The Assembly says the public doesn't have the right to see lawmakers' current office budgets and projections, information that could shed light on how legislators are punished or rewarded for their votes.
From the Bee's Jim Sanders: "The Assembly Rules Committee, under the control of Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, said that such documents are exempt under a provision covering "preliminary drafts, notes or legislative memoranda" and correspondence to lawmakers' offices."
"Therefore, records relating to budgets and changes to budgets of the members of the Assembly and Assembly Committees are not subject to mandatory production," said the Assembly's written response."
Portantino, a La Cañada Flintridge Democrat who is eyeing a campaign for Congress, vowed Monday to propose legislation that would "force the books to be opened."
"I'm going to challenge my colleagues," Portantino said. "Do they stand for transparency or behind secrecy?"
Meanwhile, Gov. Brown vetoed legislation that would have barred paying petition signature gatherers by the number of signatures they turn in, reports the Chronicle's Marisa Lagos.
"The governor vetoed SB168 by Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, which would have allowed signature-gatherers to be paid by the hour or day, but not per signature."
"The bill was championed by liberal organizations and this newspaper's editorial page, who argued that the practice of paying per signature has led to misleading sales pitches by those gathering the signatures and undermined the very goal of the initiative process -- direct democracy -- by allowing those with the most money to dominate. But in a veto message, Brown said the bill's "unintended consequences" could be worse "than the abuses it aims to prevent."
"This bill would effectively prohibit organizations from even setting targets or quotas for those they hire to gather signatures. It doesn't seem very practical to me to create a system that makes productivity goals a crime," he wrote. "Per signature payment is often the most cost-effective method for collecting the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to qualify a ballot measure. Eliminating this option will drive up the cost of circulating ballot measures, thereby further favoring the wealthiest interests."
The new agreement on raising the debt ceiling will have direct economic impacts on California, according to the Bee's MIchael Doyle.
"California, overall, will take a special whack in the budget-cutting to come, if for no other reason than it currently soaks up so many federal dollars. The federal government spent $345 billion in California in 2009, and that will shrink."
"And though the 74-page bill set for House and Senate approval leaves most cuts to be decided later, it's a bleak foreshadowing for some specific projects such as California's ambitious high-speed rail project whose initial route is supposed to run from Bakersfield to near Chowchilla."
"If you were to look at this Congress, you'd have to say it will be cutting high-speed rail," noted Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River."
"Lungren is among many congressional Republicans who have already questioned further federal spending on high-speed rail. While the budget-cutting deal does not strip funds that have already been provided, high-speed rail's future vulnerabilities are clear."
But for all the hoopla over the debt ceiling agreement, it actually doesn't accomplish much, reports the LA Times' David Lauter.
"Indeed, for all the high-stakes political drama and the apparent damage the months-long debate has inflicted on the political standing of both parties and the president, the compromise — what White House officials refer to as a "lowest common denominator" deal — achieves relatively little in the short term."
"Over the next two years, the final compromise comes very close to the initial request by Obama — a "clean" debt ceiling increase that allows the government to pay its bills and does nothing else."
"In the government's 2012 fiscal year, the cut would be $21 billion, or less than 1% of a nearly $3.7-trillion federal budget, according to the Congressional Budget Office."
"The bulk of the projected $2.1 trillion or more of cuts does not start kicking in until after the next election when a future Congress and president could choose to rewrite the plan — a point that many conservatives have worried about."
Speaking of money, Susan Kennedy, who served as chief of staff to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, got a $50,000 payment recently out of his campaign funds -- something of a parting gift.
From the LA Times' Anthony York: "The payment to Kennedy is filed as an expenditure to a “campaign consultant,” according to records from the secretary of state. The committee worked to fight last year's Proposition 23, an effort to repeal the greenhouse-gas law signed by then-Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2006."
"Schwarzenegger often padded payments to top staffers with campaign dollars. The final payment to Kennedy came less than one month after Schwarzenegger left office, and after he had appointed her to a new commission that will oversee the implementation of the federal healthcare law."
"Kennedy now works for the law firm Alston & Bird, a powerful force in Washington that counts former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole and former Rep. Billy Tauzin among its lobbyists."
And from our "Free Falling" file come the tale of the Holocaust survivor and escapee from a World War II concentration camp who skydived on his 85th birthday to show his contempt for Adolf Hitler. Yep.
"On Sunday morning, the spry Mission Viejo resident jumped out of a plane at 10,000 feet in the air, free-falling for about 40 seconds before landing safely by parachute on Nichol's Field in Jamul, east of San Diego."
"For Lenzner, a Holocaust survivor who escaped a World War II concentration camp, the experience was more than an adrenaline rush – it was a way to prove Adolf Hitler couldn't put out his flame."
"I'd like to prove the son of a (expletive) didn't succeed," Lenzner said as he suited up with his grandson, Bryan Wasserman, who jumped with him. "Not only didn't he succeed, I had two children, eight grandchildren and five great grandchildren, and now I'm jumping out of an airplane."
