Rob Reiner unveiled his initiative to bring
universal preschool to California. His plan to pay for it?
Tax the rich. "Intended for the June 2006 ballot, the Preschool for All Act would be funded by
an additional 1.7% state tax on annual incomes of more than $800,000 for couples and more than $400,000 for individuals."
Didn't
Phil Angelides want to use that same money to help balance the state budget?
Dan Walters says
Reiner's "Robin Hood" measure is bad public policy. "it would worsen the state's dangerous reliance on personal income taxes to finance public services. We already have a
steeply progressive income tax that derives the vast majority of its revenues from a relative
handful of high-income taxpayers, and their incomes, in turn, are highly dependent on the stock market, which creates a high degree of volatility, as a recent report from the Legislature's budget office demonstrates."
Expect arguments that Reiner's funding priorities are off, as L.A.'s 2,200 student
Jefferson High School continues to see
more frequent brawls between black and Latino students. "'Maybe tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday — it's going to get even worse,' said
Jorge Santizo, 19. ... The left side of
Dayson Sinclair's head was noticeably swollen Monday, three hours after the melee. He said the bruise came from the brawl. '
I can't even enjoy school," Sinclair, 18, said. '
We need metal detectors in there.'"
Tick-tock, tick-tock: Redistricting initiative proponent
Ted Costa acknowledged yesterday that the
measure may not get signatures fast enough to appear on a special election, if called.
The initiative requires 598,106 before July 6 to appear on the June 2006 ballot, and would need that many in the next couple of weeks to appear on a special election ballot. "[Costa] said that while he has collected about 600,000 signatures, he has found an
abnormally large number of duplicate signatures, probably caused by the confusion of having a dozen initiatives on the street at the same time."
Sure, it has nothing to do with the paid hounds getting $2 per signature.
Workers Comp: One year later The Bee's Gilbert Chan previews a series of legislative hearings that will put
last year's Workers Compensation law back in the spotlight. "Over the next eight days, workers' compensation will take center stage again in a flurry of protests and regulatory and legislative hearings. At stake are summer insurance rates paid by employers and the job of a key Schwarzenegger appointee charged with carrying out the workers' compensation overhaul that the governor considers a cornerstone of his economic recovery strategy."
On the topic of insurance, commish
John Garamendi wants to crack down on the homeowners' insurance industry for cancelling policyholders who use their policies. "'We're simply saying, inform the consumer up front, when you buy a policy and renew, what are the rules of the game?' said Garamendi."
The industry shook the magic eight ball and the winning response was, "'
He's creating a solution in search of a problem,' said
Robert Hartwig, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute."
Count another loss for
the powerful ham radio lobby. Rep
Richard Pombo has taken his name off a bill that would allow amateur radio operators access to a protected San Francisco wildlife habitat in the uninhabited Farallon Islands, a breeding ground for great white sharks. "Pombo recently removed his name as a co-sponsor of the bill because 'the bill wasn't going anywhere,' spokesman
Brian Kennedy said Monday."
Schwarzenegger to support physician-assisted suicide? Supporters of a bill by Assemblymembers
Patty Berg and Lloyd Levine say
the governor may sign the bill if it gets to his desk. "Supporters of legalizing physician-assisted suicide say a senior aide to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has told them the governor is "very open- minded" on the issue and is allowing his administration to scrutinize a bill that would bring the practice to California."
Earlier this month,
the measure barely cleared the Assembly Judiciary Committee, by one vote.
Jill Stewart says the governor
never should have caved on state pensions. "Hey, politics is ugly. What surprises me much more is
the pigheadedness of the governor. Mired in a PR debacle, on April 7 the governor abandoned pension reform."
Frankly, this governor thing is
becoming less fun all the time.LA Mayor's Race: Jim Hahn gave his fourth
State of the City address yesterday, and hammered home a simple point:
It's the crime stupid. "'I pledged to you that I would make Los Angeles a safer city, and that is exactly what we've done,' Hahn said after reminding his audience of dramatic changes in Hollywood, MacArthur Park and other neighborhoods." The speech was a final plea by Hahn to LA voters to
save his job, the Times reports. "Hahn's fourth State of the City speech was
as much pageant-filled rally as policy road map, underscoring the work he has to do in the next four weeks to avoid becoming the first incumbent mayor to lose in 32 years," reports the LA Times.
Honorable Mention San Francisco Mayor
Gavin Newsom didn't make the Time Magazine list of
the nation's best five mayors, but he did get a plug in the magazine's story. "The workaholic millionaire restaurateur
has packed more productivity into his first 15 months than many mayors manage in two terms,'' the article states. The top five big-city mayors in the United States, according to Time, are Michael Bloomberg of New York City, Richard Daley of Chicago, Shirley Franklin of Atlanta, John Hickenlooper of Denver and Martin O'Malley of Baltimore.
In
Firebombing for the Environment News,"a Caltech graduate student convicted of taking part in a string of arson attacks on SUVs was sentenced to eight years and four months in federal prison Monday and ordered to pay $3.5 million restitution ... 'There's no way I'd ever be involved in anything like this again,' [24-year-old
William] Cottrell said as he stood before the judge, handcuffed and clad in an orange prison jumpsuit.
'I won't ever even jaywalk again.'"Meanwhile, the path to the Democratic presidential nomination seems to include some
perfunctory Schwarzenegger bashing. Take this latest from New Mexico Governor
Bill Richardson. "Referring to a baseball career cut short by injury, Richardson said he never felt the need to use steroids - not because he didn't want to be a better player, 'but because I didn't want to end up being governor of California.'"
On to New Hampshire!
Schwarzenegger will have a chance to respond to this, and other questions, this afternoon on CNN's Inside Politics.
