With redistricting coming across the country after this year's elections, political parties are focusing on legislative elections around the country.
"The process is arcane and easily overshadowed. Insiders,
however,
understand the enormous consequences, and that is why
both sides are
pouring tens of millions of dollars into the fight,
channeling huge sums
to state parties and lavishly funding legislative
candidates in what
Tom Hofeller, a Republican consultant, calls "the hidden
national
elections of 2010."
"It is not the battle for seats in the House and Senate
that will decide
which party dominates the nation's political process,"
Hofeller wrote
in a strategic analysis for GOP leaders. Rather, it
is the
fight for 37 governorships and control of 20 or so legislative chambers
across the country, including the lower house in Ohio,
where Garland
serves as part of a thin Democratic majority.
"The outcome of this battle will determine the electoral
playing field for the next decade," Hofeller said,
and Democrats readily agree.
Meg Whitman's million-dollar adviser, Mike Murphy, went on Meet the Press to defend Whitman's record-breaking campaign spending. Michael Mishak reports, "Appearing on "Meet the Press," Mike Murphy noted the state's expensive media markets, beating back criticism that the spending hasn't produced a lead over Democratic rival Jerry Brown.
"I'm flacking here, but I believe it," he said, citing ad costs.
"In a brief discussion of the race, he also distilled the Whitman campaign's core theme: "People know she knows how to create jobs. Jerry Brown is a time machine to failure."
Murphy also added that he is worth every penny...
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, had a message for China: Send us some cash.
AFP reports, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday he hoped China would invest in his state's future high-speed rail network as he wrapped up a trade mission to the world's second-largest economy.
"We want China,
for instance, to invest in our high-speed rail, to build high-speed
rail, to be part of this bidding process we are going
to go through,"
Schwarzenegger said in a speech in Shanghi" Many countries will be bidding to build high-speed rail. And we are also looking for financing from
China."
And don't forget, you largest market in the world you,
to buy my upcoming memoir and get some Chinese company
to pay me a couple hundred grand to speak when I leave
office. Cathleen Decker evaluates Abel Maldonado's performance as acting governor.
"It brought to mind two truths for this unpredictable
season. First, for
all the planning that can go into political campaigns
like the one
Maldonado is currently embroiled in, fate sometimes
plays an outsized
role. Second, San Bruno is a reminder of California's
love-hate
relationship with government. Even with all the demands
that government
downsize itself, Californians in a crunch expect government
employees to
come to their rescue, be they firefighters or emergency
organizers or
the bureaucrats who will make sure the money is there
to clear the
wreckage. Or the acting governor. Barbara Boxer has honed in on Carly Fiorina's opposition to state environmental laws as a key issue in the U.S. Senate campaign. Maeve Reston reports, "Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer
said Friday that rival Carly
Fiorina's recent embrace of a November ballot measure
that would roll
back the state's landmark global warming law was evidence that the
Republican was "in the pocket of big oil" and "dirty
coal." John Diaz looks at how the failure of lawmakers to
pass a renewable energy bill in the closing hours of
the legislative session underscores larger problems about the institution. "Perhaps
the biggest impediment to passage of the 64-page bill was the number of
interest groups with a stake in the outcome: utilities,
environmentalists, labor unions, big companies such
as Safeway and Shell
Oil that procure their own electricity, and developers
of wind, solar
and geothermal power. Each faction, and the factions
within the
factions, kept pushing for amendments.
State regulators have ordered PG&E to inspect its entire natural-gas system in the wake of the San Bruno explosion.
The LAT's breaking news team reports, "State regulators
Sunday ordered Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to
inspect its entire natural gas system, as San Bruno
residents displaced
by Thursday's explosion began returning to their devastated
neighborhood
and investigators searched for four people still missing
and tried to
identify the dead. And finally, from our Romanian Legislature files, "Abracadabra,
we'll turn all of you into toads!
"Not many Californians, truth be told, could have named
the man on the
television screen. In a Field Poll taken last July,
Republican Maldonado
trailed in the race for lieutenant governor behind
San Francisco Mayor
Gavin Newsom, the Democratic nominee."
"With California's unemployment rate at 12.3%, the three-term senator and
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown have
argued that the
state's 2006 global warming law, which would cut greenhouse gas
emissions to 1990 levels over the next decade, will play a crucial role
in creating jobs and stimulating the green energy sector
in California.
The ballot measure, which has been largely bankrolled
by three oil
companies based outside of California, would suspend
the law until
unemployment reaches 5.5% for a year — a rare occurrence
historically. If Proposition 23 succeeds, Boxer argued Friday,
California would lose its edge in industries such as
wind and solar to
other nations.
"The California Public Utilities Commission said it
will ask PG&E to
inspect its sprawling natural gas network, giving priority
to
high-pressure lines such as the one that exploded in a suburban
neighborhood Thursday, killing at least four people
and destroying 37
homes.