In the end, all of it was for naught. The Legislature did not reach a water deal, but Gov. Schwarzenegger felt enough progress had been made to avoid a massacre of the 700 bills on his desk.
“Over the past few days we have made enough progress in our negotiations that I am calling a special session on water," the governor said in a statement Sunday. "While we still have a few remaining issues to work out, I commend the legislative leaders for their focus and commitment to solving this crisis and I will weigh all the bills on their merits.”
And in a world where bills are weighed on their merits, some live and some die.
The LAT reports, "As negotiations concluded late Sunday, the governor had signed into law 230 bills and vetoed 221.
"Those he signed included a measure intended to combat
human trafficking
and an anti-drunk-driving bill requiring DUI offenders in some counties
to install devices in their vehicles that test blood-alcohol content
before the vehicles can be started. Those he rejected
included bids to
force any extension of the 710 Freeway to be done underground, ban pay
hikes for top administrators at public universities
in bad budget years
and tighten oversight on fertility clinics."
Jim SAnders provides a nice breakdown of some of the highlights from the naughty and nice lists.
Meanwhile, some lawmakers are already looking ahead to next year. The Chronicle's Nanette Asimov reports, "
A state lawmaker says he's found a way to
give California's cash-strapped colleges and universities nearly a
billion extra dollars a year - but those schools, at least for now, are
saying "no thanks."
Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, a Fremont Democrat running
for state attorney general, is pushing for an oil severance tax to
benefit higher education. Companies that extract oil from California
would pay 9.9 percent of its gross value into a California Higher
Education Fund, intended to also help extract public
colleges and
universities from their deep financial hole.
"Even Sarah Palin said this was a good idea in Alaska," Torrico
said, referring to the former Republican governor who
in 2007 signed
into Alaska law an oil tax that steered $6 billion into state coffers
last year. In California, he said, "we have state property we're giving
away for free."
And George Skelton ponders a world in which Tom Campbell had money.
Howard Mintz reports Proposition 8 is heading back to court.
"
The legal
showdown over California's ban on same-sex marriage heats up again this
week as a federal judge considers an attempt to short-circuit the
challenge to Proposition 8, the voter-approved law putting a halt to
same-sex weddings in the state.
"On Wednesday, Chief U.S. District
Judge Vaughn Walker will consider a motion from Prop. 8 backers that
would scrap plans for a January trial and put a quick
end to the effort
to overturn the anti-gay marriage law. Prop. 8's defenders say U.S.
Supreme Court precedent and the historical underpinnings
of the
definition of marriage negate the need for a trial,
an argument
strongly rejected by same-sex marriage advocates who vow to present
strong factual evidence that Prop. 8 denies gay couples federal equal
protection rights."
And finally, we take a look at this month's Playboy cover girl . "Marge Simpson -- the blue beehived matriarch of America's most loved dysfunctional family - is Playboy Magazine's November cover, the magazine said on Friday.
"Campbell is the Republican who scares us the most," says Bill
Cavala, a former Democratic operative for the state Assembly
who's now
managing Garamendi's campaign. "Not in a thousand years would we
breathe life into such a dangerous candidate."
"Call him a fiscal conservative and social moderate
-- not far from
the California mainstream. Nobody's going to agree with all his views,
but he should get points for not playing dodge ball.
What if that's what voters want next year? Naw. Even if they did,
he'd still need money to be noticed."
"Simpson, tastefully concealing her assets behind a signature Playboy Bunny chair, is the first cartoon character ever to front the glossy adult magazine, joining the ranks of sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe and Cindy Crawford.
"Playboy said the cover and a three-page picture spread inside was a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the "The Simpsons" and part of a plan to appeal to a younger generation of readers."