George Skelton writes that
the education funding study to be released this week could put the governor in a pickle. "Results of the massive research project — requested by the legislative leaders, the governor and the state superintendent of public instruction, and funded by foundations — will be released this week. The findings have been a closely guarded secret.
"The 1,700-page report 'will glaze over anybody's eyes,' says one person who has read it. 'This is an enormous volume of work.' But he and others who have scanned the 23 separate studies say the central finding is simple:
"Money alone cannot fix California's public elementary and high schools. It will require major reforms, some controversial. And those reforms, indeed, will cost billions more annually.
"Think in terms of boosting school funding by maybe 25%, says one source, who has been sworn to secrecy. 'But just rolling more money into the current system is not going to get results.'"
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has plunged into the debate over the nation's future with his call for a new, 'post-partisan' governing style aimed at ending political gridlock," writes the LAT's Peter Nicholas.
"But the Republican governor, who intends to take his message to Iowa, New Hampshire and other critical states as the presidential campaign proceeds,
is selling something that may be illusory.
"Schwarzenegger used raw political muscle to forge the big legislative victories of his first term, allying with the Democrats, who dominate California's Capitol. Along the way, Republicans felt quashed.
"
Post-partisanship, said a rueful state Sen.
Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) '
is the process by which Arnold sits down with Democratic leaders and gets them to do exactly what they wanted to do all along.'
"'The issue of post-partisanship has provided the governor a national political platform," [
Mark] Baldassare said. 'He has credibility, and that's why people have to listen to him. His own political career was reborn, and he achieved success at a difficult time,' in a decisive 2006 reelection victory while Republicans nationally fared poorly.
"But national political analysts said Schwarzenegger's style could be tough to export. Few Republicans elected in classic "red" states see the need to accommodate Democrats in ways that Schwarzenegger has felt necessary in his "blue" state.
"'If you're in a solid red state, I don't think you have to do that,' said
G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania."
The Chron's Tom Chorneau reports on
the guv's effort to ban fundraising during legislative session.
"A Chronicle review of campaign records shows that most of the money raised to support candidate campaigns generally comes during the last few weeks before an election. In nonelection years, fundraising tends to build from the beginning of the year and peak toward the end of session.
"Last year, between the May 12 release of the governor's revised budget plan and the July 1 adoption, there were 128 fundraisers by legislators, the governor and other state officeholders.
"Since January, already there have been 104 even though only a handful of legislative floor sessions have been held.
"A review of the Legislature's two leaders -- Assembly Speaker
Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, and Senate President Pro Tem
Don Perata, D-Oakland -- shows that neither relies much on the budget period for raising money.
Capitol Weekly's Malcolm Maclachlan reports
the race for state Senate in San Francisco continues to get ugly early.
The Senate primary race openly gay San Francisco Democrats Carole Migden and Mark Leno took a contentious turn last week when a longtime Migden associate labeled Leno the "King of Kiddie Porn."
"The board of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club will vote Monday on a resolution to condemn the comments by
Michael Colbruno. Toklas board co-chair
Julius Turman said he spoke to members of the city's other powerful gay Democratic Club, the Harvey Milk Club, and they are considering a similar resolution.
"The California Nurses Association said Friday
it will join the AFL-CIO and use that affiliation to press its campaign for health care reform," writes the Chron's George Raine.
"The association, which represents more than 65,000 nurses, applied for membership in September 2005 but made its affiliation conditional on the labor federation endorsing a single-payer health care system. Such reform, in which the government would pay for health care, is the association's top legislative priority.
"The AFL-CIO's executive council endorsed a single-payer system Tuesday, adding that it supports "updating and expanding Medicare benefits'' to all Americans. The council, meeting in Las Vegas, also gave the federation's president, John Sweeney, authority to issue a charter to the nurses union."
"Businesses
would receive a tax credit equal to 10 percent of what they spend each year to improve the fitness of their employees -- everything from building on-site workout rooms to subsidizing health club memberships -- under a bill pending in the state Assembly," reports Greg Lucas in the Chron.
"The measure also would allow employers to claim the same credit for half the cost of hiring a person or company to provide nutritional advice, yoga instruction or substance-abuse prevention.
"'We're trying to help people get into healthy, active lifestyles to prevent them from needing the hospital in the first place,' said the bill's author, Assemblyman
Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys. 'An hour's worth of exercise would reduce the health costs to the employer, the employee and the state.'
"The measure is one of dozens introduced by lawmakers in the aftermath of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's goal voiced in January of extending health insurance coverage to the state's 6.5 million uninsured residents and bringing down treatment costs through disease prevention."
The Bee's Shane Goldmacher
profiles lobbyist Don Burns. "Today, the California Senate celebrates Burns' five decades of advocacy with a resolution in his honor.
"Over the years, the 77-year-old Burns has earned millions of dollars as an advocate. He has had a hand in crafting California's insurance regulations, dealing with the disposal of radioactive waste and, as lobbyist John Norwood put it, writing "half the code" affecting the pool and spa industry.
"More than that, Burns is one of the most colorful characters in Capitol lore.
"From his hugely popular birthday bashes to his knighting by the queen of England to his consulship to Austria, Burns is a walking history lesson.
"'The last people I expected I would trust when I came to Sacramento were lobbyists,' says Sen.
Sheila Kuehl, a liberal Santa Monica Democrat and author of the resolution honoring Burns. But, Kuehl says, 'I just fell in love with this guy. He's the quintessential old-school lobbyist.'"
"Assemblyman Mervyn
Dymally (D-Compton) and his staff were described as "devastated" Saturday after an
apparent murder-suicide involving a senior aide to the legislator," reports Mitchell Landsberg in the Times.
"
Michael J. Robbins, 67, who was long active in Los Angeles political circles, apparently shot his wife,
Kim Gehring, 48, and then himself after an argument at their Baldwin Hills home late Friday afternoon, the Los Angeles Police Department said.
"Police arriving at the home spotted Gehring's body through a first-floor window but didn't see Robbins, according to Officer
Karen Smith, an LAPD spokeswoman.
"Fearing that Robbins had barricaded himself in the house, police summoned SWAT officers, who found his body in an upstairs room."
The Bee's Steve Wiegand
writes:
Curren "Price is a former Inglewood city councilman who won his Assembly seat in November. Among the 26 bills he has proposed since taking office in January is Assembly Bill 175, which would increase state grants to college students for "access costs" such as transportation, books and supplies. The current maximum of $1,551 has been unchanged for 20 years.
"As recognition of this legislative feat, the University of California Student Association has named Price its "Legislator of the Year." The award, according to a press release from Price's office, '
is given once a year to the most outstanding state legislator who shows exceptional commitment to public higher education.'
"A UCSA spokeswoman was a bit more prosaic:
Ruth Obel-Jorgensen said Price got the award because he's carrying AB 175."
Matier and Ross chime in with
the latest from the animal wars. "It's like something out of an animal horror movie -- killer frogs take over peaceful pond, then after terrorizing and eating everything alive, start eating each other.
"Only it's no movie. It's really happening in Golden Gate Park's Lily Pond, near the California Academy of Sciences. And after watching the frogs chew through everything in sight over the past several years, the city finally wants to do something about it.
"
About the only thing known to eat the frogs are crocodiles -- but that solution is probably out."
