Capitol Weekly's Malcolm Maclachlan looks at what the Pat Wiggins story says about the Capitol community as a whole.
"The announcement last Sunday by Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, that she would not seek another term marked the abrupt end of a two-decade political career and open up a coveted Senate seat. But Wiggins’ health issues were no secret in Sacramento. For months, Capitol observers noticed a visible decline in Wiggins’ performance – though little was mentioned publicly.
"Eyebrows were raised last week in the Assembly Appropriations
Committee when chair Kevin De Leon, D-Los Angeles, spoke loudly and
slowly to the hard-of-hearing Wiggins. The exchange was one of the
several
recently that added to the sense that Wiggins was being
protected by a wall of silence by her leadership, staff
and the press
-- and by a set of unwritten laws that govern life in
the Capitol community.
"The details of Wiggins’ deteriorating health is just the latest example of this Capitol code of conduct that is, depending on one’s point of view, either a deceitful reminder of the cliquishness of the Capitol community or an example of one of the last personal boundaries to exist in the current media age."
CW also looks at how a vacancy on the Riverside board of Supervisors has become the talk of the Capitol.
"Last week’s resignation of Supervisor Roy Wilson creates a vacancy on the board that must now be filled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. And a full-blown lobbying effort has begun by lawmakers, current and former, who are angling for the appointment.
"Chief among them is Sen. John Benoit, R-Palm Desert, who was just elected to the Senate last
year, after an intense primary battle against former
Assemblyman Russ Bogh. Although he has another seven
years of Senate eligibility, Benoit and his allies
are pushing the governor to name him to the board.
"But others are pushing hard for former Sen. Jim Battin, R-La Quinta. Battin contemplated running against Wilson in 2006, but ultimately demurred. Since leaving office, Battin has continued to run a political consulting company that buys television air time for political campaigns.
"Former Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, R-Cathedral City, also is a contender and is considered
a favorite of Schwarzenegger, who appointed her to
the Unemployment Appeals Board by Schwarzenegger when
she left office in 2007.
"The intense Capitol jockeying for the supervisor’s job underscores a growing truth about California government: Seats in the California Legislature have become less desirable than many city and county openings. Riverside supervisors earn $143,000 annually, plus transportation and staffing benefits, nearly $30,000 more than rank-and-file state lawmakers and $10,000 more than the Senate and Assembly’s top leaders."
Shane Goldmacher reports state income taxes are going up.
"While Californians are still feeling the sting of income
and sales tax
hikes signed into law earlier this year, now comes
news that state tax
authorities plan to take a little more from their pockets.
"For only the second time in 30 years, the tax board is lowering the
point where each tax bracket begins, bumping many people
into a higher
category. At the same time, officials are cutting back
some deductions.
Everyone will pay more, even people whose bracket or
income doesn't
change.
"The extra sums will total as much as $140 per family, on top of the increases previously enacted".
The govenror got into his old, name-calling ways criticising the Legislature as the Assembly prepares to take up a scaled-back prisons package today.
Schwarzenegger "said Assembly lawmakers “don’t have the guts” to make the cuts to the state prison system, criticizing them as politically motivated for stalling on a plan that would reduce the number of inmates in state lockups to save money," Michael Rothfeld reports.
“They don’t have the guts to go in there and to make the prison reform that they have been talking about for two decades, which we need to reduce the amount of inmates in there,” Schwarzenegger said in a webcast interview with the co-founders of Twitter at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco.
“The Assembly legislators, for them it was easier to go and make the $10-billion cut in education, but it is impossible for them to make the $1-billion cut” for prisons, he said."
Wait, who's the Republican and who's the Democrat? We're totally lost...
John Howard looks at the fight over auto body repair that has pit Mary Hayashi against Jackie Speier.
"It’s called “steering” and in California’s billion-dollar automobile body repair business it’s a big deal – especially for the insurers who typically foot the bill and the 6,000 repair shops that want the business.
"Steering means to pressure a policyholder into using
a particular auto body shop favored by the insurer
to get the car fixed. The practice is illegal, in part
because of a 2003 law authored by former state Sen. Jackie Speier, a
San Francisco Democrat.
"But insurers and their allies believe that law is ambiguous, that it blocks companies from getting vital information to customers – in effect, a gag order – and that the issue of quality parts is a red herring to mislead the public. Insurers, including the top automobile insurers in the state, want the law changed."
And finally, from our Plaxico Burris school of Possum Hunting Files, AP reports, " A northwest Washington man is recovering after accidentally shooting himself in the leg while hunting an opossum that had been snatching his chickens.
"Larry Tenbrink was watching TV when he heard his chickens "carrying on" late Sunday. He figured the problem was the opossum that had already killed more than a dozen of his chickens over the past few months.
Tenbrink grabbed his .22 calliber pistol headed outside and spotted an opossum the size of a large cat wandering his property. But he accidentally pulled the trigger too early, sending a bullet through his lower right thigh."
Tenbrick will be playing wide receiver for the Seahawks on opening day.