"In the wake of claims by Assemblyman
Hector De La Torre that taxpayers could be ripped off by golden handshakes offered by the Assembly recently,
the lower house has decided to keep its data secret.
"The Assembly balked at releasing any financial projections or analysis of the offer it made last month to sweeten pensions of up to 222 aides if they retire this year.
"Assembly Chief Administrative Officer
Jon Waldie, responding to a request by The Bee, said the Legislative Open Records Act does not require release of legislative memos or correspondence to lawmakers.
"Attorney
Terry Francke, an expert on public-records law for Californians Aware, which promotes open government, said cities and counties are required to disclose any financial data associated with golden handshakes they propose.
"Francke said the Legislature breeds distrust by not imposing the same standard on itself.
"'What it means is that those who make the law have made themselves above the law,' Francke said."
"Surprising even the measure's author, the Assembly elections committee
supported restricting special interests from giving tens of thousands of dollars in gifts to state politicians and officials each year," reports Jim Sanders in the Bee.
"Sports tickets, theater seats, Disneyland admission, fancy meals, golf outings, music concerts, circus entertainment, bottles of wine and hordes of other gifts are targeted.
"'I didn't know how this was going to work out,' a smiling Assemblyman
Sam Blakeslee, the bill's author, said in thanking the committee for its 5-0 vote on Assembly Bill 2795.
"Afterward, the San Luis Obispo Republican confided to an aide that he was shocked.
"'I will say candidly that some (colleagues) like the gifts and would prefer that a bill like this was not moving forward,' Blakeslee told reporters."
Call us after your bill gets off the Assembly Appropriations Suspense File, Sam.
"'But continuing a system which sees huge sums of money spent on these gifts is not supportable or sustainable,' he added.
"AB 2795 would ban individuals, companies or groups that employ lobbyists from giving gifts totaling more than $10 per month to state politicians and officials.
"Lawmakers currently may accept gifts totaling up to $390 per year from a Capitol interest."
The U=T's Jim Sweeney reports on
software problems at some Indian casinos. "California's first inspection of slot machines at Indian casinos has found
widespread software lapses that could be short-changing tribes, the state and millions of gamblers, the state's gambling commission warns in a new report.
"Tribal representatives and commission staff members disagreed sharply about the severity of the software shortcomings flagged in nearly 500 machines examined at the casinos, including those operated by the Pala, Pauma and Viejas tribes of San Diego County."
Assemblyman Jim Beall "
proposed raising the beer tax by $1.80 per six-pack, or 30 cents per can or bottle. The current tax is 2 cents per can. That's an increase of about 1,500 percent," reports Mike Zapler in the Bee.
"Beall said the tax would generate $2 billion a year to fund health care services, crime prevention and programs to prevent underage drinking and addiction.
"'
The people who use alcohol should pay for part of the cost to society, just like we've accepted that concept with tobacco,' Beall said."
Beall and the Wine Institute toasted the bill's introduction with California's finest bubbly...
"He added that the beer tax hasn't been touched since 1991, and the increase then was meager.
"But the freshman lawmaker will have to lift the legislative equivalent of a full keg of beer over his head to get his tax enacted. That's because it would require a two-thirds vote in the Assembly and Senate - and then, because it's a constitutional amendment, it would have to be approved by voters. Republicans say it's a non-starter.
"'I predict the shelf life will be very short,' said Assemblyman
Roger Niello, R-Sacramento, vice chairman of the budget committee.
'It's a piecemeal approach to the budget that completely avoids any discussion of spending discipline, which is fundamentally why we have the problem that we have.'"
"Saying Southern California has been shortchanged on money for transportation projects, Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nuñez called Thursday for the resignation of Roger Snoble as head of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
"Nuñez, a Democrat from Los Angeles, reacted angrily to a California Transportation Commission decision Thursday to provide five Southern California counties with $1.65 billion from a pot of more than $3 billion for projects aimed at improving the flow of goods through ports and along highways and rail lines.
"The decision provides 56.5% of the funds to Southern California. Three dozen state legislators had asked that at least 70% of the money go to their region because it is home to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which combined handle 85% of the shipping cargo containers that move through California.
"'Over this issue, Snoble should go,' Nunez said. '
He screwed this thing up. He did so much damage to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. This guy should step down.'
"Nuñez charged that Snoble agreed to a bad deal that shortchanged Los Angeles County early in the competition for funds and that the MTA's chief executive officer failed to provide enough transportation projects ready to compete for the money."
"The Pacific Fishery Management Council
voted Thursday to cancel the chinook fishing season in an effort to reverse the catastrophic disappearance of California's fabled run of the pink fish popularly known as king salmon," writes the Chron's John Koopman.
"'I think it's probably the right thing to do,' said
Barbara Emley, 64, who has run a commercial fishing boat with her husband out of Fisherman's Wharf since 1985.
"'It's tough, though. We're going to lose our (fishing) community. People are going to have to figure out what to do with five months of no income.'
"Just hours after the vote, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency and sent a letter to President Bush asking for his help in obtaining federal disaster assistance. In addition, the governor's office announced that Schwarzenegger will sign legislation to appropriate approximately $5.3 million for coastal salmon and steelhead fishery restoration projects."
Dan Walters
takes a bite out of Jenny Oropeza's SB 1443, which would require caterers to donate leftovers to charity.
Wasn't there a Seinfeld episode about this?
"Sen. Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, is the bill's author, and her motivation appears to be benign, even laudable – putting less food in the garbage and more in the stomachs of poor people.
"Specifically, her measure would require a "retail food facility" – a caterer, in other words – to give its clients, as part of their service contracts, the option of giving "any leftover food" to nonprofit food banks or claiming it for themselves.
"When Oropeza presented the measure to the Senate Judiciary Committee the other day, she lamented that so much edible food winds up in the dump rather than being used to alleviate human hunger and said she wanted to do something about it."
Caterers pointed out that often extra food is brought to events and reused later if safe, which may be considered "leftovers" under the bill.
"Why is the Legislature nibbling on the caterers' business? Oropeza's measure, in effect, would expropriate the private property of mostly small and often struggling businesspeople to serve some vague social purpose, forcing them to either reduce the amounts of food they have available to their clients or raise their prices to cover "any leftover food" that their clients might claim for themselves or their favored charities – assuming, of course, that a workable definition of the term could be drafted.
"
This may not be the dumbest bill to surface in the Capitol, but it's right up there – and a case in point of how the building's occupants live in a strange little world of their own."
Ouch.
And from our
Welcome to the Neighborhood Files, the Chron's Zach Coile reports, "Newly elected Democratic Rep.
Jackie Speier of Hillsborough was sworn into Congress Thursday morning and
promptly gave a fiery speech criticizing the Iraq policies of President Bush and likely GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, leading some Republicans to boo and walk out of the House chamber."
"
As her first bill, Speier may propose a measure that would restore the ban on direct-to-consumer advertising by drug companies. Picking a fight with the pharmaceutical lobby would be a bold step for a freshman member, but she said it's absurd that drug companies have spent more to advertise drugs like Vioxx than PepsiCo spends to market Pepsi."
And congratulations to the East Bay Express for winning the Roundup's
Headline of the Day Contest. "Oakland Street Dealers Store Drugs Up Their Butts."
We admit, we didn't read the rest of the story. But what else could you possibly say?
