"California’s Air Resources Board, the most stringent air-quality enforcer in the nation, approved a landmark rule Thursday evening to cut greenhouse
gases from gasoline and diesel fuels through 2020," CW's John Howard reports. "The sweeping regulation targets the carbon emissions
resulting from the production and distribution of alternative
fuels, including ethanol, and potentially affects the
way land is used to grow fuel crops, such as corn.
"Before the board’s vote, ARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols described the new regulation – known as the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, or LCFS -- as beyond “anything the ARB has ever done before.” The regulation stems from a 2007 executive order issued by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
seeking a reduction in climate-changing greenhouse gases."
"One month from California's special election on six state ballot propositions,
opposition was growing to 5 of the 6 measures, according to a CBS 5 poll of likely voters released Wednesday.
"But CBS 5's pollster, SurveyUSA, cautioned that because turnout
in a special election is typically low, and because
voters do not focus until the last minute, many 'likely voters' interviewed said they were not yet certain how they
would vote on the measures — meaning all the propositions could still go either
way."
Proposition 1A (budget stabilization)
Yes: 29%
No: 42%
Proposition 1B (Prop. 98)
Yes: 37%
No: 42%
Proposition 1C (lottery)
Yes: 23%
No: 41%
Proposition 1D (child development funding)
Yes: 37%
No: 39%
Proposition 1E (mental health funding)
Yes: 32%
No: 41%
Proposition 1F (legislators salaries)
Yes: 32%
No: 34%
Just asking: Has a SurveyUSA poll ever been right about anything?
We're not denying the initiatives may be in trouble, however. And if they do fail, it just goes to show money can't buy you everything.
"When it comes to campaign dollars, the May 19 special election is shaping up as a lopsided affair. Led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the campaign for a slate of ballot measures designed to shore up the state budget is outraising opponents by at least 6 to 1 — and as much as 13 to 1, depending on how you count," reports Mike Zapler in the Merc News.
"But the governor and his supporters may need every
cent. With early polling showing voters angry at the
state's political leaders and wary of the tax increases and
borrowing that the measures would authorize, opponents
are gambling that it won't take much cash to sink the measures.
"'People are already against them, so we don't have to convince them of anything,' said Kenneth Burt, political director of the California Federation of
Teachers, a leading opponent of the cornerstone measure,
Proposition 1A. 'It's a good place to be.'"
With the voters perhaps opting to trash the May 19 ballot measures, the AP's Beth Fouhy looks at the possibility of a constitutional convention.
"Once dismissed as a hokey gimmick, support for a proposed
constitutional convention has been building in the
nation's most populous state. Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger,
a Republican, has indicated he would back an effort
to retool the document to make state government function
more smoothly.
"Opponents of the step say it's just a ruse to raise taxes and could expose the constitution
to a host of ideological and special interest-driven changes.
"Indeed, constitutional conventions haven't been embraced in other states in recent years. In
2008, voters in Hawaii, Connecticut and Illinois soundly
rejected similar proposals.
"Those results demonstrate the skepticism many voters
bring to such efforts, according to John Matsuzaka, director of the Initiative and Referendum Institute
at the University of Southern California.
"'It's reasonable to expect that voters would be very scared
of the idea of a constitutional convention. Once you
open it up, you don't know where it's going to go,' Matsusaka said."
"[A]s thousands of [Democratic] party delegates and guests convene in Sacramento today
for their annual state convention, the party is splintering over the state budget crisis,
cuts in social services and a slate of special election
ballot initiatives intended to resolve the fiscal mess.
"The last time California had a special election, core
Democratic constituencies flexed their power as union
members from teachers to nurses and machinists to prison
guards routed Republicans and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"Together, they turned out in droves in 2005 to defeat initiatives to change how legislative districts
were drawn, alter teacher tenure, restrict use of union
dues and give the governor broad powers to make spending
cuts.
"Now after a controversial budget deal Democratic lawmakers
struck with Schwarzenegger and six Republican lawmakers
in February to stave off a $40 billion deficit, the party's potent coalition is coming apart.
"'If the administration's goal was to break up the coalition that defeated
them in 2005, they couldn't have done it better,' said Phil Giarrizzo, a Democratic consultant and former union leader who
directed state field operations to defeat Schwarzenegger's special election initiatives four years ago."
At that confab, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will be a no-show, citing the need to spend more time with his family, er, we mean, deal with Los Angeles's ongoing budget problems. And it provided a chance for his aides to take a swipe at Gavin Newsom.
""Like many cities in California, (Los Angeles) is facing unprecedented economic crisis,'' said Villaraigosa insider Sean Clegg this afternoon. "This is a leadership moment -- and Antonio Villaraigosa is not going to Twitter while Rome burns.''
That was downright Garry Southian...
Speaking of divided Democrats, Joan Buchanan jumped into the Bay Area special congressional election
yesterday, joining John Garamendi and Mark DeSaulnier.
"Buchanan, D-Alamo, a 56-year-old former business executive and school board member,
announced in a letter to supporters Thursday she was
entering the race to succeed Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo.
"Tauscher was appointed to a State Department post by
President Barack Obama, which will leave her 10th Congressional District seat open as soon as she
is confirmed.
"'There are times in our lives when an opportunity knocks
quite unexpectedly. … I have a rare chance to shape our nation's future in ways we hadn't anticipated,' Buchanan said in explaining why she wanted to give
up an Assembly seat she had just won."
"He has pledged to run the state more efficiently if
elected governor, but staff turmoil and lingering troubles with his inaugural
fund are roiling the nascent campaign of state Insurance
Commissioner Steve Poizner," reports Michael Finnegan in the Times.
"With the Republican primary still 13 months away, Poizner, a leading contender, is on his
third campaign manager. Several top advisors have bowed
out or taken diminished roles.
"The instability in his campaign's upper ranks comes as the fund that Poizner set up
to pay for his 2007 inaugural festivities is emerging as a potential millstone
for the Silicon Valley mogul. The nonprofit Poizner
Inaugural Fund spent more than $375,000, much of it on celebrations in San Jose and Sacramento.
"But that included nearly $150,000 in bills that Poizner left unpaid, the bulk of them
for more than two years, until The Times inquired about
them. Poizner, who made a vast fortune as a pioneer
in mobile-phone tracking devices, wrote personal checks last
week to cover the balance.
"'It's like anything else: You've got some clients who pay quicker than others,' said Wayne Johnson, a political consultant whose firm recovered $38,625 from Poizner's inaugural fund last week for bills that it submitted
in early 2007."
"State senators acted Thursday to protect tenants when homes are lost
in foreclosure, make it easier for farmworkers to unionize and make
it harder for unqualified people to pass themselves
off as professional personal trainers," writes Patrick McGreevy in the Times.
"They also approved a proposal to keep young children
out of the front seats of cars.
"The measures passed the upper house over the objections
of minority Republicans, who complain that California
has become a "nanny" state, regulating too much of people's lives. The proposals await action in the Assembly."
Dan Walters writes about a political dissing in Fresno that has strained relations between the governor and local Republicans. "By week's end, gubernatorial aides were dispatching apologies and pinning the slight on an overeager advance man – the time-worn blame-the-staff syndrome."
"Thousands of state workers and other public employees
are likely to get an unexpected gift amid the gloom
of furloughs and red ink: a temporary respite from health premiums," reports Bobby Calvan in the Bee.
"The health premium holiday, as CalPERS is calling it,
would last for two months and is expected to save $43 million in paycheck deductions for 324,000 public employees enrolled in a preferred provider
insurance plan, or PPO.
"The cash-strapped state also would be excused from paying its
share of premiums for PPO members, totaling $131 million over two months. In addition, other public
agencies would save $91 million in health premium payments.
"Those workers enrolled in HMOs, who account for the
vast majority of the 1.3 million CalPERS health care beneficiaries, would not
be getting such a break."
And finally, from our Darwin Awards Files, "Police said a 23-year-old man is in stable condition after he pretended that he was falling off a bridge over the Minnesota River, then actually fell off the bridge. Police got a call just before 5 a.m. Sunday from a 21-year-old man who said his friend fell off the Highway 77 bridge and into a marshy area about 30 feet below.
"The caller said he was driving north when his friend, who he said had been drinking, told him to pull into the bridge's emergency lane so he could urinate.
"The 23-year-old stood eventually climbed to the ledge of the bridge, then looked at his friend and pretended to fall. "He then in fact fell," reads a press release from the Bloomingtin Police Department."