me, “Why are you wearing same thing that I am?’”