The Bee's Peter Hecht and Kevin Yamamura
check in with the gubernatorial campaigns.
"Standing on an overlook above the Pacific Ocean at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center in Santa Cruz, [
Steve] Westly promised: '
My friends, when I am governor of California, you will see the governor of California and the president of China sitting down together to chart an environmentally sustainable future for our world.'"
Maybe they can bond over all the human rights violations in the way California governors have been known to treat members of their staff.
"Westly's Democratic rival, meanwhile, began Tuesday by leading a rally with about 100 supporters in the parking lot of his downtown Sacramento campaign headquarters."
"State Treasurer
Phil Angelides was joined by several Democratic legislators, as well as Princeton University professor and Kennedy High School graduate
Cornel West. Dressed in a black suit with a scarf and tie, West chanted, "Go, Phil, go!" and told supporters, '
We're on the move to make brother Phil Angelides the next governor of this great state of California.'"
Dan Walters writes that
a sizable number of Democratic voters are still undecided. "Two recent statewide polls by the Public Policy Institute of California and the Los Angeles Times show that, as Angelides told a rally at his campaign headquarters Tuesday, 'We're in a dead-even contest.'"
"Angelides does appear to have more momentum, having erased the lead that Westly had built during earlier stages. Nevertheless, both polls found that an extraordinary number of Democratic voters, somewhere between a quarter and a third, remained undecided last week, less than a fortnight before the election."
"The dilemma for undecided Democratic voters may be whether to nominate someone who better represents the liberal heart of the party in Angelides, or someone who may stand a better chance of winning the governorship in Westly."
The Chron's Carla Marinucci takes a look at
the Angelides-Tsakopoulos connection.
"Campaign contribution reports through last week show that [
Angelo] Tsakopoulos, who heads Sacramento-based AKT Development, and his daughter
Eleni have donated $8.7 million to independent expenditure campaigns aimed at electing Angelides to the top state office.
Critics say the amount of the contribution makes Tsakopoulos a candidate for the political donors' Hall of Fame and puts Angelides in the developer's back pocket."
Meanwhile, in the Capitol, "[w]ith the June 15 deadline for passing a state budget just two weeks out, lawmakers from the Assembly and Senate
are expected to start work today hammering out the final details of a roughly $131.6 billion spending plan."
"'Ironically, it's often more difficult when revenues are increasing, especially after years of deficit, than it is during bad years, because in bad years it's really easy to say 'no,'' said Sen.
Wes Chesbro, D-Arcata, chairman of the conference committee that will review the budget. 'Yet I think it's really important to exercise caution because we're still not out of the woods.'"
The versions of the budget that emerged from each house would spend more of the state's unexpected tax windfall than the governor's May revised budget plan.
"'We wanted to take advantage of some targeted investments that would pay off over the long term,' said Assemblyman
John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, a member of the budget conference committee."
"But Republicans in both the Assembly and Senate, whose votes are necessary to reach the two-thirds majority required to pass a budget, say they want to see more debt repayment and less spending."
"'We really need to see more progress (toward repaying debt), given the amount of money that we've had come in,' said Assemblyman
Rick Keene of Chico, one of two Republicans on the budget conference committee."
AG candidate
Rocky Delgadillo might want to avoid cruising around Oakland for a while, with the
city's police union blasting his latest ad.
"Delgadillo's commercial, the centerpiece of his $2-million final TV push against rival Democrat Jerry Brown — Oakland's mayor and former California governor — blames Brown for a murder spike in the San Francisco Bay Area city this year. The union says the ad slanders the Police Department and Brown," writes Eric Bailey in the Times.
"
Robert Valladon, Oakland Police Officers Assn. president, said in a letter to Delgadillo, the Los Angeles city attorney, that it was 'unethical for a law enforcement official like you to deliberately distort facts about crime to get votes.' Valladon called it '
tragic that you would choose to slander' the department's rank and file 'to advance your political career.'"
The LAT's Steve Hymon
looks at the race for SD20 pitting
Cindy Montanez and
Alex Padilla against each other in the fight to succeed
Richard Alarcon.
"'If we weren't in a term-limited environment, maybe our planning would be different,' Padilla said."
Matier and Ross look at the
race between Fiona Ma and Janet Reilly for AD12, which they see as a proxy war between
John Burton and
Clint Reilly.
"'
What you really have here is two old warhorses that should have retired a while ago, but are back in the fray for bragging rights,' said former San Francisco Mayor
Willie Brown, who has had his ups and downs with both sides over the years."
Meanwhile, Senator
John McCain pulled out of today's planned fundraiser for congressional candidate
Brian Bilbray over the immigration issue.
The U-T's Dani Dodge reports "Bilbray has disdainfully called the McCain-backed immigration bill 'amnesty' for illegal immigrants, something McCain disputes. Bilbray's Democratic opponent in the race,
Francine Busby, supports the Arizona senator's proposal, calling it 'a tough, comprehensive plan.'"
"'Senator McCain has canceled his appearance on behalf of Brian Bilbray to avoid distracting from the overall message of the Bilbray campaign,'
Craig Goldman, executive director of McCain's political action committee, said in a statement."
LA Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa was in Sacramento yesterday, meeting with advocacy groups to unveil more details and build support for his plan to take over L.A. Unified.
"Villaraigosa has proposed that a 'council of mayors' — representing the 27 cities served by the Los Angeles Unified School District — hire and fire the superintendent and adopt the annual budget. Though Villaraigosa would share power with the other leaders, he would retain the most influential role," report Duke Helfand and Mitchell Landsberg for the Times.
"The mayor, who did not visit legislators during his one-day trip, stressed that his interest in the school district was not about a power grab but about an effort to improve a system in crisis."
"He said a new schools superintendent, hired by the mayor's council, would run the district."
"'I'm not putting the power in myself. I'm putting it in the superintendent,' Villaraigosa said. 'I'm not going to run the school district. The superintendent will.'"
"Seeking to force presidential candidates to pay attention to California's 15.5 million voters, state lawmakers on Tuesday
jumped aboard a new effort that would award electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationwide," reports Nancy Vogel in the Times.
"As it is now, California grants its Electoral College votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state. Practically speaking, that means Democrat-dominated California spends the fall presidential campaign on the sidelines as candidates focus on the states — mostly in the upper Midwest — that are truly up for grabs."
"'This is a bill that would allow California to be able to play a role in presidential elections,' said
Barry Fadem, the Lafayette, Calif., lawyer spearheading the drive. Now, because the state is largely ignored, he said, 'A vote in California is not equal to a vote in Ohio, and everyone would concede that.'"
"The bill —
AB 2948 by Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Anaheim) — cleared the Assembly 49 to 31 with a single Republican vote from Assemblyman
Rick Keene (R-Chico)."
Also from the sausage factory, "[t]he state's flood board, under scrutiny for possible violation of open-meeting laws and what some believe is a pro-developer tilt,
would face an overhaul under a bill approved by the Senate on Tuesday."
"
Senate Bill 1796, which passed 23-11 and now goes to the Assembly, seeks to expand the seven-member State Reclamation Board by two members and requires some of them to have specific experience. The governor's appointees to the board also would be subject to confirmation by the Senate."
"Sen.
Dean Florez, D-Shafter, wrote the bill after the board took action to favor a developer seeking authority to build 11,000 homes on a flood-prone Delta island. The board also was accused of violating open-meeting laws in a related action. Florez has called on state Attorney General Bill Lockyer to investigate."
The LAT's Steve Lopez
has lunch with Cruz Bustamante, tries to tempt the dieting Dem, and
brings out a scale for dessert.
"He kicked off his shoes. He had predicted a svelte 232, but promises meant nothing now. It was a rare moment in politics, a moment of truth."
"The lieutenant governor weighed in at 240.5 pounds."
"He stepped off, a bit shaken."
"'I was 233 this morning at the hotel,' he protested."
Could
grazing sheep be the answer to California's energy woes? Dennis Kuff investigates.
"California, the nation's leader in wind energy, is looking at livestock grazing as a way to reduce the widespread killing of eagles, hawks and owls in the whirling blades of wind turbines."
"In research with implications for the growing wind power industry, the California Energy Commission has approved $380,000 for scientists to test grazing as a tool to save raptors on Contra Costa grassland. The test will begin using sheep to see whether the animals can eat down grass to the right height to drive away ground squirrels that lure raptors into fatal turbine collisions."
"In California, pedophiles and sexual predators may be a focus of the fall campaign, with new laws to toughen penalties being placed before voters. But in Holland,
the predators are fighting back.
"Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage."
"The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: 'We are going to shake The Hague awake!'"
Then what are you going to do with it?
"The party also said everybody should be allowed to go naked in public and promotes legalizing all soft and hard drugs and free train travel for all."
