The governor
sat down with Assembly Republicans yesterday to discuss life after the special election and the appointment of chief of staff
Susan Kennedy, reports Peter Nicholas for the Times. "Assemblyman
Dennis Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) said his colleagues aired 'concerns with where we go now after this election,' in which Schwarzenegger was handed "his head on a platter.'"
The Bee's Jim Sanders
gets the football analogy from Ray Haynes. "'I'm a lineman on this football team, and I told the governor, 'I'll get my nose broken, I'll get my finger smashed, I'll get my legs bent up for you, the quarterback, as long as I know you're going to throw the ball to our team. Now I'm worried about whether you're going to throw the ball to our team.'"
Perhaps the guv is scrambling because he thinks he'll be sacked behind this offensive line.
Dan Walters continues his series on the governor's drop in popularity, and finds the
workers' compensation deal sent the signal that the governor could be "rolled." "It was an eye-opening event for Capitol insiders, who quickly concluded that despite his tough-sounding rhetoric, Schwarzenegger could be rolled. That conclusion was buttressed in the months ahead as Schwarzenegger unilaterally increased spending in the 2004-05 budget by $3 billion to assuage Democrats' complaints about
health and welfare cuts and to entice them to deliver an on-time budget. When the deadline passed in July without a budget in place, however, Schwarzenegger abruptly declared an end to the "make nice" period, denouncing Democratic lawmakers as 'girlie men' afraid to buck powerful public employee unions to serve the public interest."
Walters argues that Schwarzenegger should have started out firm, which would have allowed him to appear nice later after the problems he was elected to fix were corrected.
Five legislative Democrats are
calling for a moratorium on California's death penalty, writes Jordan Rau in the LA Times. They want a halt to executions until a report is received from a commission currently looking into whether the penalty is meted out fairly. The Assembly Public Safety will hear
AB 1121 (Koretz), which calls for the moratorium, on January 10.
"'This is the most liberal Legislature in the country,' said Sen.
Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks). 'I would not be the least bit surprised if it adopted a moratorium or even attempted to rescind the death penalty entirely. But if they do, they'll have a fight on their hands.'"
Meanwhile, the next execution is scheduled for January 17, and 75-year-old
Clarence Ray Allen has asked the governor to
spare his life because of his advanced age.
"Hospitals, children's advocates and anti-smoking groups announced Tuesday that they will join forces to
seek voter approval for a new $2.60-a-pack tax on cigarettes,
averting a potential showdown between two separate measures that were headed for the ballot next year," reports Clea Benson in the Bee. The groups had been split between dueling $1.50 per pack measures, both in circulation.
"
Darrell Steinberg, a lawyer and former Democratic assemblyman from Sacramento, helped broker the deal."
"'This is a huge opportunity to begin to deal with our health-care funding crisis in California, and do it in a way that brings together a coalition you don't always see together,' Steinberg said."
But the "Steinberg compromise" only gets the silver in our
Sin Tax of the Day competition. The gold medal goes to the Italians who, in their own inimitable way, are doing the sin tax right --
tapping the porn industry to help balance the country's books.
"Italy's cash-strapped government has decided to hike taxes on one of the country's few vibrant industries, pornography, to help rein in the burgeoning budget deficit, government sources told Reuters Tuesday... Altogether, the tougher tax-treatment of porn
should bring the government some 300 million euros next year."
The Bee's Laura Mecoy reports that the Senate Housing and Transportation Committee "
held a half-day hearing on
Senate Bill 1024, a $10.3 billion bond measure senators say is likely to grow in size as the governor and the Assembly roll out their own proposals over the next month to finance public works."
"
H.D. Palmer, state Department of Finance spokesman, called Tuesday's hearing a 'positive demonstration' of the bipartisan bond discussions, and said the governor and legislators are working on "separate but related" proposals."
Speaking of Palmer,
November revenue numbers are in, and the results are promising. The state was ahead of monthly projections, and is about $1.9 billion ahead of where they thought they'd be in revenues so far this budget year.
A federal court cleared the way for the
construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border -- sort of. "A decision by a federal judge could lead to the completion of the final section of a 14-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, but more court wrangling is expected.
U.S. District Judge
Larry Burns on Monday ruled against environmentalists who had asserted that it was illegal for Congress to give authority to the Department of Homeland Security to complete the fence to deter smuggling and illegal immigration.
Finally, the Livermore City Council has
cracked down on body piercing, killing development plans for a piercing parlor downtown.
The council's vote came against the protests of one member. "I'm astounded by the number of
people making over $200,000 a year who have tattoos and piercings; so we need a good reputable place to have that done," said newly elected councilman
John Marchand.
Alas, the council waylayed plans for the "piercing shop in the core shopping district where
millions of redevelopment dollars are being spent to spiff up the area in hopes of a renaissance."
And so, the Livermore renaissance will just have to go on without nipple rings.