"A proposal to amend California's term limits law
has been revised to ensure that Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata would be eligible to serve an extra four-year term," writes Jim Sanders in the Bee.
Under the original language, since Perata served half of a term after
Barbara Lee's election to Congress, the job extension clause for current members may not have applied to him.
"
Gale Kaufman, a Democratic political consultant who helped launch the initiative drive, said the rewording simply clarifies what has been the intent all along.
"'It isn't doing anything other than what we thought we did to begin with,' Kaufman said.
"But critics said the alteration adds to their contention that the initiative is a political power grab.
"'
Revising it to benefit one politician who already has served 10 years in the Senate reveals the lie about this initiative being a strengthening of term limits,' said
Kevin Spillane, a GOP political consultant."
"A Superior Court judge Tuesday
tossed out Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's short-term strategy for coping with the overcrowding crisis in California's prisons, saying the transfer of inmates to other states was illegal," writes Jenifer Warren in the Times.
"The ruling by Judge
Gail D. Ohanesian, who acknowledged a climate of "extreme peril" in the prisons, comes as the state is under federal order to ease jampacked conditions by June or face a possible cap on new admissions.
"Ohanesian said that Schwarzenegger improperly declared an emergency in the prisons and that contracts sending convicts to private prisons in Tennessee and Arizona are invalid.
"Two labor unions that represent correctional officers and other prison employees had sued the governor and corrections officials to block the transfers, saying Schwarzenegger's use of the Emergency Services Act was illegal."
In more news from the pokey, "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
moved the state's substance-abuse treatment czar to the state prison system Tuesday, perhaps to dull the sting of today's report calling prison drug treatment efforts a '$1 billion failure,'" reports Josh Richman in the Oakland Tribune.
"
Kathryn Jett, director of the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs since November 2000, now will direct the newly reorganized Division of Addiction and Recovery Services within the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
"The governor issued a news release calling Jett, 53, 'the right person at the right time to take on this critical responsibility. There is no one more experienced in addiction and recovery services and no one more committed to making substance abuse treatment the cornerstone of our rehabilitation efforts in Corrections.'"
"Schwarzenegger ordered a shake-up of what used to be the department's Office of Substance Abuse Programs in light of a report coming today from state Inspector General
Matt Cate.
"It will call the prisons' existing substance-abuse programs 'ineffective at reducing recidivism' and 'a waste of money.'"
"After an intense day of lobbying in the state capital Tuesday, Los Angeles' top leaders
appeared to be winning their fight to secure $730 million in bond money to widen one of the nation's most congested freeways, with one powerful legislator threatening to hold up funds for transportation projects statewide if the city and other congested areas don't get what they need," writes Duke Helfand in the Times.
"More than a dozen Los Angeles-area elected officials — including Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa, County Supervisor
Gloria Molina and Rep.
Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) — descended on the Capitol to voice their unhappiness with a recommendation by the California Transportation Commission staff to omit new carpool lanes for the 405 Freeway and other local projects from an initial funding list.
"Villaraigosa and several Los Angeles City Council members started the day by meeting privately with lawmakers and Transportation Commission officials, arguing that Los Angeles County has 28% of the state's population and 33% of its traffic congestion but stands to receive only 12% of an initial $2.8 billion in bond money.
"By the end of the day, Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles), Senate President Pro Tem
Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger had piled on, adding their voices to the chorus calling for the commission to re-examine its allocations.
"'I strongly urge the commission to reconsider the projects on the … list for funding in this initial round of programming," Schwarzenegger wrote to commission Chairwoman
Marian Bergeson, a former state education secretary and senator from Newport Beach. 'There are significant projects omitted ... that I believe should be reconsidered.'"
The Merc News's Erik Nelson writes that Bay Area leaders
also feel shorted by the commission. "Commission staff members Friday recommended $700 million for the San Francisco Bay Area, less than half of what Caltrans had recommended. The commission's staff also rejected or deferred funding projects along Highway 101 from Gilroy to Santa Rosa and chronically backed-up stretches along interstates 880, 580 and 80. The commission is entitled to spend up to $4.5 billion under the transportation bond's Corridor Mobility Improvement Account.
"'The Bay Area has significant transportation needs -- the Doyle Drive approach to the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marin-Sonoma Narrows on Highway 101 and the Alameda 580 corridor is a major goods-movement route that suffers from major congestion,' Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote in a letter to the commission, whose members he appointed."
Dan Walters
notes the irony of the road money fight on the day the bicycle race hit Sacramento.
"A Princeton University professor is claiming that
some of Sequoia Voting Systems' electronic touch-screen machines can be easily manipulated to throw an election," writes the Oakland Trib's Michele Marcucci.
"In a blow-by-blow on his school Web page and in a separate filing for an electronic voting lawsuit in New Jersey superior court, computer science professor Andrew Appel details how he was able to purchase five of the Oakland-based company's AVC Advantage machines off a Web site auctioning government surplus items,
pry open the backs and access the computer chips that control the vote count."
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders Tuesday
announced appointments to a commission that will report on how the state and local governments can meet the costs of providing pensions and health care to retired public employees.
"
Gerald Parsky, an investment executive and former chair of the University of California Board of Regents, will head the 12-member panel, the Governor's Office said.
"The governor's other appointees, all Republicans, will join union leaders and pension experts appointed by Democratic legislative leaders.
"Parsky said the commission would not recommend cutting benefits that had already been promised. But at the same time, he said, the governor and legislative leaders 'recognize that the rising obligations of this type remains one of the biggest problems facing governments everywhere. And as these costs rise and are met, it means that less money is available to other programs.'"
From our
Just Dropping In Files: "A woman gave birth to a boy outside a western Pennsylvania hospital — a delivery that happened so quickly that the
newborn wound up in his mother's sweatpants.
"'It happened so fast,'
Rebecca Johnson, 24, told the Daily Courier in Connellsville. 'I didn't know what happened until he was in my pant leg.'"
We've all heard that one before...