"A political committee with close ties to Senate President Pro Tem
Don Perata is spending thousands of dollars to try to recall a sitting Republican state senator in a move the targeted lawmaker called 'unprecedented,' reports Shane Goldmacher in the Bee.
Ask
Mike Machado,
Doris Allen and
Paul Horcher about precedent. But term limits will do that to the political memory.
"Campaign statements filed this week show the Voter Education and Registration Fund has spent more than $41,000 on an effort to recall GOP Sen.
Jeffrey Denham.
"
Sandi Polka, Perata's top political strategist, serves as executive director of the committee. Perata himself is the committee's top fundraiser, though he is not officially in control of the account.
"Denham earned the ire of the Democratic leadership during this summer's 52-day long budget impasse, as the Central Valley Republican refused to provide the final vote necessary to pass the state budget. Denham criticized the budget as 'unbalanced' and never supported the spending plan."
The Bee's Kevin Yamamura
looks at the patrons of California's political parties.
"The donations largely helped finance party spending in last year's gubernatorial contest between Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democrat Phil Angelides. Six of the seven top California contributors gave at least $1 million each to the state Republican Party, while only one -- Sacramento developer
Angelo K. Tsakopoulos -- gave to the California Democratic Party.
"Political consultants and watchdogs said the boom in California donors can be attributed to a change in the state's campaign finance law that limited 2006 gubernatorial candidates for the first time to receiving only $22,300 per donor for each race. To exceed restrictions, donors gave their money to state parties, which could accept funds in unlimited amounts.
"'The parties have done very well under Proposition 34,' said
Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, referring to the 2000 initiative that imposed contribution limits. 'No longer can you give unlimited amounts to the candidates, so the message is that the parties are the main way to support candidates.'
"The list was topped by
A. Jerrold Perenchio, the former Univision owner who gave $5.4 million to the state Republican Party in 2005 and 2006. Tsakopoulos ranked second at $3.7 million to the California Democratic Party, though the report did not include an additional $500,000 contributed by his company, AKT Development.
"Stockton developer
Alex G. Spanos ranked third and gave $3.3 million to the California Republican Party, according to the report. State filings suggest that Spanos gave an additional $1 million to the party, but report author
Denise Roth Barber said she attributed that donation to his company and did not include it in his total individual giving."
"State Atty. Gen.
Jerry Brown, joining with national environmental groups,
will petition the Bush Administration today to crack down on global warming emissions from ocean-going vessels, which make more than 11,000 calls at California ports each year.
"The petition opens a new front in the battle by California and other states to force the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases. Until now, the focus had been on emissions from cars, trucks, power plants and other U.S.-based industries. Regulating planet-warming pollutants from ships presents a tougher challenge because more than 90% of vessels that bring goods to the U.S. fly foreign flags and traditionally fall under international jurisdiction.
"'Climate change represents a potent catastrophe and an irreversible risk to California as well as to the rest of the world,' Brown said in an interview. 'Who comes into American ports is a matter for Americans to decide.'"
"Domestic partners
have the same right as husbands and wives to accept or inherit real estate from one another without big property tax increase, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday," reports the Chron's Bob Egelko.
"In a victory for same-sex couples, the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento upheld regulations approved by the state Board of Equalization in 2003 and a law passed by the Legislature in 2005 that gave registered domestic partners the same tax break as spouses under Proposition 13.
"The ruling is 'a recognition that domestic partners, like heterosexual married couples, should be treated equally and with dignity and respect,' said attorney
Daniel Powell, who represented several same-sex couples and the advocacy group Equality California. A contrary ruling, he said, would have forced some domestic partners "to pay much higher taxes upon the death of a loved one."
"Lawyers for assessors in several counties who challenged the tax break were unavailable for comment. The ruling could be appealed to the state Supreme Court."
A group of California activists are
trying to get Al Gore's name on the February ballot.
"
California Draft Gore, a grassroots political action committee, has hatched a plan to get their reluctant candidate off of theoretical fantasy polls and onto a real-life primary ballot.
"Capitalizing on a provision of the state election law which allows for any name to be placed on a ballot provided enough signatures in favor of that candidate are secured, volunteers will begin scrambling next week to get 26,500 registered Democrats -- 500 from each of California's 53 congressional districts -- to sign off on the former vice president before a Dec. 4 deadline.
"If all goes well, Gore's name will appear on ballots throughout the state when California's presidential primary is held in February of next year."
Speaking of hacks, "state government
Web sites were shut down temporarily yesterday by the federal government after a hacker took control of a Marin County Web site, state officials said.
Officials remained uncertain last night about the extent of the disruption but stressed that no essential or emergency services or databases were affected.
"'We have contingencies for those kinds of things,' said
Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"In a string of events that some technology experts found remarkable, the trouble began when a Web site for a Marin County transportation authority was hacked, said
Jim Hanacek, spokesman for the state Department of Technology Services. The hacker apparently was able to route incoming Internet traffic to a porn Web site, officials said.
"The federal government owns the 'ca.gov' domain and in the late afternoon shut down sites that use it, Hanacek said. He could not explain such a full-scale reaction to the hacking of one local government site.
"'
An error was made at the federal government level,' Hanacek said."
"No longer hindered by legal challenges, California officials today
will take orders from individual investors for the first bond sale to finance the state's stem-cell research institute," reports Steve Johnson in the Merc News.
"The $250 million in bonds will provide only part of the $3 billion voters approved in 2004 to finance the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine for 10 years. But state Treasurer
Bill Lockyer said finally getting the bonds sold is a major achievement.
"'It's a big step forward,' Lockyer said. If people who support such stem-cell research also buy the bonds, he added, 'they can actually vote with their pocketbooks as well as the ballot box.'
"Sale of the bonds had been long delayed by two lawsuits challenging the institute's constitutionality. But the California Supreme Court in May removed that legal obstacle when it refused to hear the suits, which had been rejected by an Alameda County Superior Court judge in April last year."
"The California Correctional Peace Officers Association
filed an unfair labor practice charge Tuesday against the state for forcing contract terms on the 31,000-member union," writes the Bee's Andy Furillo.
"In seeking an injunction to block the state from imposing its 'last, best and final' contract offer, the CCPOA said it needs the relief 'to preserve some semblance of the status quo -- particularly relative to the respective bargaining strengths of the two sides, which will be enormously affected' by the state's action.
"'We are trying to get the administration to follow the law, and we are trying to ensure that our ability to represent our members is protected,' CCPOA spokesman
Ryan Sherman said in an interview.
"
Lynelle Jolley, the spokeswoman for the Department of Personnel Administration, said the agency will withhold its reaction to the filing until state negotiators have a chance to review it more fully."
The Chron's Peter Fimrite
reports on the poisoning of Lake Davis.
"Game wardens in an armada of 25 boats poured 16,000 gallons of the fish poison rotenone into the scenic Sierra reservoir a week ago in an attempt to exterminate a voracious invader known as the northern pike.
"Some 41,000 pounds of dead fish have since been scooped from the lake at the northern headwaters of the Feather River in Plumas County. The carefully hatched plan was to kill virtually every living thing in the high Sierra lake and its tributaries, assuring that the pike would be exterminated.
"'No one wants chemicals dumped in their lake to kill fish and we don't like doing it, but you have to look at the big picture,' said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game. 'It's something we needed to do and we gave it our best shot.'"
And from our
Show and Tell Files, "A state legislator surprised a high school class when the computer he was using
projected a photo of a nude woman during a lecture on how a bill becomes a law.
"State Rep.
Matthew Barrett was
giving a civics lesson Tuesday when he inserted a data memory stick into the school computer and the projected image of a topless woman appeared instead of the graphics presentation he had downloaded."
Civics, indeed.
"Barrett said there were a few snickers from the approximately 20 students in the senior government class at Norwalk High School when the image appeared. He said he immediately pulled the memory stick out of the computer."