A new poll shows both the races for governor and U.S Senate are close, with about one-fourth of voters still undecided in each race.
Maeve Reston reports, "With the campaigns in full swing over what are supposed to be lazy summer months, a new survey from the Public Policy Institute of California finds the races for governor and U.S. Senate are both up for grabs.
"Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown is leading his Republican opponent Meg Whitman, 37% to 34%. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is ahead of Republican Carly Fiorina, 39% to 34%."
Malcolm Maclachlan looks at tribal gas stations, which are exempt from paying some state taxes.
"In fact, several tribes operate gas stations around the state, and their fuel generally costs less than non-tribal stations. But no one in state government seems to know how many there are, how much gas they sell, or how much tax revenue is — or isn’t — being lost.
Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have allowed farm workers to collect overtime pay.
Mark Lifsher writes, "Applying the eight-hour day to agriculture would be burdensome to business and reverse longstanding labor practices, Schwarzenegger wrote in a veto message.
"The veto message echoed arguments made by both giant agribusinesses and organic-farm owners. They contended that growers need special exemptions from labor laws because they operate on tight profit margins and need to work long hours to harvest crops quickly to get them to market.
"Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez (D-Shafter), who sponsored the measure, accused the governor of "turning his back on history" by choosing "to continue the second-class treatment of the men and women who toil in the fields, their backbreaking labor at the core of a more than $30-billion-a-year agricultural industry."
State lawmakers are among those looking at remedies in the wake of the Bell salary scandal.
"On Thursday, city managers from across the state will gather in Sacramento to discuss damage control. Among the ideas on the table: launching an independent examination of city officials' salaries and compiling a database of salaries for municipal executives.
"The Legislature also is mulling several Bell-inspired proposals, including a requirement that cities make salaries easily accessible on websites. Another suggestion would cap pensions of highly paid city officials, an issue that arose after The Times reported that former Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo, who earned nearly $800,000 a year, would receive roughly $600,000 a year in pension benefits once he retired."
Maeve Reston reports California Republicans are not talking about the environment, a popular issue among the state's voters.
"With state unemployment hovering at more than 12%, the two GOP
candidates at the top of the ticket this year are betting
that voters'
concerns about jobs and economic uncertainty will trump
any desire for
environmental crusades.
"Republican Senate nominee Carly
Fiorina has spent months charging Democratic incumbent Barbara
Boxer with driving an extreme environmental agenda instead
of
tending to jobs. She has been sharply critical of national
and state
climate change legislation — deriding Boxer's concern as being about
"the weather" — and has argued that the state should expand oil drilling
off its shores.
"Gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman has been more equivocal
than Fiorina,
but she also has cast the state's landmark climate
change measure as one
that kills jobs. She favors delaying its execution
for a year to allow
further study of its effect."
George Skelton says the Senate leader, Darrell Steinberg, sees a way out of the budget stalemate.
"Increase state income taxes for everyone — except less so for the most
affluent — and also raise the vehicle license fee (or car tax). Both the
income tax and the vehicle fee are deductible when
paying the federal
income tax. So, depending on a person's federal tax
bracket, up to 35%
of the increase in state levies would be reimbursed
by the feds.Then lower the state sales tax.
"Bottom line," Steinberg says, "is that the tax cut
and the deductible
would be more than the tax increase. And the federal
government would
pay for the deductible."
The feds would involuntarily help staunch the California
bleeding.
Furloughs for state workers may be back, if the budget stalemate drags on past Aug.13. But that could never happen, right?
And finally, "A black bear walked into a New Hampshire house through an open door, ate two pears and a bunch of grapes, took a drink from the family fishbowl." But here's the kicker: The bear grabbed a stuffed bear on its way out the door.