The campaign crisis of Meg Whitman's former maid: How was it handled? Capitol Weekly's Anthony York talks to the experts to find out.
"Not since revelations about her voting record first
surfaced last year has the scrutiny on Whitman been
so intense. And by most accounts, Whitman's campaign,
and the candidate herself, did not initially handle
that issue particularly well."
"The Whitman campaign clearly knew this issue was coming.
Whitman spokesman Rob Stutzman and campaign attorney
Tom Hiltachk held a conference call with reporters,
preempting attorney Gloria Allred's initial press conference
with one of their own, promising documents that would
offer Whitman, at the very least, plausible deniability."
Whitman broke no law in the Diaz Santillan affair,
but things might have been different if George W. Bush
had his way.
Tthe Chronicle's Bob Egelko reports: "Bush's Homeland Security Department announced regulations
in 2007 that were supposed to add teeth to a 1986 law prohibiting employers from knowingly hiring illegal
immigrants. The rules were based on the so-called no-match letters that Social Security sends to employers
when an employee's Social Security card has a different
number than the one in agency records."
"That puts the employer on notice that payroll deductions
may not be reaching the worker's Social Security account,
and gives them a chance to clear it up. But under the
Bush regulations, the employer would have been put
on notice that the employee might be an illegal immigrant.
If an employee didn't resolve the discrepancy within
three months, the employer would have had to fire the
employee or face a civil fine for the first violation,
and criminal prosecution for multiple violations."
SEIU and the administration have struck a tentative agreement, a critical piece of the state budget negotiations.
The LAT's Shane Goldmacher has the story.
"The contract includes a one-day-a-month "personal leave program" that amounts to a 5% pay cut for the union's 95,000 members in the first year. It also lowers the pension
levels for future employees and requires current workers
to contribute an additional 3% toward their retirement."
"Union workers would be exempt from furloughs or being
paid minimum wage during any future budget impasses."
Speakikng of the budget, George Skelton says game time is over.
"But the immediate task for both legislative houses
is to finally pass a record-late state budget that is embodied in roughly 20 bills. On Friday, the state will have sputtered along
for 99 days into the fiscal year without a spending plan."
"The negotiated deal closes a $19-billion deficit — on paper anyway — and calls for total general fund spending of roughly
$87 billion, a tad higher than last year. Normally at
this stage in the games-playing, renegade legislators and monied interests
that influence certain lawmakers would be peddling
the votes necessary to reach a two-thirds majority. You could call it bribery or extortion."
Capitol Weekly's Malcolm Maclachlan reports on an unusual issue involving tribal finances -- the use of collateral.
"But the Mashantuckets aren’t a normal business owner. They’re an Indian tribe, with the rights of a sovereign
nation. Legally, the creditors couldn’t take the property or force the tribe to pay. Standard
& Poor’s lowered the tribe’s credit rating to D, and Moody’s followed. But with the casino pulling in $700 million in profits a year, even during the downturn,
it’s not like they had an immediate need to borrow more
money."
"In fact, Michael Thomas, the tribe’s council chairman at the time, acknowledged the tribe
had the money to pay. But with 2009 marking the first time Indian casino profits dropped
from the previous year, making the payment would have
meant that tribal members would have gotten smaller
payments — something he refused to do, even though some tribal
members were getting $120,000 a year in payments.
The election isn't until Nov. 2, but voters already are going to the polls -- via the Post Office.
From Capitol Weekly's John Howard: "Nearly nine million voters cast ballots in the last
non-presidential general election, and more than four in
every 10 voted by mail. A similar proportion is expected this
election."
"Overall, during the past 56 years, absentee voting – now officially known as vote-by-mail - has risen roughly 10-fold, from 4.2 percent in the 1964 general election to 41.6 percent in the primary election five months ago. In
25 general elections in which absentee data was recorded,
the absentee vote usually – but not always – rose in each succeeding election."
And finally, from our Mowing the Lawn file, comes the tale of the teen-ager's dream -- the fastest mower on the planet.
"Earlier this year, Welshman Don Wales took Cleveland's
old crown when he sat aboard his custom lawnmower codenmaned
'Project Runningblade' (geddit?), engaged 'D', hit the Pendine Sands and reached 87.833 mph. Just 0.2mph quicker and he would have gone back to 1955..."
"Anyway, Cleveland is not a man to fall on his clippings.
He jumped back into the hot seat and set a blistering
time of 96mph, which as we said, is most excellent."
Pretty cool, but my teen dreams were quite a bit different...
