A new poll shows both the races for governor and U.S Senate are close, with about one-fourth of voters still undecided in each race.
Maeve Reston reports, "With the campaigns in full swing
over what are supposed to be lazy
summer months, a new survey from the Public Policy
Institute of
California finds the races for governor and U.S.
Senate are both up for grabs.
"Democratic
gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown is leading his Republican
opponent Meg
Whitman, 37% to 34%. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is ahead
of
Republican Carly Fiorina, 39% to 34%."
Malcolm Maclachlan looks at tribal gas stations, which
are exempt from paying some state taxes.
"In fact, several tribes operate gas stations around
the state, and their fuel generally costs less than
non-tribal stations. But no one in state government seems
to know how many there are, how much gas they sell,
or how much tax revenue is — or isn’t — being lost.
Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have allowed farm workers to collect
overtime pay.
Mark Lifsher writes, "Applying the eight-hour day to agriculture would be burdensome to
business and reverse longstanding labor practices,
Schwarzenegger wrote
in a veto message.
"The veto message echoed arguments made by both giant
agribusinesses
and organic-farm owners. They contended that growers need special
exemptions from labor laws because they operate on
tight profit margins
and need to work long hours to harvest crops quickly
to get them to
market.
"Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez (D-Shafter), who sponsored
the measure, accused the governor of "turning his back
on history" by
choosing "to continue the second-class treatment of the men and women
who toil in the fields, their backbreaking labor at
the core of a more
than $30-billion-a-year agricultural industry."
State lawmakers are among those looking at remedies
in the wake of the Bell salary scandal.
"On Thursday, city managers from across the state will
gather in
Sacramento to discuss damage control. Among the ideas
on the table:
launching an independent examination of city officials'
salaries and
compiling a database of salaries for municipal executives.
"The Legislature also is mulling
several Bell-inspired proposals, including a requirement that cities
make salaries easily accessible on websites. Another
suggestion would
cap pensions of highly paid city officials, an issue
that arose after
The Times reported that former Bell City Manager Robert
Rizzo, who
earned nearly $800,000 a year, would receive roughly $600,000 a year in
pension benefits once he retired."
Maeve Reston reports California Republicans are not talking about the environment, a popular issue among the state's voters.
"With state unemployment hovering at more than 12%, the two GOP
candidates at the top of the ticket this year are betting
that voters'
concerns about jobs and economic uncertainty will trump
any desire for
environmental crusades.
"Republican Senate nominee Carly
Fiorina has spent months charging Democratic incumbent Barbara
Boxer with driving an extreme environmental agenda instead
of
tending to jobs. She has been sharply critical of national
and state
climate change legislation — deriding Boxer's concern as being about
"the weather" — and has argued that the state should expand oil drilling
off its shores.
"Gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman has been more equivocal
than Fiorina,
but she also has cast the state's landmark climate
change measure as one
that kills jobs. She favors delaying its execution
for a year to allow
further study of its effect."
George Skelton says the Senate leader, Darrell Steinberg,
sees a way out of the budget stalemate.
"Increase state income taxes for everyone — except less so for the most
affluent — and also raise the vehicle license fee (or car tax). Both the
income tax and the vehicle fee are deductible when
paying the federal
income tax. So, depending on a person's federal tax
bracket, up to 35%
of the increase in state levies would be reimbursed
by the feds.Then lower the state sales tax.
"Bottom line," Steinberg says, "is that the tax cut
and the deductible
would be more than the tax increase. And the federal
government would
pay for the deductible."
The feds would involuntarily help staunch the California
bleeding.
Furloughs for state workers may be back, if the budget stalemate drags on past Aug.13. But that could never happen, right?
And finally, "A black bear walked into a New Hampshire
house through an open door, ate
two pears and a bunch of grapes, took a drink from
the family fishbowl." But here's the kicker: The bear grabbed a stuffed bear on its way out the door.
