The Merc News looks into the
use of the initiative process by the governor. "'This is completely unprecedented: This is a governor using the initiative as his primary instrument of lawmaking,' said
Jim Shultz, a veteran of several initiative campaigns and author of 'The Initiative Cookbook.'"
"'It's a full-employment act' for political consultants on the left and right, said Sonoma State political scientist
David McCuan, who studies direct democracy."
To make that point, the Knight-Ridder team takes a look at
how the governor's allies are spending their money.So far, about $9 million has been spent on signature gathering efforts, with Neilsen, Merksamer,
Don Sipple and
Mike Murphy's Navigators firm also raking in big bucks.
But it may not lead to the world's best policy.
With a special election seemingly inevitable, the
love affair between the governor and local government appears to be over. "The California State Assn. of Counties has circulated a memo warning that
the [governor's proposed spending] cap 'contains serious drafting errors that will result in unintended consequences that will have a
severe fiscal impact on counties.' The group's board will meet in September, when association officials say they probably will vote to oppose the measure unless some remedy is found," according to the L.A. Times.
Though the call for the special election may be all but academic, the timing of this Times story couldn't be much worse for the governor. The Live Within Our Means Act is at the core of the governor's justification for calling the special election. Publicly, local governments have been among the governor's most visible supporters this year, ever since the governor helped pass Proposition 1A, which guarantees local government funding.
That "special interest" paintbrush is getting awfully wide.
Students at the governor's alma mater Santa Monica College may catch a swipe of that brush next Tuesday, when the governor is
scheduled to give the commencement address. "Student body president
Jeronimo Saldana lamented that politics might overshadow the graduation ceremony. But he added that if he wasn't graduating that night he'd be joining the protesters. 'If I was just a regular student, I'd probably be out on the sidewalk with everybody else," he said. 'It's a really difficult time for students and this governor isn't making it any easier.'"
Labor unions have been able to put enough pressure on at least one of the governor's donors, and
convinced it not to contribute to a ballot measure that could limit labor's political power. The Orange County Register reports, "
Ameriquest Mortgage Company has told a local labor association that it would not endorse a ballot initiative that would require public employee unions to get individual members' permission before using their dues for political purposes."
With
Janice Rogers Brown now headed to the federal bench, the Contra Costa Times looks at
Schwarzenegger's prospects for a new state Supreme Court justice. According to the paper, "legal scholars say Schwarzenegger is probably seriously considering replacing the court's most conservative member, and only black, with another black judge. The
current favorite may be Third District Court of Appeal justice
Vance Raye, who was
George Deukmejian's legal affairs secretary.
Freshman Assemblyman
Roger Niello sat down with the Bee yesterday and pledged not to take the pay hike and
blasted the control of public employee unions in the Capitol. "People say that politicians are bought and paid for," Niello said. "I don't subscribe to that, and I'd never say that with regard to anybody in the leadership of the Democratic caucus. But they come from organized labor. It's who they are."
"The speaker's background is fighting for working families - and I think that carries over into his policies in the Assembly," [Nuņez spokesman
Steven] Maviglio said. "The speaker doesn't apologize for that any more than Mr. Niello should apologize for being bought, sold and paid for by the California Chamber of Commerce."
From our "Straighten Up and Fly Right" files, a number of papers are playing catch-up today to Dion Nissenbaum's story about
the resignation of the state's National Guard chief. "The allegations that forced Eres' resignation were first made in a complaint given to the Schwarzenegger administration in early May by critics within the state military who have long complained about the general's leadership.
At the heart was an allegation that he failed to fulfill a Pentagon shooting requirement before traveling to visit California troops fighting in Iraq."
Dan Walters discusses the
unlikelihood of a budget by next Wednesday's constitutional deadline of June 15. [Speaker
Fabian Nuņez is] clearly reluctant to actually place the Democrats' version of the budget - which would increase spending by billions and finance it with new income taxes on the wealthiest Californians - on the Assembly floor and take a vote. He says he'll do that only when there's a bipartisan agreement, one that's not likely to happen soon given the wide gulf on taxes and schools."
Peter Schrag has a solution to that gulf between taxes and schools, but it's not to be found in Sacramento. Schrag argues that the state should return to the days of allowing local school boards to
raise revenues to meet local educational needs. "It was a clear way of holding government accountable and engaging the citizenry. If Schwarzenegger and the Democrats were really interested in reform and not another ballot fight, they might want to learn about it. It was called democracy."
From our "Read My Lips, No New Faxes" Files, Senator
Debra Bowen is pushing
a bill to
maintain the restrictions on unsolicited faxes, even if the federal government weakens the federal law as expected later this year.
Dan Weintraub gives tepid reviews to
Sen. John Campbell's new blog. To his credit, Campbell has been busily trying to put together votes for Senate Republican leader. Maybe that's taken him off his blogging focus.