Somebody redefined the governor's Republican week by
giving the Times a copy of an audiotape from a meeting earlier this year on which the guv and
Susan Kennedy have candid conversations about GOP lawmakers.
Oh, and the
audiotape is available for your listening pleasure.
Robert Salladay writes "The free-flowing conversation took place amid negotiations over the governor's proposals for a giant public works package. At the time, Schwarzenegger's own party was resisting the sheer size of the plan — the largest in state history — which entailed tens of billions of dollars in borrowing. They eventually settled on a package worth $37 billion, placed on the November ballot."
"On the recording, Kennedy and Schwarzenegger review an exchange between Kennedy and [
Kevin] McCarthy, the Central Valley lawmaker who was then the lead negotiator for the Assembly's Republicans."
"'You really pissed him off,' Schwarzenegger said. 'But you know something? You pissed him off because it hit home. That's why it pissed him off. People always get irritated; always when you hit something that is the truth, that's when people flame out.'"
"Schwarzenegger says he had to control himself, and tried to be 'really gentle' in the day's negotiations with his fellow Republicans. He calls it 'dancing the dance.'"
"But he says to Kennedy: 'Anyway, so you hit him,
you hit Bakersfield boy hard today," referring to McCarthy, who had warned against upsetting the Legislature's minority Republicans.'"
"Kennedy then says that McCarthy, who is leaving the Assembly this year, ignored the governor's specific requests on transportation funding.""'He doesn't care. There's no price,' Kennedy says. 'Anyway, don't get me started again. I am glad he's running for Congress.'"
"On the recording, someone then asks about [
George] Plescia, who had been elected Assembly Republican leader but ceded negotiations on the infrastructure bonds to McCarthy. Kennedy dismisses him."
"'
Plescia looks like the deer that keeps getting caught in my yard when I leave the gate open," said Kennedy, who owns a home in Marin County."
"Kennedy then apparently makes a face, and the governor laughs."
"'Great look. I love it,' Schwarzenegger says. 'There was the Academy Award right there.'"
"Kennedy says Plescia has '
big eyes that just kinda like stare like a Stepford wife. He's a good-looking guy. Happy. Perky.'"
"'
Bonnie Garcia is great,' Kennedy says on the recording. '
She's a ball-buster. She's great. Is she Puerto Rican?'"
"'She seems to me like Cuban,' Schwarzenegger says."
"'She's not Mexican,' Kennedy replies."
"'No,' the governor agrees."
"'But she said something,' Kennedy says, 'and I thought, I thought she was Puerto Rican.'"
"Then Schwarzenegger offers a theory."
"'She maybe is Puerto Rican or the same thing as Cuban.
I mean, they are all very hot. They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it.'"
"Garcia said the conversation didn't bother her in the least. She called herself an 'unpolished politician' and said Schwarzenegger had shown nothing but respect for her."
"'I love the governor because he is a straight talker just like I am,' Garcia said. "
I label myself a hot-blooded Latina that is very passionate about the issues, and this is kind of an inside joke that I have with the governor."
Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Phil Angelides was wooing Latinos in his own way.
"Hoping to retain favorable support from Latino voters, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Angelides late Thursday addressed one of the largest and most significant Latino gatherings in the nation in three decades," reports Edwin Garcia in the Merc News.
"The National Latino Congreso has brought together more than 1,600 community leaders, activists and elected officials to discuss how to achieve social, political and economic change. Electoral participation is one of the pillars of the five-day convention."
"But despite the scope of the convention -- deemed 'historical' by organizers -- Angelides, a keynote speaker, largely stuck to his standard campaign speech but inserted the word 'Latino' in key phrases."
"'It's time to help hard-working middle-class families, like the millions of Latinos who make this state's economy strong,' he told more than 600 people at the capacity-crowd dinner. 'We find families, millions of Latino families, working hard at one job, sometimes two, just to stay even.'"
Next time, we suggest the treasurer add "very hot" to his speech as well.
"Without the knowledge of most state lawmakers, a last-minute bill amendment that allows Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to approximately double the salaries of his top appointees was slipped into a legislation ratifying a new contract with California Highway Patrol officers," report Greg Lucas and Mark Martin in the Chron.
"The bill, which passed overwhelmingly in both houses of the Legislature, contains two short paragraphs allowing the Department of Personnel Administration to boost the pay of Schwarzenegger's Cabinet secretaries, department directors and commissioners to as much as 125 percent of the governor's salary, which climbs to $206,500 in December."
Spokesperson Margita "Thompson noted the administration originally sought to increase the pay of just one person: the head of the state's prison system, who is currently paid $131,412 as a Cabinet secretary. But legislative leaders didn't feel comfortable singling out one Cabinet secretary. Legislative sources confirmed that leaders broadened the pool of who might get a raise."
"It would be a bad precedent to include only one person,' said Alicia Trost, spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland."
The LAT's Michael Finnegan looks at the spending and bond proposals on the November ballot. "Together, the proposals would open a $46-billion gusher of spending on highways, schools, levees, hospitals, housing, parkland and more. They would add $84 billion in debt and interest to state budgets over the next 30 years. Taxes, mainly on oil and tobacco, would rise by more than $3 billion a year."
"The torrent of money on the ballot gives voters a chance to set California's fiscal course for decades: They could reaffirm the state's reputation for clamping restraints on public spending, launch a new era of activist government or opt for something in between."
"'It looks like people are getting inundated with separate spending requests,' said Democratic pollster David Binder, whose surveys and focus groups have found growing voter resistance over the last decade to bond proposals. 'My sense is that they all are going to suffer to some degree.'"
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday signed legislation that provides $50 million to expand preschool opportunities for thousands of low-income children," reports the LAT's Carla Rivera.
"The money will target preschools operated by school districts and nonprofit organizations in neighborhoods where students score in the lowest three deciles of the Academic Performance Index."
"State officials said they expected that an additional 12,000 to 17,000 children would be able to enroll in preschool classes as a result of the legislation, AB 172, which was sponsored by Assemblywoman Wilma Chan (D-Alameda)."
"Secretary of State Bruce McPherson vowed Thursday to sponsor legislation banning lawmakers and the governor from fundraising during key periods when the fates of hundreds of bills are decided," reports Jim Sanders in the Bee.
"'I think it would go a long way toward improving confidence in the electoral process,' he said."
McPherson opponent Debra "Bowen said McPherson's proposal amounts to 'tinkering around the edges.'"
"'I'd support it; it's better than nothing, but I don't think it accomplishes much,' she said. 'It just compresses 12 months of special-interest donations into 11 months.'"
"The board that oversees California's teacher pension fund is poised to ban financial firms that it does business with from making large political contributions to its members and the governor," writes Evan Halper in the Times.
"Implementation of such a ban, which could cost candidates for governor and other statewide offices millions of dollars in campaign cash, was set in motion Thursday with a unanimous vote of the board's corporate governance committee. Over the next two months, staff attorneys will craft statutes, subject to board approval, that would put the new rule into effect."
"The move, instigated by proxies for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, would prohibit companies or their employees who are seeking business from the pension fund from donating more than $250 to Schwarzenegger, the state treasurer or the state controller, all of whom control seats on the board."
"'The treasurer wholeheartedly supports the proposal,' Angelides spokesman Nick Papas said. Joy Higa, the controller's representative on the board, said Westly also backs the measure."
Dan Walters looks at how Schwarzenegger is dealing with the package of gay rights bills sent to him by the Legislature. "Schwarzenegger will probably veto some contested measures and sign others. He appears to lean against gay rights measures involving schoolchildren, but toward those that bar discrimination or enhance equality -- short of marriage -- for LGBT Californians in the larger society."
"The question, of course, is whether positioning himself in no-man's land and dodging bullets from both sides help or hurt him in his quest for a second term. And all-in-all, it aligns him with the mainstream of voter ambivalence about gay rights."
"As much as they may dislike Schwarzenegger's signing SB 1441 and other bills, those on the anti-gay rights side know that were he to lose to Democratic challenger Phil Angelides, the full gay rights agenda would be quickly enacted. Pro-gay rights blocs, meanwhile, are likely to already be committed to Angelides, so the downside political risk for Schwarzenegger is minimal."
"A Superior Court judge today removed a measure from the Nov. 7 ballot that could have eased term limits for the Los Angeles City Council, ruling that the proposal violated the state Constitution," reports the LAT's Steve Hymon.
"Judge Robert H. O'Brien found that the measure illegally combined the term limits proposal with new restrictions on lobbyists. The Constitution prohibits asking voters to decide separate issues in the same ballot question."
Finally, from our Set It To Vibrate Files, "Four prisoners in an El Salvador jail hid cellphones, a phone charger and spare chips in their bowels so they could coordinate crimes from their cells, prison officials said on Wednesday."
"The four men, all gang members, wrapped their phones and accessories in plastic and inserted them into their rectums 'far enough to reach their intestines,' Ramon Arevalo, director of the maximum security Zacatecoluca prison, said."