As the budget-writing conference committee convened on Friday, this year's
June Surprise was brought to us by a federal judge, who ordered the state to stop seizing and selling unclaimed property.
The Chron's Tom Chorneau and Tom Feist report: "U.S. District Judge
William Shubb's preliminary injunction
extends and significantly broadens an earlier order that prohibited the state controller from selling assets collected under the unclaimed property program. The ruling Friday prevents the controller's office from even taking possession of property it believes is abandoned.
"Controller
John Chiang argued the state
would lose $600 million a year if the court barred the collection of unclaimed property because it still must honor the claims of people who request that their property be returned to them. For comparison purposes, the state will spend about $661 million this year on the Cal Grant program, which helps needy students attend college.
"The state's practice of taking out newspaper ads pointing to a Web site that contains an inventory of abandoned property does not provide people with adequate notice, Shubb said. Lawmakers and Chiang are scrambling to develop and pay for a better notification process, something legislators have been reluctant to do in the past.
"'This ruling is going to give the citizen constitutional notice to act before his property is taken,' said Sacramento attorney
William Palmer, who represents clients whose assets were seized and converted to cash."
Capitol Weekly reports on
the war between Lloyd Levine and his former chief of staff.
"Assemblyman
Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, has dismissed his chief of staff,
Stuart Waldman, and pulled his endorsement of Waldman in the race to succeed him. Instead, Levine is backing the candidacy of
Bob Blumenfeld, the district director of powerful San Fernando Valley congressman
Howard Berman.
In a letter to Waldman dated May 31, Levine writes, "This is to inform you, effective immediately, that I am withdrawing my endorsement of your candidacy in the 40th District State Assembly Democratic Primary Election scheduled for June 2008. Please remove any references to my actual or implied endorsement from all of your election materials, including your Web site, without delay."
"In an interview Friday,
Waldman said he feels betrayed by his former boss. '
Part of my agreement to come work for him is that he was going to endorse me,'says Waldman. Waldman was Levine's chief of staff for more than five years.
"
Blumenfeld also confirmed that his Assembly race will be run by political consultant Larry Levine, Assemblyman Levine's father."
Lloyd Levine's abrupt about-face has led to speculation that he was pressured by Berman to pull his support of Waldman."
The LAT's Nancy Vogel looks at the cash contributed to help qualify the term limits measure and
wonders if the donors are more interested in supporting the measure or currying favor with Fabian Nunez.
"The contributions, all made within the last two months, come as lawmakers led by Nunez are deciding on hundreds of bills of concern to the donors. The groups had already spent a combined $3.5 million in the first three months of this year trying to influence the Legislature, governor's office and state agencies, state records show.
"Some seek to shape just a handful of bills. Others -- Pacific Gas & Electric Co., for example -- have lobbied on several hundred pieces of legislation. PG&E gave $50,000 to the campaign for the term limits measure.
"
Jay Stewart, executive director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Better Government Assn. in Chicago, said he doubted that union members and corporate shareholders were clamoring for a term-limits overhaul. But the large donations are certain to be noticed by Nunez, he said.
"'Common sense tells you that if you support an issue near and dear to any legislator, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, you're probably going to get your phone call returned,' Stewart said."
"Nunez spokesman
Steve Maviglio said there was no connection between the speaker's official actions and donations to the term limits campaign."
"
State spending under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been
growing faster than it did under former Gov. Gray Davis, who was ousted in a historic recall election driven mainly by a huge budget gap," writes the U-T's Ed Mendel.
"The new state budget proposed by Schwarzenegger would spend $103.8 billion in the general fund, which pays for most programs – an increase of more than 30 percent since he took office, about the same as the boost under Davis.
"
But it took Davis five years to raise spending by about one-third. Schwarzenegger, who was elected in the fall 2003 recall, has done the same thing in four."
"The same consumer group that spearheaded the ballot battle to regulate auto, home and other property insurers in California two decades ago
is now targeting the health care industry," reports Aurelio Rojas in the Bee.
"With AB 1554 by Assemblyman
Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights wants the Legislature to allow the state to set rates for medical coverage.
"The bill would require health plans and health insurers licensed by the California Department of Managed Health Care and the California Department of Insurance to submit annual proposed rate increases for prior approval.
"AB 1554 cleared an Assembly committee last week but still faces long odds in the Capitol, where health care insurers are among the biggest contributors to the campaign coffers of elected officials."
"Two appointees whom Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sent to fix California's dysfunctional prison healthcare system
pushed a $26-million, no-bid contract for outside medical services while contract reviewers steadfastly maintained it was overpriced and illegal, records and interviews show," reports Tim Reiterman in the Times.
"But instead of providing a strong step toward reforming the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's $1.8-billion medical system, the handling of this relatively small contract erupted into a fight that forced out the two appointees and highlights what critics say are systemic contracting breakdowns that helped bloat healthcare costs at the state's 33 prisons.
"The contract uproar centered on Medical Development International, a $100 million-a-year business that arranges medical appointments, handles billing, and contracts with doctors and hospitals to serve inmates. It was founded in 1992 by a father and son, Richard and Ted Willich.
"MDI has grown into one of the largest medical providers for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, having won contracts at 27 facilities. That work led California lawmakers to invite a company official to testify at a 2004 hearing into skyrocketing prison healthcare costs in the state.
"About two years ago, MDI officials hired
Mark Nobili, a Sacramento lobbyist whose clients included a private prison operator. To date, records show that MDI has paid Nobili at least $170,000."
"A bill by a Valley lawmaker
seeks to take chance out of the admissions equation by requiring community college nursing programs to implement merit-based policies," writes E.J. Schultz in the Bee.
"Assemblyman
Tom Berryhill, R-Modesto, says the legislation would lower dropout rates and help ease a statewide nursing shortage that one recent study says is reaching crisis proportions in the San Joaquin Valley.
"'With this bill (applicants) gotta have grades -- they gotta have classes that prepare them for success,' he said.
"But Assembly Bill 1559, which recently passed the Assembly, is stirring great debate in community college circles. Some college leaders believe the bill strikes at the heart of the community college mission of taking all comers -- regardless of background.
"Getting into a community college nursing school is not all about luck. Colleges can require that applicants successfully complete certain science prerequisite courses, including anatomy, physiology and microbiology.
"To add stricter criteria, schools must prove through research that the additional requirements are a strong predictor of success. The protections were put in place in the early 1990s to settle a lawsuit brought by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The group claimed that admissions policies were disproportionately excluding Latino students."
Dan Walters
writes in support of the governor's proposed elimination of Williamson Act payments to counties. "The fact that so much of California's property is in Williamson Act contracts is a clue to its dirty little secret -- most of the land is in absolutely no danger of being subdivided. Instead, it is just a subsidy for landowners, including developers who keep land under contract to get tax breaks and then drop out when they want to develop, sometimes by swapping for other holdings.
"Proposition 13 dramatically slashed taxes on all property and eliminated the 'highest and best use' doctrine, thereby eliminating the original rationale for the Williamson Act. Logically, the program should have been revised or eliminated then, but it wasn't, and like most tax loopholes, remained engraved in law even when its original purpose had vanished.
"Eliminating payments to counties -- Fresno County, with 1.4 million acres in preserves, is the largest recipient at $5.3 million a year and Orange County the smallest at $351 -- wouldn't end the Williamson Act, as critics are claiming. Counties could still maintain the program, if they wished. Since farmers are politically powerful in rural counties, it probably would continue.
"California is way overdue for a top-to-bottom re-examination of its tax policies, including loopholes that add up to tens of billions of dollars a year in indirect subsidies to various interest groups. The Williamson Act isn't the most egregious example of an outdated loophole, but it's not a bad place to start."
Matier and Ross report on
Nancy Pelosi's aggressive fundraising.
"Oops: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office
recently faxed an invite to the Sacramento legislative office of state Sen. William Craven, urging him to attend a $500-a-head "Win the House 2008'' fundraiser in San Francisco at the home of Mark and Susie Buell.
"It wasn't the fact that Pelosi sent the political invite to a state government office that caught the attention of folks in Sacramento. Nor the fact that it was addressed to a Republican.
"
It was that Craven, an Oceanside political fixture for many decades, has been out of office for years.
"
In fact, he died in 1999. And finally, from our
Jailhouse Rock Files, "Hours after strolling the red carpet in a strapless black dress,
Paris Hilton traded her designer duds for a jail-issued jumpsuit.
"The 26-year-old heiress checked into the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood just after 11:30 p.m. Sunday. She's expected to serve three-weeks for violating her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
"Hilton surrendered to sheriff's deputies after making a surprise visit to the MTV Movie Awards in the afternoon."
"'
I did have a choice to go to a pay jail,' Hilton said Sunday, without giving details. 'But I declined because I feel like the media portrays me in a way that I'm not and that's why I wanted to go to county, to show that I can do it and I'm going to be treated like everyone else. I'm going to do the time, I'm going to do it the right way.'"