The governor
won a huge victory in court yesterday, when a judge tentatively overturned FPPC laws which place restrictions on candidate-controlled committees. So, now that the governor can fund his special election through his existing
California Recovery Team, does this mean the end for
Citizens to Save California?The Chron's Christian Berthelsen explains how
this ruling puts the governor back in the driver's seat of the special election push: "State law places limits on the amount of money a single donor can give to a politician, currently set at $22,300 for gubernatorial candidates, but there are
no limits on contributions to ballot measure committees. Politicians, notably Schwarzenegger, have formed ballot measure committees in tandem with their individual political campaigns to
take in unlimited donations and use them to advance their candidacies.
You can
read the judge's ruling here.Phil Angelides is back in San Francisco today with Assemblyman
Mark Leno and California for Democracy, an off-shoot of the grassroots group founded by
Howard Dean, to formally oppose the concept of the special election and "announce online signature gathering drive urging the Governor to focus on important issues facing the state."
(Notice Phil cozying up to the California Deaniacs.)
Meanwhile, the Big Labor-backed Alliance for a Better California has officially endorsed the so-called
Car Buyer's Bill of Rights initiative, which would include a mark-up on dealer markups, standards for "certified used cars" and a three-day cooling off period for used car sales. That certainly explains why auto dealers recently kicked in a
seven-figure check into one of their old campaign accounts.
"Do they want to
get into a giant food fight with a lot of people and try to drag us into the fight? Yes, I suppose that could happen," said
Peter Welch, president of the California Motor Car Dealers Assn. "I don't see that [the ballot measure aimed at car dealers] helps consumers very much.
It's really written by and for trial lawyers to create more loopholes for more lawsuits for them to bring against car dealers."
With all the money and emotion surrounding the possible special election, it's no wonder
tensions are beginning to flare. "Members of California for Democracy, the state arm of Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean's grass-roots political network, accuse petition workers for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's reforms of using intimidation tactics as both sides appealed to Target shoppers Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, the LA Daily News's David Drucker says the presence of the former Deaniacs at signature-gathering venues is part of a strategy "to
disrupt the efforts of workers gathering signatures needed to put [the governor's] measures on the ballot."
Given all this tension, and the relatively quiet atmosphere in the Capitol this week, there is a surprising
lack of coverage given to the governor's "kitchen cabinet" meeting in Fresno, with an audience of "real people" selected by the Chamber of Commerce. The state's major newspapers all took a pass on the event, though the local
Fresno Bee had a story. Guess the press corps wasn't buying it.
LA Weekly columnist and Arnold booster Bill Bradley
names names within the horseshoe. Bradley attributes the end of the governor's bipartisanship to a small group of advisers within the inner circle who changed the governor's political image. " Although he had worked closely with Democrats, Schwarzenegger was persuaded by Chief of Staff
Pat Clarey, Communications Director
Rob Stutzman, Legislative Secretary
Richard Costigan and Political Consultant
Mike Murphy to try to win Democratic seats in districts he carried in the 2003 recall. All 11 of the governor-backed candidates in those districts lost. Privately,
he didn’t like losing and spun the results. He blamed a pro-incumbent redistricting deal struck by Democrats and Republicans ... Schwarzenegger’s decision,
urged by the Republicans on his staff, not to endorse even one Democratic candidate was bad PR for a “bipartisan guy.”
In the latest Story of the Great Man penned by Bradley, the columnist tacitly calls on the governor to throw off his advisers, and let Arnold be Arnold. "All European gourmets know what can happen when a soufflé is undercooked. The first term of Arnold Schwarzenegger is in danger of turning into the third term of
Pete Wilson. That’s not what most Californians thought they were getting in the recall."
Is that an application for communications director?
SNR's Capitol Bites reports that there is a
new hip hop song about our governor. It's supposedly available at ArnoldWatch.org, although we couldn't find it at this early hour. The song joins at least two other gubernatorial ballads, the
Dead Kennedy's California Uber Alles, which targeted
Jerry Brown and the
remake of the song by
Disposal Heroes of Hypocrisy, which excoriated
Pete Wilson.
Jeffrey Barker, the new Capitol beat reporter for the Sacto News and Review,
writes the story on one of the pieces of Paul Koretz's zoo-rific legislative package, the annual
ferret bill.In Monkey See, Monkey Do news, Assemblyman
Ed Chavez rushes into the media spotlight to pass
a bill restricting exotic animal keeping, in the wake of the recent
tiger escape and
chimpanzee mauling.
