The legislature is back in this morning – not that they ever really left, given the back-to-back special sessions this year – and that can mean only one thing: “What’s coming next?” rundowns from all your favorite media types.
Jeremy White at the Bee headlines health care, climate action and transportation in his take; Chris Megerian and Patrick McGreevy lead with potential new taxes at the Times, as does Jessica Calefati at the San Jose Merc. John Myers over at KQED picks out the big battles that will dominate the remaining days including climate change-related bills (SB32, AB1288 and SB350), tobacco legislation and transportation.
We’re assuming that most Roundup readers are well versed in capitol terminology, but just in case someone out there is new to the game, here’s a link to Jeremy White and Alexei Koseff’s guide to capitol jargon from the Bee.
Here’s one term that ‘s new to us:
“Superstaffer: An experienced and therefore extra-effective staff member. More important in the era of term limits, when they outlast elected officials and can arguably have more influence than newbie legislators.”
We like it – as do the stffers, we’re sure.
Looking at the national picture, Carla Marinucci profiles GOP presidential candidate and former California senatorial contender Carly Fiorina, who wowed in the debate ‘undercard’ earlier this month and his been creeping up in the polls. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
“…And, as she displayed when she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard and a 2010 California Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate — she is giving no ground.
“’I asked her directly at a house party in March — “Carly, how are you going to get there? It will be impossible,”’ said Sue Caro, the former chairwoman of the Alameda County Republican Party and one of the state’s most active GOP women.
"Fiorina didn’t blink.
“’I will raise $5 million — and I will break out in the debates,’ Fiorina told her confidently.
“’And that is exactly what she has done,’ Caro said. ‘She clearly has everybody’s attention.’”
Fiorina, on the stump in Nevada, had a late response to Governor Brown’s ‘what are you going to do about climate change?’ challenge to the GOP presidential slate, admitting that climate change could be worsening the drought, but zinging Brown and others for refusing to build dams in California.
San Jose looks to be dropping its appeal of a ruling against part of the 2012 pension-cutting Measure B, abandoning a potential challenge to the “California Rule” that protects pension rights offered on day of hire. Ed Mendel, Calpensions:
“[Dropping] an appeal of the superior court ruling is part of a settlement of union suits against the voter-approved pension reform that, under a San Jose city council agreement last week with police, could soon be implemented by court action.
“The ‘California rule’ is a series of state court decisions widely believed to mean that the pension offered on the date of hire becomes a vested right, protected by contract law, that can only be cut if offset by a new benefit of comparable value…
“A pension reform approved by 69 percent of San Jose voters in 2012, Measure B, used an option to cut pensions current workers earn in the future: contribute up to an additional 16 percent of pay to continue the current pension or switch to a lower pension.
“While approving other parts of the measure, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Patricia Lucas ruled in December 2013, citing previous “California rule” court decisions, that the option violated the vested rights of current workers.”
Joyce Terhaar offers a sad, sobering look at the giant mess that is Cal-Access, California’s campaign finance database. Some good news: people are trying to fix it. From the Sacramento Bee:
“The secretary of state’s database, intended to allow the public to track campaign money, is virtually useless unless you’re particularly skilled at working with databases and have quite a bit of extra time. Launched in the late 1990s and since swaddled in some sort of bureaucratic tech-averse cloak, the site is described by some as the worst government site in the country.
“Every candidate running to replace Secretary of State Debra Bowen last year agreed Cal-Access needs to be fixed. Bowen’s successor, Alex Padilla, told The Sacramento Bee then that ‘we need something better not just from a reliability standpoint but user-friendliness standpoint … to track how the money is moving on a much more regular basis.’”
The AP did a little digging on the impact of Prop 39, the 2012 ballot measure that promised to create green jobs by funding energy-efficient projects in schools. In short, it didn’t. Julia Horowitz:
“Three years after California voters passed a ballot measure to raise taxes on corporations and generate clean energy jobs by funding energy-efficiency projects in schools, barely one-tenth of the promised jobs have been created, and the state has no comprehensive list to show how much work has been done or how much energy has been saved.
“Money is trickling in at a slower-than-anticipated rate, and more than half of the $297 million given to schools so far has gone to consultants and energy auditors. The board created to oversee the project and submit annual progress reports to the Legislature has never met, according to a review by The Associated Press.”
The Bee’s Dan Morain offers a touching, personal take on SB589, Senator Marty Block’s (D-San Diego) legislation that would make sure that Californians who need conservators retain the right to vote.
“Once a year, I’d drive [my disabled brother Frank] to San Mateo Medical Center, which used to be called Chope. We’d make our way to a basement waiting room, and a clerk would call us into a conference room.
“There, a superior court commissioner would agree that Frank was disabled and sign a form saying he should be conserved for another year. The orders revoked certain privileges and rights. Frank couldn’t drive, for example, or own a gun. Fine with me.
“But there was the part about voting. I don’t have a form from one of Frank’s hearings, but a current form reads: ‘The conservatee is not capable of completing an affidavit of voter registration,’ and: ‘The conservatee is disqualified from voting.’
“I’d ask that the commissioners not check boxes revoking Frank’s right to vote, and they’d agree. It was small solace for the indignity of being conserved.”
Outside of LA, Tom Bradley is largely remembered for the “Bradley effect,” the term used to explain why the African American Los Angeles mayor lost the 1982 governor’s race to George Deukmejian when he had been leading in the polls. Cathleen Decker reviews Bridging the Divide, a portrait of Bradley that looks beyond the Bradley effect and finds an effective, thoughtful leader who changed the city. From the LA Times:
“Up-from-the-bootstraps stories are an expected part of a politician's narrative, but for many of today's politicians the stories are borrowed… In Bradley's case, all of the drama had happened to him, the grandson of a slave, the son of sharecroppers, a man whose own tenure picking cotton as a child had persuaded him to reach for an educated, ambitious life. It gave him the courage of his convictions, to judge by praise tossed on Bradley after a screening of the film Monday night, organized by Cal State L.A.'s Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute for Public Affairs.
"’As a person who was willing to stand up to interests of all kinds, I don't think there was anyone who comes close to that level of excellence as a human being as Tom,’ said former county Supervisor and Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who occasionally battled with Bradley and almost ran against him for mayor. Once Bradley gave his word, he ‘stuck to it,’ Yaroslavsky said, citing that as a rare occurrence in politics.”
The deadly wildfires that swept the state last week wreaked havoc, destroying homes, businesses and thousands of acres, reminding us that we are always in danger in California, always vulnerable. One Los Angeles photographer has found transcendence in the devastation, capturing moments from recent southern California blazes in long exposures that can only be described as beautiful. (with photos). From This is Colossal:
“For the last few years, Los Angeles-based photographer Stuart Palley has been shooting these fires as they rage across Southern California as part of a series he calls Terra Flamma.
“More than just capturing flames or firefighters, Palley focuses instead on the entire landscape surrounding each event. By utilizing long exposure techniques he incorporates trails of sparks, the lights of firefighting aircraft, and even the stars above to create images that speak more to the strange beauty of wildfires than simple editorial documentation.”
