Just in case anybody is listening, Dan Weintraub on Sunday
outlined a potential budget compromise. "
A compromise that preserves $600 million in cuts proposed by the governor and then uses that money to pay the looming obligation to local government would leave Schwarzenegger - and the state budget - in far better shape going forward. It would reduce the projected growth in state spending, on the one hand, while also erasing part of a big obligation that is coming due next year."
George Skelton
warns that the governor "might want to study Reagan's misadventure [with a special election] for valuable lessons." "Reagan's proposed tax and spending limit in 1973 was rejected by voters in an embarrassing defeat that sapped his clout in the Capitol. The Great Communicator, in a rare lapse, couldn't communicate a coherent sales pitch. And he became a very lame duck his final year as governor, 1974."
"[The governor] should be using all his negotiating skills, for one, to work out a bipartisan compromise with Democrats so they can jointly sponsor an alternative legislative package of "reforms" on the November ballot. That would take most of the fight out of the special election — at least over the governor's agenda — and allow Schwarzenegger to escape Reagan's fate. Indeed, it would set up a victory for both sides."
Of course,
Phil Angelides and
Steve Westly may not be thrilled ...
Speaking of campaigning, another
donor to the governor is under scrutiny, with campaign finance reports showing "that the governor has accepted $67,300 from a La Cañada Flintridge nursing home operator whose company faces criminal elder-neglect charges."
"
Emmanuel I. Bernabe, who owns or has interests in 35 California nursing homes, was listed as one of 14 dinner chairmen at a Schwarzenegger fundraiser at the Century Plaza Hotel on March 16.
One day later, Atty. Gen.
Bill Lockyer filed a 13-count complaint against Bernabe's Pleasant Care Corp., alleging that the company and its Napa facility neglected residents, imperiling their health. The company has pleaded not guilty; the facility has been closed."
While health officers and politicians are warning about
a dangerous West Nile season, the Bee
reports: "The California Highway Patrol's crackdown on "Chief's Disease" - the phenomenon of high-ranking officials making questionable late-career injury claims to maximize retirement income - has yet to nab any chiefs.
Instead, so far a CHP workers' compensation fraud unit created last fall in response to a Bee investigation has built cases against a Coalinga officer and a Shasta County emergency dispatcher."
"'It's
beyond urban legend - we now know about Chief's Disease,' said state Sen.
Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles. 'But we can't find a single chief.'"
In other news,
African Killer Bees are neither African, nor killer, nor bees. Discuss.Tom Umberg explains his decision to walk on the vote to raise taxes on top income earners for education last week. "I did not support
AB 6 because raising taxes, even for something as fundamental and vital as education, should be a last resort, not a first one. While I'm disappointed that the governor has reneged on his commitment to education funding, we must explore all other options before increasing the burden on California taxpayers."
The governor tells the LA Daily News that his office should be the
subject of a reality TV show. ""If you would have a camera in my office -- I mean, people would be howling," Schwarzenegger said last week in a meeting with Daily News reporters and editors. "It would be the highest-rated show in the nation. This is the wildest thing."
Cue call from Mark Burnett in five, four, three... Although we may not be ready for Survivor: Sacramento, the governor is the subject of a new tabloid-friendly biography. Dion Nissenbaum takes a look at
Lawrence Leamer's biography of the governor, which he describes as "the first biography to examine the three main acts of Schwarzenegger's life: bodybuilding, acting and politics."
"Schwarzenegger's
willful courting of controversy has served him well in bodybuilding and Hollywood, said Leamer. But it's not working as well in politics.
Controversy is the quickest way to create publicity,' Leamer says of the governor.
Of course, Leamer could also be talking about himself.
In
Saw This One Coming a Mile Away news, new LA Times opinion page editor
Michael Kinsley tried to shake up the paper's opinion section by adding new, online "wikitorials," which allow readers to "rewrite" editorials in the paper, and post them online.
LA Observed reports the experiment hit its first speedbump, and . "Unfortunately, we have had to remove this feature, at least temporarily, because a few readers were
flooding the site with inappropriate material. Didn't
Michael Kinsley ever have Mad Libs as a child?
Does anybody out there speak John Burton? We're asking Roundup readers to provide a translation to this Burton gem, taken from
today's Matier and Ross column. ""I have no (bleeping) idea what you're talking about. I mean, I know what you're talking about, but you know I wouldn't say yes or wouldn't say no -- so I couldn't give a (bleep) about how you would write the story, the where or why. But I don't recollect it at all."
It's a lot to handle for a Monday morning, but give it your best shot, and
send us your translation.