Kevin Yamamura
looks at the effort of the governor to persuade his party to move to the center. "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared last week that the Republican Party must move to the center if it wants to regain power in California, but how far will the moderate GOP governor go to push his conservative-based party in that direction?
"Political analysts suggest the California Republican Party may not change until the state employs a new system of drawing district boundaries that creates more competitive political races and favors centrism, a Schwarzenegger proposal that died this year.
"Others say a messier solution would be for the governor to recruit a bloc of moderate Republican legislators, a strategy that former Gov.
Pete Wilson tried and failed to achieve 15 years ago and Schwarzenegger has not had the stomach for.
"For now, the governor remains convinced that he can move the party through persuasion alone, according to his communications director,
Adam Mendelsohn.
"'
This is not about engaging in Republican primary battles or picking one candidate over another," Mendelsohn said. '
Gov. Schwarzenegger is talking about a message. It doesn't matter if you're a right-wing candidate or a moderate candidate. He wants the party to start talking about issues that Californians care about.'"
George Skelton writes that the
window to reform redistricting has likely closed.
"[
Don] Perata, despite his original heat-of-passion pledge, shudders at the thought of giving up the gerrymandering power. Yet, he did allow both the Ashburn and Lowenthal measures to pass the Senate and go to the Assembly, where they were denied committee hearings for weeks.
"[
Fabian] Nunez worked hard on his own plan, but couldn't strike a deal with Republicans, the distracted governor or what one senior aide calls the "goody-two-shoes" reform groups.
"One hang-up was over whether to allow the Legislature to continue drawing congressional districts or to make it hand the task to an independent commission. It was feared that U.S. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) would raise millions to oppose any redistricting scheme that didn't permit Democratic gerrymandering. Conversely, GOP leaders insisted that the Democratic-dominated Legislature keep its hands off House seats.
"
Tony Quinn, a former redistricting consultant for Republicans, thinks this legislative failure kills all chances for reform. 'I don't believe there's any possibility of getting this in the future,' he says. 'It had to be tied to term limits. Democrats had to get something to give up something.'
"Term limits should be eased. But should they be eased while lawmakers still have the power to rig their own elections? That's a question we'll have to mull."
The Bee's Jim Sanders writes that
support for the term limits change is fading without redistricting reform. "Schwarzenegger will not support the term limits initiative and might even oppose it unless the Legislature reconsiders redistricting -- and he's not alone, said
Adam Mendelsohn, the governor's communications director.
"'I think that everyone would agree that from a strategic standpoint, the best way to pass term limits is to get redistricting on (the ballot) with it,' Mendelsohn said.
"Business groups say their support for the term limits measure now is far from certain.
"
Michael Shaw, of the National Federation of Independent Business, said no vote has been taken but he is not optimistic.
"'I think it's fair to say, at this point, that our members are not interested in extending the term limits of the current Legislature unless they can be assured that the next Legislature is going to be more responsive to their needs,' Shaw said."
"The American Cancer Society this week will take its biggest step ever into the politics of health care reform,
spending $15 million in advertising on behalf of Americans with too little health insurance or none at all," reports Mike Stobbe in the Chron.
"The cancer society - the nation's richest health charity, in both donations and volunteers - traditionally focuses its advertising on encouraging Americans to quit smoking or get a screening test.
"But this year's campaign will feature television commercials that portray the challenges of uninsured and underinsured cancer patients, accompanied by a call for people to do something about it.
"The change comes after cancer society officials concluded that insurance-related problems have emerged as one of the largest obstacles in their goal to cut cancer death rates by 50 percent and incidence rates by 25 percent from 1990 to 2015.
"'We're not going to meet our goals if the health care system remains unfixed,' said
John Seffrin, the cancer society's chief executive."
Dan Walters offers
why deals on health care and water will be difficult in the special session.
"When any complicated, big-ticket issue is on the agenda, the stakeholders muscle up with professional lobbyists, public relations operatives and other mercenaries, all to serve each client's goal of getting a seat at the table and having its particular demands folded into the final product, if there is to be a final product. Implicitly -- and sometimes explicitly -- each stakeholder wants to exhibit enough clout to block enactment of the product if its interests, whatever they may be, are not served.
"The system is essentially a negative one in that it's easier to stop something from happening than it is to make it happen, and stakeholders bank on that syndrome to enforce their demands. Often, all demands cannot be met because they are mutually exclusive. The result is stalemate, which has been true of water and health care so far. The flip side, however, is that a final product that meets all demands is often an unworkable mishmash -- energy "deregulation" in 1996 being the most obvious example.
"Despite his so-so record, Schwarzenegger still believes that he can, by sheer force of will, succeed where others have failed. We'll see."
But the big question of the special session remains: Will there be any legislative bingo? The lobbyist past time of asking members to introduce obscure or strange words into floor speeches got some ink around the close of session this year. But a political consultant
explains the orgins of the Capitol parlor game on his blog.
"It's origins came about during the Gore vs. Bush recount following the 2000 Presidential election," writes Mike Madrid. " obviously the stakes were huge here, but at its core
this stuff was boring. Kind of like the end of the legislative session. In fact there are a lot of similarities: the end of a campaign and the end of the legislative session are really the best times to see overpaid folks in thousand dollar suits panicked, groveling and pretending like they have control over a situation when they really have no idea what the hell is going on or how to influence the outcome.
"At some point a mischievous Democrat presented a Republican (or maybe it was the other way around) with a challenge to break up the monotony.
At the beginning of each news cycle, a polical media spokesperson would send the opposing team a list of challenging words and visa versa. Then, as a measure of who is more talented, each side would attempt to work those words into their responses to questions posed by television reporters. The team whose words were most aired in TV sound bytes would win the game that day. Losers would buy the drinks."'Media Bingo' was born.
"If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger goes through with his expected veto of San Francisco Assemblyman
Mark Leno's measure to allow same-sex marriage in California,
it's almost guaranteed the governor will say he's following 'the will of the people,'" write Haley Davies and John Wildermuth in the Chron.
"That's the argument the Republican governor made two years ago when he rejected a similar measure. Although Schwarzenegger hasn't taken an official position on the new bill, he made clear in February that he did not intend to sign it.
"'
I don't want, as the governor, to go against the will of the people,' Schwarzenegger said at an event put on by the YMCA, but added: 'If it goes back on the ballot, the people can make the decision.'
"The Legislature approved the bill Sept. 7, and the governor has until Oct. 14 to sign or veto the measure."
The LAT's Lee Romney and Scott Gold write that
Proposition 63 isn't providing enough to make a difference in small counties. "In some parts of the state, Proposition 63, a voter-approved surtax on those with income above $1 million, is pumping millions of dollars into innovative new treatments for the mentally ill.
"But many rural residents have been left out of Proposition 63's richest benefits. Not only do rural counties receive far less of the new funding because of their smaller populations, they also have enormous needs, lagging far behind more populous counties in the types of services offered. The Proposition 63 money can't begin to fill those chasms.
"Five of California's 58 counties don't have a single psychiatrist. About 30 have no inpatient psychiatric beds, necessitating costly and traumatic trips for patients in crisis. Follow-up care is difficult to coordinate. There is little or no supervised housing that would allow the severely ill to live independently yet close to home. Mental health professionals are difficult to recruit and nearly impossible to retain.
"Exporting severely ill patients for both short- and long-term care dramatically increases costs. Sending one resident to a state mental hospital for a year, for example, would consume about 10% of Modoc County's budget, depriving others of basic services.
"Adding to the burden is a disproportionately needy population, spread over thousands of square miles mostly unserved by public transportation."
"Thousands of
state medical workers will get an unexpected pay raise -- as much as $2,114 more a month -- in hopes they won't shop for a better offer at another state agency," writes Judy Lin in the Bee.
"Psychiatric technicians at the Department of Developmental Services will see $84 more a month while senior psychologists at the Department of Mental Health will find an extra $1,590. And psychologists at three centers serving the developmentally disabled will get $2,114 more.
"The pay raises, retroactive to April, will take effect once Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs legislation already approved by the Legislature. The increase is expected to cost taxpayers more than $60 million a year.
"State officials say the raises are being driven by court-ordered pay increases for medical workers at the beleaguered Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Citing the state's inability to provide adequate care for inmates, federal courts have mandated raises to help lower high vacancy rates within Corrections."
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration
is moving to strip California's civil rights commission of its staff of lawyers who hear discrimination cases, a move that has stirred opposition among civil rights groups, Democrats in the Legislature and an advocate for employers," reports Bob Egelko in the Chron.
"On Tuesday, the state Fair Employment and Housing Commission will vote in San Francisco on the administration's proposal to relinquish its lawyers and rely on attorneys from a central state office to hear its cases.
"The commission now has four attorneys, including one who serves as executive officer and would retain her job. Commission members, appointed by the governor, serve part time without a salary.
"On the surface, this appears to be an everyday turf war. The State and Consumer Services Agency, which is pushing for the change, says it simply wants to make the commission more productive and accountable. But opponents say the administration is out to dismantle the commission, with potentially dire consequences."
And the good people at
Chow.com have
unearthed a recipe from Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, that "
in light of certain recent developments regarding the Republican senator’s alleged behavior in an airport restroom, the recipe looks, well, a little Freudian. Called the Super Tuber, it involves
coring a hole through a potato, inserting a hot dog into the hole, and baking it."
The recipe was originally submitted for a cookbook called Congress Cooks, but you can find it online
here.
