From our
He Said She Said Files: The LA Times' Steve Lopez looks into
Governor Schwarzenegger's press event last week when he was surrounded by firefighters fresh off the lines of the Southern California wildfires.
"
Katherine McLane of the governor's media corps was there with the boss, and she claims Schwarzenegger was warmly greeted — cheered, even — when he showed up to pat firefighters on the back for their brave work.
"I gotta tell you, everybody was cordial and polite, and there was no rancor. People were glad to see the governor," McLane said..."
"
Steve Francis, another Ventura County fire captain, said he was told his crew's participation in the news conference was voluntary, and everyone declined."
"''Then at some point in the process, one of our chiefs came up and said, '
I'm ordering you guys to stand there in the backdrop,' and that was it. There was no other conversation.'"
"I'm a big friend of the firefighters,' Schwarzenegger said once his 'buddies' had gathered round. '
As a matter of fact, in one of my movies, I played a firefighter."
We don't know whose story is more accurate, but we know that the firefighters standing behind the governor sure looked more realistic than the soap opera actors playing firefighters in the campaign commercials.
But we do hear there could be some developments on this story on Thursday...
Matier and Ross give some play to the new Survey USA poll being touted by Camp Schwarzenegger that
shows the governor's initiatives gaining steam. "'Maybe it's that the Survey USA question didn't mention that school funding could be affected by the measure, 'and that's right in the ballot title,' said Field pollster
Mark DiCamillo ... It won't come as a shock that
Todd Harris from the governor's team agreed with Survey USA's take."
"'
People won't be using the ballot language to make their decision,' Harris said. 'They'll be using what they hear in the television advertising.'"
As if on cue, John Wildermuth picks up from there in his piece on
the troubles of Proposition 76. "Schwarzenegger, however,
has not been able to raise the type of money needed for that television blitz. While he has a modest television ad program running across the state, his effort has been
drowned out by the media campaign run by his opponents. The California Teachers Association alone has spent nearly $50 million attacking the governor's package of initiatives, with other unions kicking in tens of millions more."
But if the governor has a tough road on Prop. 76,
unions face a serious challenge from Prop. 75, which seems to be faring the best out of the governor's four initiatives. "A poll commissioned by the unions in mid-August, before they began their television ad campaign against the measure, found
their members were evenly split over Proposition 75."
"Union officials say these numbers will change as they get their message out, but they acknowledge having to work hard: sending organizers to job sites, calling members at home and sending them e-mail, printed mail and DVDs."
Can't wait to watch that one...
After signing a bill to strengthen monitoring of convicted sex offenders, Governor Schwarzenegger
vetoed a bipartisan bill to create a new state board to better manage sex offenders, writes Nancy Vogel in the LA Times. "One of the five bills Schwarzenegger vetoed Tuesday had
rare, unanimous support in the Legislature, receiving not a single 'no' vote.
AB 632, by Assemblywoman
Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) and Assemblyman
Todd Spitzer (R-Orange), would have created a Sex Offender Management Board that would use federal money to make recommendations on how best to house, treat, track and assess the about 105,000 registered sex offenders in California. About 20,000 of them remain under law enforcement supervision."
"In an unusually strong veto message, Schwarzenegger said that under the bill, not one sexual offender would have spent a day longer in prison, been prohibited from living near schools or been monitored by satellite tracking."
"'
This bill is a recipe to create more red tape, not public safety,' the governor wrote. He urged lawmakers instead to pass the 'comprehensive sex offender punishment and control reform' that was contained in two bills that he supported but that stalled in the Democrat-dominated Legislature."
While the governor was deciding on the fate of bills, Sacramento federal judge
Morrison England, Jr. provided a civic lesson in balance of power by
declaring part of the financial privacy law invalid. Denny Walsh writes in the Bee that England "ruled in an 11-page order that federal law, which allows the exchange of customer information among financial institutions and their affiliates without the customer's consent,
trumps a state statute that requires consent."
"SB 1, enacted in 2003, barred banks and other financial institutions from disclosing to their affiliates a customer's nonpublic personal information unless the bank notified the customer annually in writing. Each year, the customer had to be given a "reasonable opportunity" to direct the bank not to disclose the information."
Meanwhile, the University of California's newest campus at Merced will
begin its first year with a $900,000 shortfall as 12 percent of the students that intended to register didn't show up. "About 1,000 students were expected to enroll at the UC's 10th campus, based on 1,051 statements of intent to register submitted in June. However, only 875 students signed up for classes, so money in expected student fees won't be coming in."
John Campbell is
going to have to wait for that DC swearing in. He received 46% of the vote, while former Assemblywoman
Marilyn Brewer garnered 16.7% and immigration activist
Jim Gilchrist received 14.4%.
Steve Young (8.9%), the leading Democrat will appear with Gilchrist and Green and Libertarian candidates--each received less than one percent of votes cast--in a December 6 runoff election.
"'We always knew that getting over 50 percent with 17 candidates in the field was going to be a very tall order,' Campbell said. 'But I’m pleased to have the Republican nomination, and the fact that we beat our nearest competitor by 30 points shows how strong our campaign is and how strongly the voters in this district feel I would be the best person to represent them in Congress.'"
While 20 percent of the registered voters in the district were voting, the other 80 percent were watching the Los Angeles Angeles of Anaheim drop game one to the Yankees.
And finally, the LA Times reports, "In a Westside traffic accident that
gives new meaning to the term 'star-struck,' a black Mercedes-Benz driven by teenage actress
Lindsay Lohan collided Tuesday afternoon with a van along a stretch of Robertson Boulevard, just
blocks from where the star was rammed by a photographer months earlier."
No official word on whether paparazzi are involved in the accident, but if they are, they may be thankful that a
new law signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last week didn't have an urgency clause. In the meantime, Lohan seems to have learned a valuable default -- if all else fails, blame the media.
