Today is the final Furlough Friday.
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said Thursday that after today, state offices
will stay open every Friday.
"The announcement ends the state's policy of furloughing 238,000 employees on the first and third Friday of each month.
Instead, they'll individually pick their furlough days with management
approval. And the state's massive government will return to its regular schedule.
"The policy change comes after days of uncertainty about
what the administration was going to do with furloughs.
"
Wesley Hussey, a government professor at California
State University, Sacramento, said the darkened state
buildings that pressured legislators during last month's contentious budget talks are likely more of a political
liability to Schwarzenegger now that the budget deal
is done.
"'On Fridays the area around the Capitol would have turned
into a ghost town. Reporters would have kept writing
about it,' Hussey said. '
It's harder to talk about the impact of furloughs when
they're not all focused on a single day.'"
...although it gives one hell of an excuse to agencies
as to why those legislatively mandated reports aren't turned in.
"The California Supreme Court, which last year declared
the right of gays and lesbians to marry, appeared ready Thursday to uphold the voters' decision to overrule the court and restore the state's ban on same-sex marriage," writes Bob Egelko in the Chron.
"'There have been initiatives that have taken away rights
from minorities by majority vote' and have been upheld by the courts, said Chief Justice
Ronald George. 'Isn't that the system we have to live with?'
"George wrote the majority opinion in the court's 4-3 ruling in May striking down California's ban on same-sex marriages - which voters, in turn, reversed in November by approving
Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being
only between a man and a woman.
"Another member of last year's majority, Justice Joyce Kennard, said the challenge to Prop. 8 brought by advocates of same-sex marriage involved "a completely different issue" from the court's ruling that the marriage laws violated gays' and lesbians' rights to be treated equally and wed the partner of
their choice."
"A member of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's cabinet resigned Thursday after questions about income she
received for giving speeches to private companies, including some that were doing
business with her agency," writes MIchael Rothfeld in the Times.
"In a letter to the governor resigning her $175,000 a year position, Rosario Marin, head of the State and Consumer Services Agency, said
she had "decided to pursue other opportunities."
"The resignation came after The Times inquired about
her outside income, which included thousands of dollars
in fees for speeches to pharmaceutical companies within
months of her agency's push last year to reduce oversight of prescription
drugs.
"State law bars officials from accepting speaking fees
except in certain situations, such as when the income
is related to the speaker's "bona fide" business, trade or profession.
"Among the fees Marin took was $15,000 from Pfizer Inc. for a speech in
2007 at a time when the company was lobbying the Board
of Pharmacy, a regulatory panel Marin oversaw. Bristol-Myers Squibb
paid $13,500 for Marin's speaking services last year within weeks of
lobbying
her agency."
Meanwhile, "[b]allot labels on two measures in the May 19 special election were altered Thursday after complaints that the Legislature's wording was misleading and biased in favor of their
passage.
"Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny reworded part of the label for Proposition 1A, which would impose a state spending restriction
and extend tax increases lawmakers approved as part
of the budget deal last month.
"The original ballot label made no mention of the tax
increase extensions and portrayed the spending cap
as a "reform" that would limit "overspending." The wording drew a lawsuit from strange bedfellows
– an anti-tax group that opposes the tax extension and Health
Access, a health care advocacy group that opposes the
spending cap.
"But Kenny's ruling did not order that the tax increase extension
be added to the label, noting that an accompanying
"fiscal analysis" sufficiently tells voters that tax revenues will increase.
His order did remove the words "reform" and "overspending" and clarify that the spending cap "could" limit future deficits.
"Meanwhile, opponents of Proposition 1E dropped their lawsuit over the ballot summary for
that measure, which would dip into mental health program
funds to help solve the state budget's crisis.
"A spokesman for the opposition said they worked out
an agreement with the secretary of state's office to change what they viewed as the ballot summary's misleading language."
John Myers and Anthony York go over the ballot initiatives,
and the special election campaign, in this podcast.
The Chron's Wyatt Buchanan looks at the impact federal stimulus dollars may have on state
budget cuts.
"One key question is whether the aid will be enough
to pull what state leaders are calling the "federal trigger."
"Under terms of the budget, if the state receives at
least $10
billion in federal stimulus money for services that
are paid out of the
state's general fund, nearly $3 billion in cuts and tax increases
included in the budget would be waived.
"But determining whether the federal aid totals $10 billion has
proved difficult, state officials said. An analysis
this week from the
state Department of Finance estimated the aid at slightly
more than $8
billion.
"'(The federal stimulus) is a huge bill,' said H.D. Palmer, a
Department of Finance spokesman. 'It's about the size of the Los
Angeles Yellow Pages.'
"He said several of the regulations needed close review
to determine how much money the state would receive.
"If the $10 billion threshold is crossed, Medi-Cal, higher education,
supplemental social security and in-home support services would be
spared nearly $948 million in cuts. In addition, a surcharge for people
who owe money to the state for personal income tax
would be cut in half."
"U.S. Sen.
Barbara Boxer has a comfortable lead over potential Republican challengers
for her job in 2010,
including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, though voters
are divided in their enthusiasm for her re-election, according to a
Field Poll released Thursday," reports Kevin Yamamura in the Bee.
"In a hypothetical matchup against Schwarzenegger, who
will leave the Governor's Office in January 2011,
Democrat Boxer leads by 54 percent to 30 percent, the poll found. The Republican governor has never
said publicly that he plans to run for another political
office.
"Boxer leads potential GOP candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO
Carly Fiorina, 55 percent to 25 percent. Fiorina spoke last month at the California
Republican Party convention and last year at the Republican
National Convention, though she has not announced her
intentions regarding the Senate race.
"In a hypothetical GOP primary, Schwarzenegger leads
with 31 percent support, followed by Fiorina at 24 percent and Assemblyman
Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, at 9 percent. Without Schwarzenegger, Fiorina leads DeVore,
31 percent to 19 percent."
"California officials and the auto industry clashed again Thursday in their four-year struggle over the state's landmark efforts to regulate vehicle emissions, but this time the political and economic landscape
has shifted dramatically," writes the Merc News's Frank Davies.
"While the crisis-stricken auto industry pushed for one national standard
on greenhouse-gas emissions at a packed Environmental Protection
Agency hearing, California's top air regulator said that would only delay the
state's efforts to push automakers for cleaner cars.
"President Barack Obama and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson are clearly prepared to grant California's request for a waiver from the Clean Air Act to enforce
its own greenhouse-gas emissions standard. That would overturn the Bush
EPA's decision a year ago, under pressure from the auto
industry, to block the California standard.
"Jackson called that decision "a substantial departure from the EPA's long-standing interpretation of the Clean Air Act and the
history of granting waivers to California," as she launched a rapid reconsideration of the case
with a full public hearing Thursday."
And finally, from our Bachelor Party Gone Wrong Files ,
"Like many a groom-to-be, army officer Nick Burnett found himself at the feel
of a female police officer at the end of his buck's day.
"Except, she was real and the cuffs weren't fluffy.
"Police facts state Burnett kicked a female police officer,
resisted
arrest and screamed that he was a soldier who fought
for his country
and they "had no right to treat him this way".
"'I killed 10 f. . .ing Taliban. I don't have to put up with this s. . .,' he yelled.
"Burnett pleaded guilty to resisting arrest, assaulting
a police officer and using offensive language."
