"Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger again blasted President Bush's Cabinet as 'dangerously wrong' about the condition of California's waterlogged levees Thursday -- a move political analysts say could be a calculated attempt to curry favor with the state's left-leaning voters while stopping just short of alienating the president," reports Aaron Davis in the Merc-News.
"The election-year maneuver has set up a pivotal moment today for Schwarzenegger as the two embattled Republican leaders prepare to meet in San Jose."
And it could be some good, old-fashioned reelection triangulation.
"If Schwarzenegger fails to persuade Bush to pay for levees, it could be the governor's most high-profile defeat of a campaign promise to act as the 'Collectinator,' and tap a Republican administration for needed state repairs."
"'Politically, it's exactly the right position for the governor,' said former White House chief of staff
Leon Panetta. 'Underlying all of this is that the governor doesn't want to be seen clasping hands with the president, who is already a liability in terms of the November election.'"
"In a conference call with reporters, U.S. Rep.
Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, and Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nuņez, D-Los Angeles, on Thursday, continued the attack.
Nuņez pressed Schwarzenegger to 'do a show-me-the-money dance with the president.'"
"Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday
put California's troubled prison system in the hands of a new leader who vowed to improve relations with the guards union, a powerful political force partly blamed for the departures of the last two corrections chiefs," write Jennifer Warren and Peter Nicholas in the Times.
"The governor's appointment of
James Tilton came a day after acting Corrections Secretary
Jeanne S. Woodford stepped down, the second top official in two months to quit amid concerns about union influence over prison management."
"Tilton, 57, expressed no such qualms. In a conference call with reporters, the veteran civil servant said he 'always had a good working relationship' with the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. during his 13 years with the prison system."
Mark Martin and Greg Lucas
take a deeper look at the frustration of the past prison guard leaders and the relationship between the administration and CCPOA. "On the day before
Roderick Hickman quit his job as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's corrections czar, he bumped into the lead lobbyist for the state's prison guards union, who was walking out of a meeting with Schwarzenegger's chief of staff."
"Hickman became incensed, and the next day he fired off an angry e-mail to Cabinet Secretary
Fred Aguiar announcing his resignation and suggesting the governor's office had lost the political will to make big changes in the state's dysfunctional prison system.
Hickman, several sources close to him say, was concerned that the union was beginning to have more clout than he had among the governor's top aides."
"After two years of frosty relations, the Schwarzenegger administration has reached out to the politically powerful prison guards union as the governor faces a difficult re-election bid and as negotiations begin on a new labor contract to replace a lucrative deal the union struck with former Gov.
Gray Davis."
Also from the appointments desk... "While praised for his bipartisan judicial selections, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has come under fire from Latino legal groups for a lack of racial diversity in his appointments to the bench," reports the LAT's Richard Winton.
"On Thursday, the governor
announced the appointment of four new Los Angeles County judges: former federal prosecutor
Ray G. Jurado; defense attorney and former Los Angeles Police Officer
Juan Carlos Dominguez; attorney
Steven D. Blades; and administrative law judge
Mary Lou Villar."
"Schwarzenegger's advisors have insisted race plays no part in his selections."
"The Schwarzenegger administration on Thursday
released a plan to reorganize a wide-ranging government program launched six years ago to repair the ailing heart of California's water system," reports Bettina Boxall in the Times.
"Known as CalFed, the alliance of state and federal agencies was supposed to improve water deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta east of San Francisco while also restoring the delta's deteriorating environs."
"Under the restructuring, a new governing body would be created, composed of the directors of 14 state and federal agencies. Co-chair of that entity would be the state resources secretary, who administration officials said would be the ultimate state decision-maker and held accountable for state actions."
"'I think it's a rehash of old ideas that doesn't go to the core of the problem,' [Senator
Michael] Machado said of the plan, complaining that it should have been released in January."
"A
bill to restrict public access to divorce records was
revised this week to allow couples to keep much financial information secret even without a judicial finding that their privacy outweighs the public's right to scrutinize court proceedings."
"Critics say the changes contradict amendments discussed earlier this month by the Assembly Judiciary Committee, which said it would add language to the controversial bill requiring judges to balance privacy against the public's interest in open courts."
"Instead, the new wording appears to create a loophole. It requires the divorce court to withhold certain information at the request of either party, without a balancing test."
Who's afraid of
Deborah Ortiz? Apparently,
we now have an answer to this age-old question. "
Jeff Sheehy, a stem cell oversight board member, said Wednesday he felt 'intimidated' and that his position is 'at risk' because he had testified against a bill by state Sen. Deborah Ortiz.
The measure, Senate Bill 401, seeks to put an initiative on the November ballot to open up more meetings of stem cell working groups and to require a minimum of royalties from taxpayer-funded stem cell research be returned to the state.
Sheehy said Senate President Pro Tem
Don Perata's health consultant,
David Panush, urged him not to testify against Ortiz's bill at the Assembly Health Committee on Tuesday - a claim Panush denied.
Sheehy, a San Francisco AIDS activist, said Panush told him testifying against a senator's bill - while serving as the Senate's appointee to the stem cell oversight committee - violated Senate protocol.
After testifying, Sheehy said he learned Ortiz sought to have him removed from the 29-member Independent Citizens Oversight Committee - a claim Ortiz denied."
But Ortiz
did order a professional hit on Sheehy...
Earlier this week, California celebrated the
two year anniversary of the workers' compensation law (marking the last significant legislative victory for the governor). Today, we celebrate yet another seminal moment in our history. Hard to believe, but it's been 20 years since
Geraldo Rivera cracked open Al Capone's vault on live television, an event that turned out to be a
bigger bust that the Richard Riordan gubernatorial campaign.
Writing about the event, Rivera said, "my career was not over, I knew, but had just begun. And all because of a silly, high-concept stunt that failed to deliver on its titillating promise."
We feel the same way about The Roundup...