Mirror, mirror

Sep 13, 2010

With redistricting coming across the country after this year's elections, political parties are focusing on legislative elections around the country.

 

"The process is arcane and easily overshadowed. Insiders, however, understand the enormous consequences, and that is why both sides are pouring tens of millions of dollars into the fight, channeling huge sums to state parties and lavishly funding legislative candidates in what Tom Hofeller, a Republican consultant, calls "the hidden national elections of 2010."

"It is not the battle for seats in the House and Senate that will decide which party dominates the nation's political process," Hofeller wrote in a strategic analysis for GOP leaders. Rather, it is the fight for 37 governorships and control of 20 or so legislative chambers across the country, including the lower house in Ohio, where Garland serves as part of a thin Democratic majority.

"The outcome of this battle will determine the electoral playing field for the next decade," Hofeller said, and Democrats readily agree.

 

Meg Whitman's million-dollar adviser, Mike Murphy, went on Meet the Press to defend Whitman's record-breaking campaign spending. Michael Mishak reports, "Appearing on "Meet the Press," Mike Murphy noted the state's expensive media markets, beating back criticism that the spending hasn't produced a lead over Democratic rival Jerry Brown.

 

"I'm flacking here, but I believe it," he said, citing ad costs.

 

"In a brief discussion of the race, he also distilled the Whitman campaign's core theme: "People know she knows how to create jobs. Jerry Brown is a time machine to failure."

 

Murphy also added that he is worth every penny...

 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, had a message for China: Send us some cash.

 

AFP reports, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday he hoped China would invest in his state's future high-speed rail network as he wrapped up a trade mission to the world's second-largest economy.

 

"We want China, for instance, to invest in our high-speed rail, to build high-speed rail, to be part of this bidding process we are going to go through," Schwarzenegger said in a speech in Shanghi" Many countries will be bidding to build high-speed rail. And we are also looking for financing from China."

 

And don't forget, you largest market in the world you, to buy my upcoming memoir and get some Chinese company to pay me a couple hundred grand to speak when I leave office.

 

Cathleen Decker evaluates Abel Maldonado's performance as acting governor.

 

"It brought to mind two truths for this unpredictable season. First, for all the planning that can go into political campaigns like the one Maldonado is currently embroiled in, fate sometimes plays an outsized role. Second, San Bruno is a reminder of California's love-hate relationship with government. Even with all the demands that government downsize itself, Californians in a crunch expect government employees to come to their rescue, be they firefighters or emergency organizers or the bureaucrats who will make sure the money is there to clear the wreckage. Or the acting governor.

"Not many Californians, truth be told, could have named the man on the television screen. In a Field Poll taken last July, Republican Maldonado trailed in the race for lieutenant governor behind San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Democratic nominee."

 

Barbara Boxer has honed in on Carly Fiorina's opposition to state environmental laws as a key issue in the U.S. Senate campaign.

 

Maeve Reston reports, "Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said Friday that rival Carly Fiorina's recent embrace of a November ballot measure that would roll back the state's landmark global warming law was evidence that the Republican was "in the pocket of big oil" and "dirty coal."

"With California's unemployment rate at 12.3%, the three-term senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown have argued that the state's 2006 global warming law, which would cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels over the next decade, will play a crucial role in creating jobs and stimulating the green energy sector in California.

The ballot measure, which has been largely bankrolled by three oil companies based outside of California, would suspend the law until unemployment reaches 5.5% for a year — a rare occurrence historically. If Proposition 23 succeeds, Boxer argued Friday, California would lose its edge in industries such as wind and solar to other nations.

 

John Diaz looks at how the failure of lawmakers to pass a renewable energy bill in the closing hours of the legislative session underscores larger problems about the institution.

 

"Perhaps the biggest impediment to passage of the 64-page bill was the number of interest groups with a stake in the outcome: utilities, environmentalists, labor unions, big companies such as Safeway and Shell Oil that procure their own electricity, and developers of wind, solar and geothermal power. Each faction, and the factions within the factions, kept pushing for amendments.

State regulators have ordered PG&E to inspect its entire natural-gas system in the wake of the San Bruno explosion.

 

The LAT's breaking news team reports, "State regulators Sunday ordered Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to inspect its entire natural gas system, as San Bruno residents displaced by Thursday's explosion began returning to their devastated neighborhood and investigators searched for four people still missing and tried to identify the dead.

"The California Public Utilities Commission said it will ask PG&E to inspect its sprawling natural gas network, giving priority to high-pressure lines such as the one that exploded in a suburban neighborhood Thursday, killing at least four people and destroying 37 homes.

 

And finally, from our Romanian Legislature files, "Abracadabra, we'll turn all of you into toads!