Gov. Schwarzenegger is
juggling his campaign team, and getting a new chief of staff for state business, as the frantic period of bill signing and campaigning for the November special election begins.
"To buttress his campaign team, Schwarzenegger is also planning to rearrange his Sacramento office. Chief of Staff
Pat Clarey is expected to serve as day-to-day campaign manager, and
Rob Stutzman, his communications director, will play the same role in the campaign."
"
Peter Siggins, Schwarzenegger's legal affairs secretary, is being considered for a state appellate court position in San Francisco, but he's expected
to fill Clarey's chief of staff job."
"In the middle of all this, his aides say, the Republican governor is likely to boost his initiative campaign by announcing that
he's running for re-election next year."
As the campaign gets its unofficial relaunch with the Labor Day holiday, a
a new Field Poll shows the governor's initiatives are still in trouble.
"The governor's budget measure,
Proposition 76, is opposed by 65 percent of voters, including pluralities or majorities of every voter subgroup measured in the poll. Only
19 percent of likely voters said they are inclined to support the measure.
"I've never seen a proposition start out this far behind and pass," said
Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "It's monumental the amount of work (the governor) needs to do on this one."
But defeat of the measure could give the governor
political cover to raise taxes in his January budget. "Then we have to look at raising taxes, because this is the only option we have," he said in response to a question.
"And this is why I tell people vote yes on Proposition 76 and make sure that we do everything that we can to pass this proposition so that we force our legislators once and for all to live within their means and not to continue spending money and to keep making promises to people that they can't keep."Try putting that on a lawn sign.
The California Teachers Association
opened their checkbook to the tune of an additional $21 million to help defeat three initiatives on the November ballot. "Since July 1, the California Teachers Association has given $10.1 million to the Alliance for a Better California, a coalition of the state's largest labor unions.
This week, the union contributed an additional $21 million to campaigns opposing three initiatives they believe are political threats, two of which Schwarzenegger is backing." The union gave $8 million each to defeat Propositions 75 and 76, the so-called paycheck protection initiative and the governor's spending proposal. CTA gave another $5 million to the campaign against the governor's teacher tenure proposal.
With the Field Poll showing the union dues-limiting Proposition 75 up 55-32%, a big chunk of that money will be spent trying to raise questions among the small majority of yes voters.
The governor is hoping to counter with
a late, furious ad blitz, according to the Bee. "Aides hope he'll have at least $10 million for a final five-week ad blitz on television leading up to the Nov. 8 vote.
With Proposition 74 (teacher tenure) at 46% yes and Proposition 77 (redistricting) at 32% yes, the governor has a lot of blitzing to do. On the other side, Proposition 80 (electricity regulation) isn't fairing better at 33% yes.
Meanwhile, today's Field Poll release covers
parental notification and the dueling pharmaceutical measures. The Bee reports "A prescription drug initiative backed by major pharmaceutical companies is drawing stronger support than a competing initiative by consumer advocacy groups, a Field Poll released Monday shows."
Proposition 78 leads 49 to 31%; Proposition 79 leads 42 to 34%.
"Voters are split on an unrelated measure, Proposition 73, which would require a physician to notify a parent or a legal guardian before a minor can have an abortion. Some 45 percent favored the initiative, with 45 percent against and 10 percent undecided."
The AP's Steve Lawrence sets the scene for
the Legislature's final week. "Measures that would recognize gay marriages, raise the minimum wage, allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses and promote a massive expansion of solar power need to clear final hurdles in the next few days to reach the governor's desk." In all, about 400 bills are expected to be heard in the next four days.
One of those bills,
gay marriage, has provoked intense lobbying of moderate Democrats whose votes are unknown, including
Tom Umberg. During a Labor Day picnic, Umberg "was pulled into polite but pointed conversations, one after another, with bill proponents
Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana), state treasurer and 2006 gubernatorial candidate
Phil Angelides, and
Jeff LeTourneau, political director of the Elections Committee of Orange County, a gay and lesbian advocacy group."
"'On only rare occasions have I walked into [the Assembly] chambers not knowing how I was going to vote on a bill, and this could be one of them,' Umberg said at midday."
UC Merced officially opens its doors this week, with nearly 1,000 undergraduate students. "The first classes for the initial 1,000 students, about 900 of them freshmen, will begin today but will be held in classrooms in the two finished wings of the library and in large conference rooms in residence halls. Two other key structures, the main classroom building and a science and engineering facility, will not be completed until later in the school year.
But
many parts of the campus remain unpaved. And large expanses of the campus, filled with construction vehicles and materials, are still fenced off."
Assemblywoman
Loni Hancock is calling for an
audit of bingo machines at Casino San Pablo. Hancock "said the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians had taken advantage of a loophole in state law when it
added 500 video bingo machines in August.
"Technology has blurred the lines between traditional slot machines and bingo," she said Monday. "These electronic bingo machines are exactly like slot machines, and therefore I'm asking the attorney general to investigate it."
Finally, from our
"End of Session Traps" file, a "computer engineer who
lost his job because he ate two pieces of pepperoni pizza left over from a company meeting has been named the winner of an offbeat Internet contest that solicited stories about outrageous firings."
Milton?
