"California's prison guards union
endorsed Democratic gubernatorial challenger Phil Angelides Wednesday, giving the underdog Angelides a politically savvy ally with deep pockets and a history of helping would-be governors win elections," reports Mark Martin in the Chron.
"The blessing of the union, which has about $10 million to spend this fall, could be a boon to a candidate that is down in the polls and in desperate need of rich friends. The union has already run television commercials attacking Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger this year for mishandling the state's dysfunctional prison system and has reserved advertising time leading up to the Nov. 7 election."
"'It's a real shot in the arm for Angelides,' said
Phil Trounstine, director of the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University. 'They're a big union with a lot of money that is very savvy about state politics.'"
"'
We have a clear choice between a B actor who is dabbling in government versus a public servant who is Harvard-educated and providing real solutions for everyday Californians,' said
Lance Corcoran, executive vice president of the union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association."
Speaking of endorsements,
questions arose Wednesday about the students that served as the backdrop for Antonio Villaraigosa's endorsement of Angelides. The LAT's Howard Blume writes: "As endorsement rallies go, this one was made to order: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa endorsed Democrat Phil Angelides for governor Tuesday before a crowd of cheering children chanting: 'Go, Phil, Go!'"
"But there was a problem:
Students attending Los Angeles public schools are not supposed to be used as props for partisan political events. To make matters worse, students missed class when they were not supposed to — all the while enduring political speeches in a steaming auditorium. One group of students had to stand on stage for about an hour, and one girl fainted on stage."
"'It's obvious that students were very passionate and excited about the event,' Angelides spokesman
Nick Papas said."
"The campaign of incumbent Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, offered another interpretation."
"'On the [first] day back to school for most of these children, the question is whether or not a political rally is in students' best educational interests,' spokesman
Matt David said."
"Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Wednesday implementing a contract with California's largest state employee union that includes an average pay raise between 7.8 percent and 9.8 percent over two years."
"The Republican governor also signed a bill installing a union contract with a similar wage increase for 12,000 highway maintenance workers, heavy-equipment operators and state employees in other related fields."
"Under the deal struck in June between state negotiators and the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, the 87,000-member labor group retained its current health care package for most members, in addition to the two-year raise and a $1,000 one-time bonus."
"Schwarzenegger
vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have prohibited teaching or textbooks that negatively portray people based on sexual orientation, saying existing law already contains protections against discrimination," writes the Chron's Greg Lucas.
"The Republican governor's veto was not unexpected. He said he would reject the bill in its initial form when it required textbooks to include the political and cultural contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people."
The LAT's Jordan Rau writes that the veto was part of the
guv's conservative streak. "Fresh from a season of cooperation with Democratic lawmakers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger moved Wednesday to appease members of his own party by signing a series of GOP-sponsored bills and vetoing a measure that would have banned homophobic comments from school textbooks and curricula."
"Since the legislative session ended last week, Schwarzenegger has acted on bills of interest to key parts of the state's Republican coalition: veterans, businesses and social conservatives. On Wednesday, he signed six GOP-sponsored bills, four aimed at helping veterans and two designed to keep children farther away from registered sex offenders."
"'The governor's No. 1 challenge between now and election day is motivating core voters,' said
Jon Fleischman, a former director of the state Republican Party and publisher of a popular conservative website, FlashReport.org."
For those of you playing the home version of our game, you can check out all the bills the governor has signed on his
new bill-signing home page.
In the wake of the governor's veto of Sheila Kuehl's universal health care measure, Capitol Weekly takes a look at
the health care fight ahead.
"Advocates for increased health-care coverage are figuring out their strategy for the 2007 legislative year, and perhaps the 2008 ballot.
Meanwhile, Gov. Schwarzenegger has said that if he is re-elected, health care will be a central legislative focus for his administration, beginning with the State of the State address in January.
Angie Wei, spokeswoman for the California Labor Federation, which led the fight in support of the employer-mandate plan, said 'health care remains a top priority for our union. We are committed to do something in the 'leg' in '07
and, if needed, the ballot in '08.'"
Meanwhile, in the Capitol, CW's Liz Wilson looks at all the
Capitol staff looking for work. "The bi-annual Capitol job scramble is just another byproduct of legislative term limits. With 12 senators and 29 Assembly members termed out of office this year, it means hundreds of resumes are being circulated, in and outside the Building. Staffers take long lunches to go on job interviews, and the regular care and feeding of senators and Assembly members gives way to concern for individual job security."
CW's John Howard looks at one of the
ballot-budgeting tricks that Democrats and Republicans conspired to maintain at the end of the legislative session. "When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote his first state budget, he floated an unusual idea to collect nearly a half-billion dollars: Let the state take 75 cents of every dollar that juries award in punitive damages. The Legislature eagerly bought into the idea for the cash-strapped state, and the budget was written on the assumption that the money would be there.
It wasn't. In fact, it never has been."
George Skelton writes that this legislative session proved
Fabian Nuñez one of the most effective Assembly speakers.
"Count 'em up: He was the lead author of landmark bills to cap greenhouse gas emissions, create a discount prescription drug plan for the uninsured, clear the way for telephone companies to offer TV services and hand his pal, Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa, some power over the L.A. Unified School District."
"It doesn't stop there: Nuñez was the lead author of the education and flood-control bond measures that are part of the huge public works package on the November ballot. And he was the main negotiator with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of a minimum wage hike."
"Nuñez may have defined a new role for term-limited speakers: a role not just aimed at retaining power for himself and his party, but also pointed toward personally enacting public policy; one that not only looks after his caucus, but his own legacy."
Capitol Weekly's Rookie Watch series continues with Malcolm Maclachlan's profile of incoming freshman
Curren Price.
"In 1965, when he was in 10th grade, Curren Price Jr.'s family moved from
multi-ethnic southwestern Los Angeles to mostly white Inglewood. Price found
himself as one of about 30 African Americans out of a student body of 2,000
at Morningside High School.
By senior year, Price had gotten himself elected student-body president. He
used this role to bring in an anti-war speaker for an assembly--a Black
Panther member with a long criminal history.
'I'm a child of '60s, with all that implies, good, bad and otherwise,' Price
said."
Shane Goldmacher steps into the muck of school financing, and explains why
developers so desperately want that school bond to pass. "If California voters reject the $10.4 billion education bond on the November ballot, the state's builders and developers will be on the hook for the full cost of every new school built in the state, starting at the end of 2007. The specter of having to cough up thousands of additional dollars in fees per home has California's builders and developers dumping millions of dollars into the education bond campaign."
The Bee's Jim Sanders looks at the
package of election bills authored by
Debra Bowen, who is running for secretary of state.
"Bowen's
Senate Bill 1598 would require initiative, recall and referendum petitions to state whether their circulators are being paid.
'I think people will have a different reaction to whether they want to sign something if they know that the person who's carrying it is doing so because they're being paid,' she said."
From our
Wilford Brimley Gone Wild Files,"Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies
come across a bizarre encounter at La Purisima Mission in Lompoc."
"Around midnight they found a 69-year-old Huntington beach man...naked and covered in oats."
"Deputies say the man had covered himself in olive oil, rolled around in oats and allowed the horses at the mission to lick him clean."
"He apparently told deputies this has always been a fantasy of his and drove up from the Los Angeles area to play it out."
