"Ten days after he was elected to the Los Angeles City Council,
Richard Alarcon has resigned from his Assembly seat and fled back south. The decision means a vote on his Assembly replacement can occur during the already scheduled May 15 municipal election," reports the Times' Bob Salladay.
That also means Alarcon's replacement could be in Sacramento in time to cast a budget vote...
"A looming battle between two of San Francisco's best-known gay and lesbian officeholders
already is splitting the Bay Area's Democratic faithful more than a year before their June 2008 face-off," writes the Chron's John Wildermuth.
"Assemblyman
Mark Leno, 55, is taking on state Sen.
Carole Migden in her bid for re-election, and plenty of Democrats are unhappy at the prospect of two powerful progressives duking it out in a bloody party primary.
"In a statement after Leno's public announcement earlier this month, state Senate President Pro Tem
Don Perata, D-Oakland, urged Leno to reconsider. Or else.
"'I am disappointed by Mark Leno's challenge of a fellow Democrat with Carole's experience, accomplishments and skill,' said Perata, who warned that
all 25 Senate Democrats 'will vigorously defend Sen. Migden. To get her, Mark must come over us.'
Director's note: Cue Vader..."Leno has already been lining up support. Assemblywoman
Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, San Francisco District Attorney
Kamala Harris, city Assessor
Phil Ting and
Susan Leal, a former supervisor and now general manager of San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission, joined him when he announced his campaign at Yerba Buena Gardens.
"Directors of the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club, a powerful force on San Francisco's gay and lesbian political scene, already have recommended an early endorsement for Leno."
"After ushering in a more lenient parole policy by freeing nearly 80 convicted murderers and kidnappers in his first year-and-a-half in office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
has clamped down on the release of inmates serving life sentences," reports the Chron's Mark Martin.
"Schwarzenegger drew praise from inmate advocates and scorn from crime victims groups in 2003 and 2004 when he showed far more willingness to release "lifer" inmates than former Gov.
Gray Davis, who rejected virtually every inmate corrections officials deemed suitable for parole. But in 2005 and 2006, Schwarzenegger dramatically decreased his rate of release. In 2006, he disagreed with his parole board on 90 percent of the inmates they concluded could be safely returned to society.
"The change came as Schwarzenegger ran for re-election and despite his acknowledgement that the state prison system was dangerously overcrowded. The governor recently suggested he was open to releasing some inmates to help alleviate overcrowding, and three federal judges have threatened to impose a population cap on the system that could result in freeing some prisoners.
"Administration officials say there has been no policy change during Schwarzenegger's tenure, and note that in the governor's first year in office he approved for release many inmates who had been repeatedly found safe to let out by parole officials but who were denied by Davis. That first group of inmates the governor reviewed may have had more compelling cases for parole, said
Andrea Hoch, Schwarzenegger's legal affairs secretary."
The Merc News's Steven Harmon reports that
some families are unhappy with the recognition the governor gives to fallen soldiers.
"'Was that enough, to fly a flag over the state Capitol and let me know about it in a nice little letter?" asked
Mark Crowley of San Ramon, the father of Marine Lance Cpl.
Kyle Crowley, who died at age 18 on April 6, 2004. "I don't think that was enough. Not for what Kyle gave. I would've liked to meet with the governor in person, tell the story of Kyle.'
"Others believe the governor's approach is sincere and, ultimately, what's practical given the size of the state.
"Schwarzenegger is among 30 governors who lower flags in honor of fallen soldiers.
"He also sends personally signed letters, accompanied by separate letters from first lady
Maria Shriver, who includes inscribed copies of her book, "What's Heaven?" to those who left children behind. His office sends statements about each soldier's deaths and posts them in the news release section of the governor's Web site."
Matier and Ross write that the governor "is
preparing to take his eco-friendly California sales pitch in another direction -- Canada.
"Not exactly the land of the exotic, but Canada is the state's second-largest trading partner -- right behind Mexico -- supplying timber, oil and minerals in exchange for computers, agricultural products and the like.
"'There are sexier places,' concedes a member of Arnold's Team Canada delegation who asked not to be named to avoid stepping on the governor's press office. 'But there is a ton of money involved -- and we absolutely have to go.'
"The governor confirmed plans for his Canadian jaunt -- sometime in either May or June -- after a meeting Thursday in Santa Monica with British Columbia Premier
Gordon Campbell, who was touring the Golden State. Campbell himself just launched a major "green initiative" that follows much of the script Schwarzenegger has laid down in California to combat global warming. He even borrowed Arnold's eco-script writer, former California Environmental Protection Agency boss
Terry Tamminen, to give it the proper flourish.
"'The governor is particularly focused this year on getting California's green technology industry to be the strongest in the world,' says gubernatorial spokesman
Adam Mendelsohn. 'The whole market out here is just emerging.'"
And it just so happens that today is
Canada Day at the Capitol. The Bay Area Economic Forum will release a new study today on the importance of the California-Canada relationship (
and that bitch Ann Murray, too...)
"New legislation would give family farmers ... a break by
allowing them to forgo workers' compensation coverage for unpaid relatives working on the farm. Senate Bill 452 would apply to growers with less than $100,000 a year in taxable income," reports E.J. Schultz for the Bee.
Sen.
Dave Cogdill, the bill's author, says it is aimed at immigrants.
"'You've got a population of very hard-working new Americans that want to make the system work,' said Cogdill, R-Modesto. 'We should be promoting that and helping them get ahead rather than putting huge fines on top of them.'
"Cogdill pushed a similar bill last year that died in the face of opposition from union leaders and farmworker advocates who feared it would erode worker protections."
From our
Files? What Files? Department, the Contra Costa Times' Thomas Peele and Heather MacDonald report, "Some public records of new state Attorney General J
Jerry Brown's eight years as Oakland mayor are missing and others were apparently improperly destroyed,
raising questions about whether the state's top law-enforcement official has violated California's public records law.
"Two former Brown aides said they removed records from the office late last year. One of them,
Gil Duran, said he consulted
Michelle Abney, the public records coordinator in the city attorney's office, before doing so."
