The Assembly approved the budget in the wee hours, and the Senate struggled through the night before
falling a vote short. As this is written, the Senate
Republicans are in caucus and the vote is on call.
From the AP's Robin Hindery and Don Thompson in the
Press Enterprise: "California entered its record 100th day without a budget Friday as state lawmakers worked
through the night without reaching final agreement
on a plan to close a $19 billion budget deficit."
"The state Senate struggled to pass the main bill in
a legislative package aimed at ending the budget impasse.
The Assembly voted Thursday in favor of the measure,
SB870, getting just enough support in the 80-member house to reach the required two-thirds vote threshold."
"California has been without a budget since July 1. The record delay has left the state on the brink
of issuing IOUs and cutting off funding for road projects."
The LAT's Patrick McGreevy and Jack Dolan take a look at the special goodies in the hard-fought spending plan.
"As the final votes on the budget loomed, legislators
were engaged in a furious round of horse trading, according
to lawmakers and staff involved in the deal-making. As legislative leaders rounded up votes, they
added provisions that would boost the bottom lines
of online travel companies and an ethanol firm founded
by a close ally of the governor. They drafted language
that could allow the city of San Diego to use more
redevelopment money to facilitate a new NFL stadium
for the Chargers."
"Democrats pushed legislation to address an element
of alleged corruption in Bell, where the city was reported
to be making money by towing the cars of sober immigrants
from DUI checkpoints if they did not have proper ID.
The proposed law change would prohibit that practice."
Meanwhile, out in the elevated and dignified world of political campaigns, an aide to Jerry Brown describes Meg Whitman as a "whore" in taped voice mail message. Brown has since apologized.
From the Times' Seema Mehta: "With evident frustration, Brown discussed the pressure
he was under to refuse to reduce public safety pensions
or lose law enforcement endorsements to Whitman. Months
earlier, Whitman had agreed to exempt public safety
officials from key parts of her pension reform plan."
"“Do we want to put an ad out? … That I have been warned if I crack down on pensions,
I will be – that they’ll go to Whitman, and that’s where they’ll go because they know Whitman will give ‘em, will cut them a deal, but I won’t,” Brown said."
"At that point, what appears to be a second voice interjects: “What about saying she’s a whore?”
Speaking of Whtiman, the billionaire former eBay chief
executive has put still more of her own money into the campaign
The LAT's Anthony York has the story. "Meg Whitman
added to her record campaign spending this week, supplying
another $2.5 million to her gubernatorial campaign effort. The
latest check brings Whitman's total personal spending
to $121.5 million -- a record for individual spending on a single campaign."
"The most recent campaign finance reports showed Republican
Whitman with $9.2 million left in her campaign account as of Sept. 30, about $1.5 million less than her Democratic opponent, Jerry Brown,
had in his campaign war chest."
The CCT's Howard Mintz notes that the candidates for
governor offer stark differences in the way they would shape the California
judiciary.
"And while Brown and Whitman offer murky details on
how they would solve the state's budget troubles, there
is no question there will be a clearly defined ideological
difference in how they would mold the judiciary. Brown
already has a track record; he appointed nearly 900 judges, many of them noted liberals, during his first
stint as governor from 1975 to 1983. Whitman recently told the Mercury News that she would
model her judicial appointments after former Republican
Gov. George Deukmejian, who came into office vowing
to be a conservative, law-and-order antidote to Brown and his vision of the judiciary."
"There is a philosophical difference between the two,"
Larry Gerston, a San Jose State political science professor,
said. "When you are voting for a chief executive "...
perhaps their most enduring legacy will be judicial
appointments. But it's typically overlooked."
And finally, after all the hubub, we turn to the solace
of our "Immigration" files to find that anti-immigration zealot Lou Dobbs -- remember him? -- has been hiring illegals for years. Why are we not
surprised?
"Lou Dobbs made a big name for himself on CNN with
his nightly rants against illegal immigration and companies
that hire undocumented workers, but it turns out he’s not so opposed to the practice in his own home."
"The Nation investigated Dobbs for a year and found
that the former TV anchor has long relied on such workers
to take care of his multimillion-dollar estates as well as the horses he keeps for his
daughter, Hillary, a competitive show jumper. More
than half the workers in the horse industry are illegal
immigrants, and they make up about 28 percent of landscaping workers. Each November, all
five of Dobb’s show-jumping horses are shipped to Florida, and the workers
tag along."
What goes around comes around...
