It's going to be a a lively day in the Capitol today with a closed-door meeting of Assembly Democrats getting the morning started after what turned into a long night of political maneuvering..
Capitol Weekly reports
the Speakership will be on many people's minds. "Less than 24 hours after Proposition 93 failed at the polls, the palace intrigue began. At the Capitol Wednesday was a day filled with rumors, conspiracies, frantic phone calls and private meetings as the race for speaker officially began.
"It all started with
a rumor that the speaker was going to move quickly to install Karen Bass as speaker as early as Thursday.
"Whether or not any of the rumors that ricocheted around the Capitol last night are true is almost beside the point. More significant may be the fact that that they galvanized a group of wanna-be speakers for the first time, and effectively started the race for speaker in earnest."
"
Led by Ed Hernandez, Hector de la Torre and Anthony Portantino, frantic calls went out to lawmakers in an effort to block what they thought was the speaker’s play. Others involved in the talks included Fiona Ma, Mike Feuer, and Charles Calderon. Calderon, no stranger to palace intrigue, once participated in a failed coup attempt against former Speaker Willie Brown as a member of the dissidents known as the "Gang of Five."
"
A headquarters of sorts was established in de la Torre’s Capitol office, as a small parade of members came and went, presumably being briefed on the speaker’s alleged plan.
"Meanwhile, across the hall,
Alberto Torrico was meeting with Republican Floor Leader
Sam Blakeslee to try to figure out what was going on."
And it just so happens that
Maria Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor will be meeting with legislators in the Capitol today. Should be quite a first day for
Warren Furutani, who will be sworn in this morning.
After the Speakership is settled, "there’s the issue of the speaker’s money. Núñez has about $5.1 million in his personal account, according to records from the secretary of state’s office. He has about $1.2 million in another committee, the Committee to Protect California’s Future, which he controls."
Anyone taking bets on how much of that
stays with the caucus?
The LAT's Nancy Vogel writes: "Even as they preserved the status quo on term limits Tuesday, voters
fired the starting gun on races for new Senate and Assembly leaders.
"Now, Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles), Senate President Pro Tem
Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Senate Republican Leader
Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine) must exit in December.
"Jostling to replace the lame-duck leaders has begun and promises to make the Legislature's top job this year -- closing a $14.5-billion budget gap by the end of June -- even tougher.
"Among the prospects [for speaker] is
Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles), a childhood friend of Nuñez, who has collected the most money in his campaign accounts, a test of leadership because a speaker is expected to raise money to help his or her members win reelection.
"Nuñez is also close to
Karen Bass, another Los Angeles Democrat, who would be termed out in two years but could depart early to run for the state Senate or City Council.
"Other possible contenders include Democrats
Fiona Ma of San Francisco,
Charles Calderon of Montebello,
Hector De La Torre of South Gate,
Mike Feuer of Los Angeles,
Edward Hernandez of West Covina,
Anthony Portantino of La Cañada Flintridge and
Alberto Torrico of Newark."
The Chron's Matthew Yi
gets this quote about the scramble ahead: "'
When the governor looks for the big cheese, all he's going to find are a group of mice,' said
John Pitney Jr., a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College."
Hey, mice are better than sheep, right?
Meanwhile, there'll be a fight over the control of the red carpet as well. "Sacramento Democrat
Darrell Steinberg was the first to publicly announce his candidacy to replace Senate leader
Don Perata Wednesday," reports Anthony York in Capitol Weekly.
"'
It’s no secret that I’m going to run for the position and I’m going to run hard,' said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. 'Obviously, it’s a decision for the caucus to make and I know this, whatever happens, the election will be amicable,something that reflects the congeniality of the senate. That is the tradition. I expect it will be that way.'
"Sen.
Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, also is a contender to succeed Perata. Conversations with several senators indicate that Padilla is actively seeking votes. Steinberg has been the prohibitive front-runner for the job since his election in 2006. Padilla, a former president of the Los Angeles City Council, is said to have waiting for a formal OK from Perata to begin seeking votes.
"That decision to wait may have benefited Steinberg, who many say is still the most likely caucus choice to succeed Perata. But the timing of any vote or actualy power change has yet to be formally worked out."
CW's John Howard takes a look at the next election --
the recall of Jeff Denham.
"Under the radar, the recall drive against Republican Sen.
Jeff Denham is coming to a head, fueled largely by Senate leader Don Perata who, ironically, faces a challenge to his own leadership role following Tuesday’s elections.
"
Perata and fellow Democrats have gathered enough signatures to submit petitions to the five county registrars in Denham’s 12th Senate District, according to Capitol sources. The group handling the mechanics of the recall effort did not go so far. 'We are collecting signatures, and we still have not submitted them,' said recall campaign spokesman and Democratic strategist Paul Hefner.
"Thus far, less than a week before the deadline, no signatures have been turned in, according to voter registrars in Merced, Monterey, Madera, San Benito and Stanislaus counties."
Meanwhile, the LAT breaks down the other election. "Meanwhile, the LAT's Cathleen Decker and Phil Willon
take a look at the exit poll results.
"Women backed [
Hillary] Clinton 59% to 36%, contributing to a giant gender gap compared with men, who sided narrowly with
Barack Obama, according to an exit poll by a consortium of news organizations.
"Latinos went for Clinton by a 2-1 margin. What made that margin even more significant was that Latinos made up a record proportion of the electorate. Three in 10 of those who voted in the Democratic primary were Latino, the exit poll said, almost double the proportion in 2004."
Another gem from the
poll: Clinton tied Obama in 18-29 year-old voters (49%-49%), who accounted for 16% of the Democratic electorate. While turnout among this group was 5% higher relative to othre voters, the expected surge by Obama didn't materialize.
In the end, assuming late absentees and provisionals don't change the results, Clinton
won 207 delegates to Obama's 163 delegates.
Capitol Weekly
looks at the fun math behind
Mordecai's (the Democratic Convention Mascot) delegate allocation formula.
"Now that voters
have approved a huge expansion of Indian gambling for four tribes, California may soon be home to the biggest casinos in the United States - and whether that is good for the state budget and the communities near the expanding casinos depends on who is talking," reports Kevin Fagan in the Chron.
"Opponents see little but more gambling addiction problems and clogged roads, with little guarantee of significant new payments to state coffers for the trouble. Proponents say the expansions will help uplift long-oppressed Native Americans, and they predict billions of new dollars will roll in from the tribes to help shore up the ailing state budget.
"Regardless of the opposing contentions, the bald fact is that the passage Tuesday of state Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97 - each handily winning with 56 percent approvals - now allows at least two Southern California tribes to swell their existing gambling operations so much that they could outstrip the largest casino in the country.
"
Roger Salazar, spokesman for the campaigns to approve the propositions, said the tribes plan "a measured ramp-up," of hundreds, not thousands, of new slots in the coming months. But observers and foes of the expansions are taking a wait-and-see attitude."
Certainly,
the slow economy is contributing to that measured ramp-up.
"Spurred by confusion over Tuesday's voting, acting Los Angeles County Registrar
Dean Logan said Wednesday that his office
will examine more than 94,000 ballots cast by nonpartisan voters to determine how many votes for presidential candidates may have gone uncounted," reports Richard Paddock in the Times.
"Logan said he also will try to determine whether the uncounted ballots would make a difference in the way delegates are apportioned between the Democratic presidential candidates and, if so, will seek legal approval to count as many as possible.
"The registrar's comments followed an uproar among decline-to-state voters in the county who discovered too late that they were required to mark a bubble on the ballot denoting which party primary they were voting in. Some complained that poll workers told them not to mark the bubble; others said they were unaware of the requirement, which is unique to L.A. County."
"The California Coastal Commission handed environmentalists a major victory and rejected the pleas of motorists Wednesday,
voting down plans to build a six-lane toll road through San Onofre State Beach, a popular preserve in north San Diego County known for its scenery and famous surf spots," report David Reyes and Dan Weikel in the Times.
"Before a boisterous crowd of more than 3,500 people, commissioners decided 8 to 2 that the proposed Foothill South project violates the California Coastal Act, which is designed to regulate development along the state's 1,100-mile shoreline. They reached the conclusion following hours of sometimes heated public testimony that pitted protecting the environment against the need to relieve traffic congestion in south Orange County.
"The decision was a major setback for the Transportation Corridor Agencies, which has spent years and tens of millions of dollars preparing to construct the 16-mile tollway as an alternative to Interstate 5."
"The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled that a mother who didn't like the way her baby's circumcision looked cannot sue a Fridley hospital for medical malpractice
"Dawn Nelson sued Unity Hospital and Dr. Steven Berestka, claiming the doctor removed "the most erogenous tissue" after the boy was born on Jan. 21, 2000 — without consulting either parent. Nelson and the boy's father, David Nelson, were unhappy with the result.
And the headline of the day goes to Reuters, which reports, "
Man returns from the dead, suspected of fraud."
Here's a shocker -- money was involved. "The man had taken out several life insurance policies in 2000, worth more than $1.15 million, and he also bought travel insurance before going to Greece, Hungarian police said in a statement."
