"A state Senate panel is expected today to
begin the first formal scrutiny of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's sweeping proposal for overhauling health care in California," reports the Bee's Clea Benson.
"Wielding the gavel at the Health Committee hearing will be a member of the Legislature who believes many of the governor's ideas won't work.
"State Sen.
Sheila Kuehl isn't rushing to judgment. For the past four years, the Santa Monica Democrat has studied health care while pushing California to abolish private insurance and replace it with universal coverage administered by the state. Schwarzenegger last year vetoed Senate Bill 840, Kuehl's bill establishing such a single-payer system.
"Schwarzenegger criticized Kuehl's solution as 'government-run health care.' Now, it's Kuehl's turn to examine the Republican governor's plan, a very different approach that would actually increase the number of insurance customers by the millions.
"'My role on these proposals is to to say, 'These are the facts,' ' Kuehl said Wednesday. 'So far, I think the emperor has some clothes, but not a full wardrobe.'"
CW's Cosmo Garvin
profiles freshman Assemblyman Ed Hernandez, who hopes to throw himself into the healthcare debate. Hernandez, a practicing optomitrist, tells the story of a patient who he suspected of having diabetes, who refused to get treatment because he had no health insurance. The patient later died of diabetes.
"It's one of those frustrations I deal with on a regular basis. Here was an older guy who didn't have health insurance and couldn't afford it. Couldn't afford to go and do his routine medical care."
It's one of the frustrations that drove Hernandez to run for Assembly, something he said he never dreamed he'd do. "All I ever wanted was to go back to the community I grew up in and provide health care. I would have been happy doing that until I retired."
CW's John Howard reports that
enviros are wary of the new attorney general's environmental record, fearing he may start backing away from cases filed by Bill Lockyer.
Environmentalists and Capitol sources contend Brown left the AQMD team in the lurch and is backing off the position of Lockyer, who had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the environmentalists' position. Thus far, there is no indication from Brown's office about any change in his role in connection with the case, and no announcement has been made about the issue. Brown's office declined to comment for this story.
"My understanding is that the attorney general didn't have an opportunity to consider whether to file a amicus brief, because of transition and timing with the new job," said Brown spokesman Gareth Lacy." But that said, we are following the case pretty closely. And the attorney general is aware that the PUC is considering it's position on this matter. Basically, we are waiting to see if the PUC reconsiders its decision."
But critics say the absence of action is itself the problem, and that by not assuming a more aggressive posture Brown is signaling that he does not intend to vigorously pursue the case through the state's highest courts. The role of the state attorney general, they say, is critical in such cases because the office has extensive expertise and resources that it can call upon.
"The attorney general is the office charged with overseeing enforcement of CEQA 9the California Environmental Quality Act). The fact that he came in was a big deal, because he is the 800-pound gorilla saying that the law has been violated. With the AG coming in, in addition to the AQMD, he was taking the suit to the next level," said Cory Briggs, an attorney for Ratepayers for Affordable Clean Energy, or RACE.
Today is also
Salary Day at Capitol Weekly. Malcolm Maclachlan
writes about the latest data.
119 million tax dollars at work? That's the payroll for the Legislature's 2010 employees. Neither number includes the $13.6 million payroll for the state's 120 legislators.
So where does the money go? First off, they don't call the Senate the upper house for nothing. Despite having half the members of the Assembly, the Senate has 46 percent of the staff and 48 percent of the payroll.
It also pays to be a Democrat--though not as much as one might think. How big this advantage is depends a great deal on how one parses the numbers.
Overall, Democratic senators average 9.4 staffers and a payroll of $509,147. Their Republican counterparts actually come out slightly ahead: 10.1 staffers on a payroll of $511,762. According to Senate Rules, senators get either eight or 10 staffers, depending on if their districts straddle multiple counties.
The Bee's Peter Hecht
profiles Ron Nehring, the state's new GOP chairman. As San Diego GOP chairman, "[h]e brought the Republican Party together in a 'big tent' fashion to identify our primary goals,' said newly elected state Assemblyman
Martin Garrick, R-Solana Beach, who was Nehring's assistant chairman. 'It was register Republican voters first, be organized and prepared to get out the vote.'
"Garrick credits Nehring for reversing a trend that saw the Republican lead in voter registration over Democrats in San Diego County plummet from more than 100,000 voters in 1996 to barely 60,000 in 2001. Now, the GOP voter lead is nearing 90,000.
"Now, state GOP officials are looking to Nehring to help a state party that trails Democrats by 1.3 million registered voters in California. Despite Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's landslide victory last year, the party won only one other statewide constitutional office.
"'I think we can expect from him what he did in San Diego,' said state Assembly Republican leader
Mike Villines of Clovis. 'He organized. He helped win Republican seats where they couldn't be won before. And he raises money and motivates volunteers.'"
"The state correctional officers union
has forged an alliance with some of its longtime adversaries to propose key sentencing changes that represent a departure from the labor group's pro-incarceration positions of the past," writes Andy Furillo in the Bee.
"One proposal being pushed by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association
would reserve prison space for 'violent and habitual offenders' only. The union also is calling for a sentencing commission to set prison term guidelines that could be changed only if both chambers of the Legislature agree.
"
Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Oakland-based Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice joined the CCPOA on a union-convened committee that developed the proposals. For years, those groups have contested the CCPOA's historic support for the state's 'three-strikes' law and tough revocation policies for parolees, both of which have helped jam-pack the state prison system.
"'I think the guards union has come around on the current conditions,' said
Dan Macallair, executive director of the Oakland group and member of the committee. 'There's been a recognition that there have got to be some changes."
Meanwhile, the Register's Brian Joseph writes that the state's efforts to reduce crowding are
resurrecting a problem for Orange County jails. "n 2005, a federal judge ended 27 years of court oversight when he ruled Orange County had solved its jail crowding problem. Finally, after years of improvements and new programs, Carona was free to manage inmates without looking over his shoulder.
"Then more state prisoners arrived.
"In the past 18 months, the number of state inmates in Orange County jails has doubled, to 500 from 250, and the 6,800-bed system is near capacity again.
"That's how a state prison crowding crisis can affect even a county without state prisons."
"The California Court of Appeal in San Francisco
heard oral arguments Wednesday in the 2-year-old dispute that has kept the state's voter-created stem cell institute from issuing any of the $3 billion in bonds approved under Proposition 71, the 2004 stem cell research initiative.
"The plaintiffs in the two consolidated lawsuits are appealing a decision by the Alameda County Superior Court last April that upheld the constitutionality of the institute and its citizen oversight committee.
"Attorneys for the plaintiffs — the People's Advocate, National Tax Limitation Foundation and California Family Bioethics Council — argued again that Proposition 71 was unconstitutional because it created a taxpayer-funded entity that is not under the direct management and control of the state. They also argued that the proposition violated the single-subject rule for such measures and that the citizen board has conflicts of interest."
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
appointed longtime Republican legislator Ross Johnson on Wednesday as chairman of the state's political watchdog, the Fair Political Practices Commission," writes John Hill in the Bee.
"We must create a political system that works in California," Schwarzenegger said. "Ross has been a great advocate of political reform in California politics, and I look forward to working with him on this very important issue."
Johnson, 67, a fiery conservative who represented Orange County in the Legislature for 26 years, wrote several campaign finance bills, and in 1988 wrote the first successful ballot measure to impose limits on campaign contributions."
"Assembly Speaker
Fabian Núñez joined with two other legislators Wednesday
to request a comprehensive state audit of California State University system compensation and hiring practices," reports Jim Sanders in the Bee.
"'We have a fiduciary duty to the tuition-paying students at CSU and to the people of California to make sure those funds are being spent correctly and fairly,' Núñez said in a written statement.
"
Paul Browning, a CSU spokesman, said late Wednesday that CSU would cooperate fully and "is completely open" to a review of its practices.
"Assembly members
Lori Saldaña, D-San Diego, and
Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge, teamed with Núñez in submitting the request."
The Bee's Shane Goldmacher reports on more appointments. "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday
appointed Jim Earp to the California Transportation Commission, the board that will prioritize how the state will spend nearly $20 billion in transportation bonds approved by voters last November.
"Earp, a Democrat, served as chairman of the campaign to pass the governor's bond package in 2006 and is the executive director of the California Alliance for Jobs, a group that poured more than $2.3 million into the bond campaign last year.
"Schwarzenegger made two other appointments to the transportation commission:
Carl Guardino, president and chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group; and
John Chalker, who has served on the commission since 2005."
Fred Aguiar and Charlene Zettel also got new plum appointments, reports The Skinny.
"Fred Aguiar was named to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, complete with $124,000 salary. Department Of Consumer Affairs director Charlene Zettel gets a raise with her new appointment to the San Diego Regional Airport Authority Governing Board. The new job pays $171,648. Meanwhile, Abel Maldonado's chief of staff,
Chris Mowrer, is moving into the administration as the deputy legislative secretary for the Resources Agency."
George Skelton
sings the praises of the February primary. "Candidates call every presidential election "the most important," and it's usually hyperbole. But the 2008 race not only will be very important, it could be historic.
"And Californians are on track to participate in the nominating process, despite some party poopers who argue that it'll all be a huge waste of tax money, perhaps $75 million.
"With maybe a dozen other states also holding 'early' contests on Feb. 5, these critics assert, California still won't exercise much clout. Better to keep the presidential primary in June.
"I look at it this way, to use a basketball analogy: It's better to be on the court, in the game, even if you never touch the ball, than to sit in the nosebleed seats as a spectator."
The Chron's Matthew Yi
looks at the attention drawn to the spanking and light bulb bills. "State legislators say they want to solve the state's health care crisis, address overcrowded prisons and take the next step in shoring up California's aging infrastructure, but the spanking and lightbulb proposals have been hogging the media spotlight.
"Every year, a legislator or two seems to produce a bill that is widely considered so outside the mainstream of statutory norms that it is widely ridiculed and scorned.
"While this year is no different, the national attention comes at a delicate time for lawmakers. Their public opinion ratings have improved after a string of accomplishments, and many legislators see this year as an opening to persuade voters to relax term limits.
"'The Legislature does well when it tackles traditional issues like public works,' said
John Pitney Jr., a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College. 'They get into trouble when they go off on tangents. It's sort of like students and their essays. Good essays stay on topic, and bad essays are goofy. ... And the spanking bill is on the goofy side.'"
