George Skelton looks into the
development of the prison reform deal between
Gloria Romero and the governor, and uses it to state the obvious "If Schwarzenegger now could bring Legislators together on other issues — like spending and redistricting — he could forget about a special election and save taxpayers $70 million."
But Sacramento watchers say
that is increasingly unlikely. "'It's hard to put all the corks back in the bottle after so much of a mantra in building toward the special election,' said
Jaime Regalado, executive director of the nonpartisan Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs in Los Angeles, in an interview with the Bee. 'The expectation is that he was going to call one and he probably still will, even though he's been wounded pretty severely. I think it would look like a total cave-in, a total retreat if he decides not to call it.'"
As the election moves ever closer, the
Alliance for a Better California has called an
11 a.m. confab to announce their plans for the special election. They are expected to announce they are
submitting signatures on at least one of their ballot initiatives.Moving to Defcon 2...
Meanwhile, the Chron's Carla Marinucci takes
"the Pulse of California," visiting "four communities across California -- from the state's newest suburb to cities with overcrowded schools to those beset by commuter gridlock -- to talk about the governor, his vision for the state and his call for reform."
The governor spent his Mother's Day
extolling the Minutemen yet again on Fox News. "'No one, Democrats and Republicans alike, really wants to go in there and really tackle the problem and then come up with a comprehensive solution to what we do with the undocumented immigrants that are in this country,' he said. 'It's not a lack of money.
When we can afford the war in Iraq, we can afford to control our own borders.'"
While the anticipation in Sacramento is over Friday's release of
the governor's revised budget (The Merc's Andrew LaMar puts the estimated windfall at
$2 billion), the bigger story this week may be
Donald Rumsfeld's
recommendations on which military bases to close.Congressman, er, we mean Senator
Joe Simitian makes his prediction for the budget fight. Here's a hint:
Cancel those summer vacation plans. "'It’s going to be a long, hot, drawn-out summer,' if the California Legislature is to come up with a budget that’s good for education, Simitian said Saturday at a town hall meeting in Palo Alto."
The Press-Enterprise's Jim Miller takes a look at
the state's propensity for bondage, or at least bond indebtedness, noting "legislation to place almost $30 billion in new borrowing on next year's fall ballot has passed initial committee tests."
Meanwhile, the Chron's Lynda Gledhill talks about
The T word. "Senate Leader
Don Perata broke the Democrats' self-imposed moratorium on talking about taxes last month when he
suggested a tax increase to pay for improvements to education. Now, Democratic leaders in the Assembly are broaching the subject as they craft an alternative to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget. In a closed-door meeting last week, Democrats in the lower house sat through a presentation on the budget that included a discussion on how much revenue would come from
raising the income tax on the wealthy, or
extending the sales tax to cover some service industries."
For what it's worth Perata has long advocated exploring the idea of a service tax.
The LA Times looks into some proposed
tax breaks for wealthy individuals. "Large-scale across-the-board tax breaks may be out of the question as long as California has multibillion-dollar budget shortfalls. But some businesses and wealthy individuals hope that a few million in specific breaks here and there — amounting to
'budget dust' in a state that spends more than $100 billion a year — will sneak through. ... This kind of thing breaks down the integrity of the tax system," said
Lenny Goldberg, president of the union-backed California Tax Reform Assn. "You have well-connected taxpayers hiring a lobbyist to change the law retroactively. No ordinary taxpayer can do that."
Safe money is on an Angelides press release before noon.
The Fair Political Practices Commission is
overwhelmed with too many cases and not enough investigators, reports the LA Times. "The FPPC has become nothing more than a record-keeping bureaucracy," said Los Angeles political consultant
Harvey Englander, who has filed complaints against opposing candidates. "Their investigations are too little and too late."
With the watchdog's funding dependent upon those they are most often chasing, don't expect that issue to be addressed soon.
Dan Walters takes a look at
Charles Poochigian's
bill to require plaintiffs in ADA cases to notify businesses and
give a chance to correct before filing suit. The bill was killed in Judiciary committee last week. "It raises anew this question: If the Legislature is so ideologically tilted that it cannot even entertain a reasonable compromise to a real-world problem, what chance does it have of ever coming to grips with more widespread issues?
And why should it even continue to take up space?"
LA county labor chief
Miguel Contreras died unexpectedly Friday, and "top members of California's labor and political world flocked to Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood in a show of respect."
From LA Observed: "How respected — or powerful — was the late Miguel Contreras? When the news spread Friday that the labor leader had passed away, Mayor
Jim Hahn and Councilman
Antonio Villaraigosa showed up at Daniel Freeman Hospital, as did Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nuñez, State Sen.
Gilbert Cedillo, Councilman
Martin Ludlow and the heads of labor unions representing truck drivers, homecare workers, city employees, janitors and supermarket checkers."
The Bee talks to
Jenny Oropeza about her
fight with cancer, and highlights the bills that she's introduced as a result of her experience. "'I value life more, and I encourage other people to value it more," said Oropeza, a 47-year-old Long Beach Democrat. 'When it's a beautiful day, I notice it a lot more than I used to.'"
Finally, from our
Fear and Self-Loathing Files, A 17-year old female wrestler at Tamalpais High School
admits that she was gay-bashing herself, "which included
vandalizing her own car with derogatory graffiti." Maybe she can write about it in her application essay for
Claremont McKenna.
