"Despite a 2000 law meant to curb the size of checks California politicians
could collect from deep-pocketed interest groups, many
lawmakers are skirting those limits by soliciting funds
for ballot accounts," reports Shane Goldmacher in the Bee.
"In many cases, the money is arriving in increments
of tens, and even hundreds, of thousands of dollars.
"The ballot accounts are legal and can be created without
a specific ballot measure in mind. Donations to them
can be limitless. The only difference is that elected
officials can't spend the money directly on their own re-election campaigns.
"
Ross Johnson, chairman of the state campaign watchdog agency, the
Fair Political Practices Commission, calls the differing
rules 'absolutely illogical' with 'potential for abuse.'
"Politicians have used the funds for everything from
TV ads featuring themselves to family Christmas cards
to leverage in policy negotiations with well-heeled special interests. At the Capitol, where clout
is often measured by the size of a candidate's campaign chest, supporters say ballot committees
are a necessary fact of life.
"But watchdogs fear the oversized checks come with outsized
influence.
"'It doesn't matter what pocket that special interest is putting
the money in,' Johnson said. 'Whether it's your shirt pocket or your coat pocket or your pants
pocket, it is the receipt of the money that carries
with it the potential for undue influence.'
"
Dan Weitzman, a prominent Democratic fundraiser, said the accounts
are a way to show leadership in the Capitol. Among
his clients are [
Karen] Bass and Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nunez.
"'My guys do it because it is leading,' Weitzman said."
"Karen Bass
has drawn up a short agenda for her two-year reign as Assembly speaker that begins next week," writes George Skelton.
"There are only three items:
"* Balance a state budget that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
has declared is "$20 billion out of whack."
"* Create a ballot initiative that would produce $300 million to $500 million annually for foster care programs.
"* Restructure California's tax system to make it conform to the modern world.
Actually, she wants to create a blue-ribbon commission of "the best and the brightest" to tackle taxes.
"That's all.
"Rather ambitious for someone who has held elective
office for less than 3 1/2 years. But why not? The fiscal stuff -- an honestly balanced budget and creation of a more
stable tax system -- are absolute musts if Sacramento is to once again
provide the leadership required by a perpetually growing
state. And foster care is Bass' passion.
"
By every indication, the 54-year-old Los Angeles Democrat is up to it."
"The decision by state Democratic leaders to bankroll
a recall campaign against [
Jeff] Denham, after he refused a request to vote for the state
budget to break a prolonged stalemate last summer,
has galvanized Republican activists throughout California," reports the LAT's Patrick McGreevy.
"State Republican leaders are organizing buses so activists
from Southern California can walk precincts for Denham
in Merced, Turlock, Salinas and other areas of the
12th Senate District.
"Denham's Senate seat is in the cross hairs of
Don Perata, the powerful Democratic leader of the state Senate
from Oakland, who believes taking it back for his party
will head off embarrassing budget stalemates like the
one last year that had voters from San Diego to Yreka
heaping scorn on state lawmakers.
"Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supported
the budget Denham refused to vote for and even traveled
at the time to Denham's district to pressure him, has disparaged the recall
that's on the June 3 ballot.
"
'Obviously, it is political,' Schwarzenegger said when asked about the effort at
a recent Sacramento news conference, adding that the
budget vote as 'a reason for recall I think is ludicrous.'
Dan Walters writes: "California's Democratic leaders, who have seen their share of
the electorate decline by about 15 percentage points over the last three decades,
are crowing about an uptick in registration.
"Secretary of State
Debra Bowen reported that Democratic registration jumped from
42.7 percent in December to 43.5 percent last month, while Republican registration
declined by virtually the same amount.
"'The Democratic voter registration train in California
continues to accelerate while the Republican train
has jumped off the tracks,' state Democratic Chairman
Art Torres proclaimed, citing a 469,700-voter gain from 2004 and a 109,870-voter loss by Republicans.
"Torres and other Democratic leaders are also elated
that two counties that had acquired Republican pluralities
during the decades of Democratic decline, Ventura and
Stanislaus, now have moved back into the Democratic
column by narrow margins.
"What neither they nor anyone else knows, however, is
whether it's a permanent trend or merely a temporary lull in the
long-term erosion of Democratic Party strength, which has
been much more dramatic than the losses suffered by
Republicans. Both parties have been losing ground to
the rising ranks of independents aligned with no party,
who now constitute just under 20 percent of voters."
As counties start cutting back their budgets,
mental health services are being hit particularly hard
in Santa Clara County, reports Deborah Lohse in the Merc News.
"Hundreds of psychiatric patients will no longer receive
personal therapy or casework. Sixteen low-income schools will lose on-site crisis-intervention services. Group homes for teens may see
a vital county subsidy disappear.
"It's budget-cutting season in Santa Clara County, where for the
seventh year in a row county officials have the painful
job of slashing millions of dollars from the county's $4 billion budget. County Executive
Pete Kutras will issue his updated budget proposal today.
"County officials hope they can fill in much of next
year's $172 million deficit with one-time revenues or other maneuvers. A reorganization
of Valley Medical Center is expected to yield $27 million in savings. So far - after more than $460 million in cuts during the past six years - Kutras has asked various divisions to cut a relatively
small $23 million from their 2009 budgets.
"More than a third of those departmental cuts - $8 million - are slated to come out of mental-health services. Thousands of adult outpatient mental-health patients are expected to feel the impact in
coming months."
"California regulators
want to expand a pilot program under which utilities
offer interest-free loans to small businesses that want to buy energy-efficient gear," writes Cyndia Zwahlen in the Times.
"The three big utilities that tried the program last
year are on board to enlarge the effort. At least one
will probably propose raising the cap for loans to
small businesses to $100,000, from $50,000, and increasing the payback timetable to 10 years for loans to institutional customers such as
cities and schools, said energy consultant
Hank Ryan, who is credited with bringing a successful Connecticut
program to California that lets customers make loan
payments through their utility bills.
"Southern California Edison wants to boost its loan
fund, which was about $2.5 million last year.
"'We'll be increasing it many, many times over,' said
Gene Rodrigues, director of energy efficiency for the Rosemead-based utility. Edison plans to bring in third parties
that offer financing as well as efficient technologies,
such as equipment vendors or manufacturers with loan
programs.
"The goal is to help small firms buy new equipment that
is so efficient the energy savings will cover the monthly
loan payments. Small businesses were attracted to the
pilots launched last year because they required only
a good payment record with the utility."
And those plans for Yahoo's soaring stock prices to bail out the state's economy are on hold, for now. AP reports, "Yahoo's shares fell about 20 percent in early trading today, off $6.15 to $23.05 as investors offered their first reaction to
the weekend's dramatic announcement that Microsoft was dropping
its bid for the company.
"The fall in Yahoo's shares came after a week of negotiations between
Microsoft and Yahoo culminated in a dramatic face-to-face meeting in Seattle between
Jerry Yang and
David Filo, Yahoo's co-founders, with
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, and another top Redmond executive.
"Ballmer upped the bid to $33 a share, but Yang and Filo held out for more.
"Later that day Ballmer called Yang to say he was dropping
his bid. Analysts believe Yahoo's stock price will surrender most, if not all, of its
50 percent gain since Microsoft made its initial offer
Jan. 31. The anticipated sell-off would leave Yahoo's market value hovering around $30 billion."
Here are the big campaign contribution hauls reported
by
ElectionTrack.com
No 98/yes 99 -- $300,000
Yes Prop 98 -- $196,140
Merv Dymally For State Senate -- $51,400
Re-elect Senator Carole Migden -- $27,000
Strengthening Our Lives Through Education -- $524,500
We Deserve Better -- Yes On The Recall Of Jeff Denham -- $56,061
Dave Jones For Assembly 2008 -- $13,800
Committee To Take Back Our Neighborhoods -- $25,000
Chris Kehoe For State Senate -- $19,750
Julia Brownley For Assembly 2008 -- $15,400
Joe Simitian For State Senate -- $15,000
Friends of Joan Buchanan -- $13,800
John Perez For Assembly -- $13,200
Friends Of Gina Papan -- $10,200
LA Times columnist Joel Kotkin, who has long been a
critic of Antonio Villaraigosa,
trains his focus on Villaraigosa's reign as mayor. Here's a hint: it ain't pretty.
"When it came to that part of the city's economy not connected to real estate, Villaraigosa
might be compared to
Emperor Nero. As the city has continued to lose thousands of middle-class jobs in aerospace, manufacturing and high-end business services since 2005, Villaraigosa has basically stood by and fiddled.
From February 2007 to February 2008, the county suffered the biggest percentage of job
losses-- 0.7% -- of the 10 largest metropolitan areas in the country...
Los Angeles is now surpassed only by a handful of the
bigger Rust Belt economic basket cases, like Detroit,
for the title of worst big-city economy in the nation."
It should be noted that, unlike Nero, the mayor has
not ordered the execution of his mother...
Meanwhile, speaking of dead air, the other Golden Boy's microphone has been quiet as well. Matier and Ross
write: "San Francisco Mayor
Gavin Newsom was a no-show for his debut on Air America.
"The mayor was slated to start his half-hour gabfest on KNEW-AM Saturday. The press release went out and the promo
started rolling.
"Then late last week, the mayor's office put the whole thing on hold, saying Newsom's schedule was just too jammed with his trip to Israel
and New York.
"So the station had to pull back on its ads promoting
the show and instead run a bunch of 'Whoops, we're sorry' spots.
"'I guess it just wasn't the best time for him to start,' said KNEW's
John Scott.
"'Hopefully, we'll regroup in a couple of weeks.'"
And no matter what the polls say for any potential
2010 U.S. Senate race against Barbara Boxer,
Arnold Schwarzenegger has finished third in the only
poll that matters.
The Pearl & Dean poll of 3,000 movie-goers has placed Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis ahead
of our governor on the list of greatest action heros
of all time.
"The Pearl & Dean poll of 3,000 people showed many felt Willis set the standard for
the action hero with his 1980s' role as John McClane in Die Hard, a role he reprised
for the fourth time last year.
Ford is remembered as Han Solo in Star Wars and as
the swashbuckling archaeologist Indiana Jones, a role
he has taken on for the fourth time in a film out later
this month."
The two tied for the poll's top spot.
"'Terminator' star turned governor of California Arnold
Schwarzenegger, 60, came third in the poll with 15 per cent votes."
