The LA Times reports that
unions are trying to freeze corporate money to the governor's initiative campaign. "Labor is trying to make it more difficult for Schwarzenegger to raise money for what he once vowed would be a $50-million campaign. In a Sept. 21
letter to executives at Chevron, Bank of America, Safeway, Hewlett-Packard and several dozen other companies, four union presidents warned that their members, as well as voters, would soon be told which corporations back Proposition 75."
"
Rob Stutzman, communications director of Schwarzenegger's campaign, called the letter 'complete thuggery' and predicted it would backfire. 'It's the modern version of 1930s coal-strike tactics,' he said."
Lou Paulson, president of California Professional Firefighters, who signed the letter, denied threatening to blacklist the companies. But he suggested that unions and their members still might shun Schwarzenegger donors and decline to buy stock in their companies."
Speaking of Prop. 75, Presidential candidate and
Mike Murphy client,
John McCain, says he's prepared to
come to California to campaign for Prop. 75, or any of the governor's other initiatives. Columnist Robert Novak writes "In a recent private dinner sponsored by the American Spectator magazine, McCain said
he always has supported the concept of paycheck protection and would be
happy to go west to campaign for the referendum. However, McCain told this column that
nobody has requested his presence."
The Union Trib's John Marelius
takes a look at the entire initiative package. "Previous governors have sponsored initiatives without much success. Ronald Reagan pushed a state tax and spending cap in 1973, and Pete Wilson backed welfare cuts and budget controls two decades later. Both lost. But no governor has ever put what amounts to a governing agenda on the ballot.
"'Schwarzenegger has taken the trend of governors using the initiative process and pumped it up with steroids,' said
Jim Schultz, author of 'The Initiative Cookbook.'"
"'When I wrote The Initiative Cookbook almost 10 years ago,
I never imagined that the California initiative scene could get weirder,' he said. 'But
I never guessed that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be governor either. I think the two go hand in hand.'"
Meanwhile,
Steve Westly is
defending his trading in IPO stock while an executive at eBay, Chris O'Brien writes in the Mercury News. "During the dot-com boom, favored insiders often got lucrative stock from investment banks courting their companies' business. A Mercury News analysis of Westly's tax records shows that in 1999 and 2000, he bought pre-IPO shares in 189 companies -- almost one of every five companies that went public -- and often sold them on the first day of trading. He got the shares through brokerage accounts with six banks, including three that helped underwrite eBay's stock offerings."
"
While Westly did nothing illegal, analysts say his actions could raise ethical issues as he gears up to run for governor next year. Westly said he faced no conflict in taking stock from banks because he was not involved in decisions about eBay's investment banking business. Instead, he said,
brokers approached him and other eBay executives simply because of their high net worth."
We at the Roundup usually refuse those phone calls.
"'They probably went to 40, 50 people at eBay,' Westly said. 'This was well beyond the executive office. And the amount of shares they gave to each of us was typically small.'"
The Merc takes a look at some of the
"more than a dozen significant" environmental bills sitting on the governor's desk. Among them are bills that "would require stores selling rechargeable batteries to collect them back and recycle them; require farmers to report to the state the amount of groundwater they pump; ban commercial ships from dumping treated sewage in ocean waters out to three miles offshore; and would require Caltrans to phase in the use of shredded tires in highway construction."
MSNBC reports that there is an aggressive
"Draft Tom" effort among the business community to
persuade Tom Campbell to run for mayor of San Jose. "'There is a genuine momentum building,' says
Tab Berg, whose Sacramento-based TAB Communications has run a number of Silicon Valley campaigns. 'I get a sense from community leaders of the left and the right that they are not happy with the candidates now running. ... They are frustrated.'"
"The only problem with this scenario -- apart from its dismissal of the existing candidates -- is that Tom Campbell insists he's not a candidate."
From our
Where are They Now? Files, former legislator
Tom Hayden was
spotted recently at an IRA convention in Ireland. "Hayden is particularly interested at present in the famous 'Brownie' letters written under that pen name by Adams when he was incarcerated in Long Kesh. Hayden has lectured on Irish resistance prison literature and the Brownie columns, he believes, are among the best examples of that art."
Our
headline of the day goes to the Bakersfield Californian which reports that many war vets don't have a whole lot to look forward to, apparently. The headline: "Veterans eagerly await cemetery." Then again, it makes sense. The paper's Web site indicates the top-read story of the day is the listing of the day's funeral services.
