"CalPERS tightened disclosure rules for so-called "placement agents, "
but stopped short Monday of requiring the agents to register as
lobbyists - a proposal offered by the board's own chairman and the
state's ranking elected fiscal officials," John Howard reports.
"But directors of the California Public Employees' Retirement System left the door open for further changes,
including the lobbyist-style registrations, a ban on contact between staffers
and investors, limits on gifts and campaign contributions
and increased financial penalties.
"George Diehr, chairman of CalPERS' Investment Committee, suggested that the staff develop
a policy with those proposals included for a future
vote.
Kevin Yamamura has the details on President Schwarzenegger's trip to Iraq , after his Middle East summit meeting in Jerusalem,
of course...
"He delivered cigars, signed autographs and told them
he'd return today to work out with them before breakfast.
"Schwarzenegger
last visited Iraq in 2003, just before he announced his run for
governor. His communications director said last week
the governor had
been looking for the right time to visit the troops
and felt it was
appropriate to do so after striking a water infrastructure
deal with
lawmakers and before the next round of budget negotiations.
"I just wanted to let you know how much we in the United
States
appreciate the work you are doing," Schwarzenegger said Monday,
according to video provided by the Multi-National Corps public affairs
office in Iraq. "Now, I know you are thinking many times, 'Why am I
here? What am I doing?' Maybe you're not making the kind of progress
sometimes that you wish you would make here. But don't ever get
discouraged."
"Schwarzenegger
said he has a special appreciation for the military
as an immigrant who
chose to live in the United States. He then won cheers
when he mused
that if he weren't an immigrant, "maybe I would be running for
president or something like that."
Darn you, Constitution...
"Lawyers representing unions and a few government agencies
pounded
away at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's furlough policy for nearly five
hours in Alameda Superior Court on Monday," the Bee's Jon Ortiz reports.
"They argued the policy
is illegally harming the government, that it's an executive overreach,
a violation of minimum wage laws and irrational because
it applies to
nearly all state workers – even those whose pay reduction doesn't
directly help California's deficit-ridden general fund.
"The
Terminator can sweep the machine guns and count the
bodies, friend or
foe, later," said Harvey Liederman, who was representing the California
Public Employees' Retirement System and the California State Teachers'
Retirement System.
Josh Richman looks at Don Perata's new tobacco tax initiative.
"Former state Senate
President Pro Tem and 2010 Oakland mayoral candidate Don Perata joined
cancer research and health advocates Monday to launch
a ballot measure
that would hike cigarette taxes by a dollar a pack.
"This is the
right measure for the right time," Corey Goodman, a UC San Francisco
professor and former biotech entrepreneur, said at
a news conference in
the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, adding the
half-billion dollars per year this measure could raise would
help move
scientific breakthroughs "from the bench to the bedside" to save lives.
Perata
said he conceived of the measure while still in the
state Senate, well
before being treated for prostate cancer earlier this year. He called
it "probably the most exhilarating and hopefully the most
rewarding
thing I will have done in my years in politics."
Of course that money would not go to the general fund,
but
we'll just leave that detail for the labor unions and
research
advocates to discuss among themselves...
It's Election Day in Orange County, and Martin Wiscol loks at the race to replace Mike Duvall.
"Tuesday's special election for the 72nd Assembly District features a
well-financed battle between Republicans Chris Norby and Linda
Ackerman, but three other candidates also appear on the ballot
–
Republican Richard Faher, Democrat John MacMurray, and the Green
Party's Jane Rands.
"They are vying to replace Republican Mike Duvall, who resigned in
September after a tape was broadcast in which he bragged
of sexual
exploits with women other than his wife. If no candidate
receives more
than half the vote, a runoff will be held between the
top vote-getting
Republican and MacMurray and Rands."
And finally, from our Across The Pond Files, "A former far-right British member of the European Parliament who cheated on his expense money to buy fine wine and a
car was jailed on Wednesday for two years.
"This fraud was so blatant, I do not believe for one
moment you were
disadvantaged in understanding the system or that this
fraud should be
seen as falling into some grey area which you might
not have fully
comprehended," Judge Geoffrey Rivlin said in sentencing Tom Wise, 61, a
former representative for the fringe UK Independence
Party."
Obviously, he should have used his campaign account...
