Former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez fanned the flames of speculation Thursday, saying that Antonio Villaraigosa will likely announce his candidacy for the senate within the next two weeks. Michael Finnegan has the story at the Los Angeles Times:
“Villaraigosa, a Democrat, is ‘very, very close’ to settling on a team to run the campaign, Nuñez said in an interview.
“’There’s still a possibility that he decides not to run,’ Nuñez said. ‘I doubt that’s going to be the case.’”
The Sacramento Bee’s Jim Miller looks back at the last election, tallying up the 20 most expensive legislative races of the 2013-14 cycle. Nice infographic, too.
“Senate races in the Central Valley and the south coast burned through almost $28 million during the 2013-14 election cycle, according to end-of-year spending reports that showed candidates and independent groups collectively spent more than $150 million on Assembly and Senate contests statewide over the two-year election cycle.
“The most expensive race came in its first year – a 2013 special election to replace former state Sen. Michael Rubio in the Central Valley’s then-16th Senate District. The campaigns of Republican Andy Vidak and Democrat Leticia Perez, as well as outside groups, spent more than $10.7 million, state records show.”
Only six of the 279 parks in California’s State Park system are self-supporting according to data released by the Parks Forward Commission. The Commission – and Governor Brown - want to change those numbers. Ben Adler has the story for Capitol Public Radio.
“A majority of California’s 279 state parks bring in some revenue, even just a few thousand dollars. But only six actually turn a profit.
“’Parks are a public good, so they’re not intended to be profit centers for the government,’ says Bay Area businessman Lance Conn, who co-chairs the Parks Forward Commission…
“Conn says the entire system must perform better than it does now: a nearly $300 million annual loss. ‘The important thing is to actually have some sort of metric of financial health, and measure every park against it,’ he says.”
The Obrella Insider has published a list of the California cities with the best (and worst) commutes. The best commuter city in California? Susanville, in the northeast corner of the state with an average one-way commute of less than 16 minutes. The worst? Lake Los Angeles, where the average commuter spends over 52 minutes on the way to or from work. Alexia Chianis reports:
“The typical California worker spends more than 54 minutes commuting each workday. Over the course of a week, that adds up to nearly five hours and the average Golden State worker devotes the equivalent of almost one day to commuting each month…
“To determine which cities made our 40 Best Commuter Cities in California list, Obrella examined traffic data from the most recent survey released by the U.S. Census Bureau and identified California cities with a population of more than 10,000 residents at the time of the 2013 Census Survey.”
H/T to California City News for the tip, btw.
Analyst Tony Quinn notes that the 2016 Senate race will be the “first serious statewide contest under the new rules of the open primary-top two runoff.”
From Fox and Hounds: “In a one-party state like California, the dominant pols generally don’t like elections, and the retirement of Sen. Barbara Boxer has not set off a land rush of candidates for her seat. In fact, the Democratic establishment is trying to rally everyone around Attorney General Kamala Harris and to clear the field for her.
“They might succeed, but the new primary system argues against it, it is simply too easy to run under the new system. If this were 2010, all Harris would need to do is win a closed primary dominated by loyal and liberal Democratic base voters, easily done. But now running first is meaningless because there is a guaranteed run off between first place and second place.”
And, a quick look at two sides of one story: Beacon Economics just released its annual California Trade Report, noting that California’s merchandise exports were at an all time high in 2014-- $174 billion. And, on the other side, the Sacramento Business Journal reports that slowdowns from ongoing labor disputes have devastated California’s agricultural exports, perhaps permanently.
Meanwhile, over at the Grizzly Bear Project, Anthony York looks at third rail of CA politics: could property taxes be the answer to budget stability?
“Since 1978, the state’s property tax revenues have fallen below the previous year’s totals only twice – with 1% drops each in 2009-10 and 2010-11, as the state coped with the housing crash.In all, there’s been an average of 5% annual growth in property tax revenues over the last 20 years, with the largest single year increases coming in 2005-2007, during the state’s housing boom…
“By contrast, income taxes have varied wildly. We’ve seen annual double-digit percentage increases in income tax revenue growth in 11 of the last 20 years. We’ve also had two massive drops in annual revenue of 26 %and 20% in 2001-02 and 2008-09 respectively.”
Usually we have a bit of fun on Fridays with our “who’s Singin’ the Golden State Blues’ feature – a look at who had the worst week in California politics. This week, not so funny.
Peter Harbage, a healthcare reform advocate who was called “the unsung architect of health care reform in the United States” by Anthony Wright of Health Access, died Wednesday of complications from Leukemia. He was 43.
Cynthia Craft reports in the Sacramento Bee:
“For decades, Harbage specialized in advancing and explaining the finer points of health care reform. Harbage’s clients relied on his expertise to guide them through the alphabet soup of acronyms and detailed programs in the 2,000 page Affordable Care Act of 2012….”
“….The impassioned founder of Harbage Consulting – with offices in Sacramento, Washington D.C. and New York City – received what seemed to be a successful bone marrow transplant, only to be overtaken by infection when his body began to reject the transplant, said his wife, Hilary Haycock.
“Haycock said immune-system suppressing drugs left him unable to fight off infections that left his lungs badly scarred in his final days.
“’He fought every step of the way -- always with a sense of humor-- but in the end his body just couldn’t take it anymore,’ Haycock said.”
