"When Assembly Republican leader
Mike Villines of Clovis cut a budget deal with Democrats more than two weeks ago, it
didn't take long for his GOP colleagues in the Senate to lob the first grenade," reports E.J. Schultz in the Bee.
"'I believe more experience would have helped negotiate a better deal,' Sen.
George Runner, R-Lancaster, wrote on a conservative Web site only hours after the Assembly passed the $103 billion general fund spending plan July 20. Calling the deal 'rushed,' he said it 'left some serious policy and fiscal issues on the table.'
"With the budget stalled in the Senate -- and more than a month overdue -- Villines is sticking by the deal he negotiated.
"'
If the senators think they can get a good deal -- a better deal -- by waiting out, we support them on that,' he said. '
I just hope that we don't see it come backwards, that's my fear.'
"'
In the end, I think Villines did an admirable job,' said
Jon Fleischman, who has used his conservative Web blog, the FlashReport, to encourage Senate Republicans to hold firm. Villines "is a very popular leader because he understands how to read his caucus and how to lead his caucus."
"A 40-year-old former public relations executive, the affable Villines secured the leadership job last November with a promise to make Republicans more relevant. His predecessor,
George Plescia, R-La Jolla, was criticized for cutting side deals with the governor and Democrats without keeping the caucus informed."
"Republican political consultant
Matthew Dowd doesn't think the current state budget standoff will have much of an effect, if any, on an initiative on the February ballot to alter legislative term limits, he said Friday," writes John Hill in the Bee.
After all, you can't murder a dead man.
"The public may not like it when legislators don't pass a spending plan on time. But legislators should reach a budget agreement by then, barring an unprecedented partisan meltdown, Dowd said in an interview after speaking to Chamber of Commerce executives in Sacramento.
"'The end result will be, if everything is passed, and they reach a consensus on it, I think it will be a positive because people will view the Legislature and the leadership as something they want to continue,' said Dowd, who is coordinating the initiative campaign with consultant
Gale Kaufman."
Dan Walters
criticizes the budget trailer bill process for its lack of public review. "One bill, Senate Bill 86, contains a two-pronged assault on democratic process that not only bypasses the usual procedure for making new law, but also transfers the regulations authorized by the new law to a private organization that's completely unaccountable to the public.
"For much of the year, legislators and lobbyists for various interests have been negotiating over how state buildings should comply with anti-greenhouse gas emission policies, but one passage of SB 86 short-circuits those talks by decreeing that buildings the state builds or leases after Jan. 1, 2009, must meet standards of a private organization called the United States Green Building Council.
"By all accounts, USGBC is a legitimate organization that acts as a forum for agreements on environmentally friendly building standards. But it's not the only organization doing that work. At any rate, the standards it decrees and the methods it uses to draft those decrees are matters of its internal politics -- including influence from those who support it financially -- and are shielded from input by the outside world."
"County election officials scrambled on Saturday to develop contingency plans for the February presidential primary election after California's secretary of state
imposed broad restrictions on electronic voting machines that she said are susceptible to hacking," report Hector Becerra and Jordan Rau in the Times.
"Secretary of State
Debra Bowen decertified the voting machines used in 39 counties, including Los Angeles County's InkaVote system.
"She said some of the systems could be recertified in time for the primary if new security upgrades are made.
"L.A. County's system, with which voters use ink devices to mark ballots that are tabulated with a scanner, could be recertified by February. The county did not submit the system for an audit by Bowen's office, and that appears to be why it was decertified.
"But Bowen's rules so strictly curtail the use of some machines that some counties on Saturday mulled a return to paper ballots for the February vote.
"The decision places California at the center of the national debate on electronic voting machines. And with Bowen's action, the state now has some of the nation's strictest regulations governing their use."
Joel Rubin
looks at Bowen's decision. "The late-night suspense and controversial decision — one that is certain to place California at the center of the national debate on electronic voting and cause headaches for already overworked county election officials — led to some immediate grumblings that Bowen was overreacting and seeking the spotlight.
"But such claims are far off the mark, according to several people who have observed and worked with Bowen over her nearly 15 years of public service. The lawyer-cum-Democratic politician, they say, has earned high marks for an impressive mix of smarts, determination and a no-nonsense attitude as she has championed some important, if low-profile, issues over the years.
"'She's one of the few people who, when they make a splashy decision like this, it's not about the headlines,' said
Ned Wiggelsworth, a former policy advocate for Common Cause, which lobbies for campaign finance reform. 'It's about the issue.'"
The LAT's James Ricci looks at the
opposition of disability rights groups to the assisted suicide legislation. "Many disability rights activists contend that the increasingly cost-conscious healthcare system, especially health maintenance organizations, inevitably would respond to legalized suicide by withholding expensive care from the disabled and terminally ill until they chose to end their lives.
Dan Morain looks at
an initiative that could help deliver the presidency to a Republican.
"
The nascent initiative, aimed at the June 2008 ballot, would change California's winner-take-all system to require that electoral votes be apportioned by congressional district.
With Republicans holding 19 of the state's 53 congressional seats, a GOP candidate theoretically would win at least 19 electoral votes from California. In 2004, President Bush won majorities in 22 congressional districts but lost to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) statewide, 54% to 44%.
"Such a pickup would be about the equivalent of winning Ohio's 20 electoral votes.
The measure was written by attorney
Thomas Hiltachk, whose Sacramento firm represents the California Republican Party. Also backing the initiative is campaign strategist
Marty Wilson, a fundraiser last year for Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and now for Sen.
John McCain (R-Ariz.).
"HMOs are denying access to healthcare and hastening people's deaths already," said
Paul Longmore, a history professor at San Francisco State and a pioneer in the historical study of disability. '
Our concern is not just how this will affect us. Given the way the U.S. healthcare system is getting increasingly unjust and even savage, I don't think this system could be trusted to implement such a system equitably, or confine it to people who are immediately terminally ill.'
"Longmore was stricken with polio in 1953, when the Salk vaccine, which would eradicate the disease, was first undergoing clinical tests. Now 60, he has limited use of only one hand and is dependent on a portable ventilator for breathing.
"Disabled people, Longmore said, 'probably even more than most other citizens, understand the kind of suffering and needless pain that's inflicted on a lot of people and leaves some of them to prefer to die when they can't get the help they need.'
"Disability rights advocates 'have a lot of credibility on this,' said
Marilyn Golden, a policy analyst for the Berkeley-based Disability Rights Education Defense Fund who lobbied hard against AB 374. 'We are on the front lines of this issue as it actually plays out in the medical system.'"
Concord City Councilman Miichael Chavez
died Saturday after suffering a heart attack in the middle of a city planning meeting. Chavez,
a Concord hair stylist to local elected officials who himself became a politician, died ... during a morning meeting attended by upwards of 200 people and broadcast live over local television.
"Councilwoman
Helen Allen said Chavez, 61, appeared fine during most of the community meeting, which was dedicated to planning for the future of the Concord Naval Weapons Station. But the heart attack hit him around noon, when his head suddenly dropped to his chest, she said."
We know you've been asking yourselves this question for months:
What do rogue cops in Thailand and six-year-old girls have in common? Well, now we have an answer for you, thanks to the AP.
"Thai police officers who break rules
will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring "Hello Kitty," the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday.
"The striking armband features Hello Kitty sitting atop two hearts.
"'Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor,' said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok."