Assembly Rules Committee chair
Cindy Montanez was
forced to cancel yesterday's confirmation hearing of would-be Secretary of State
Bruce McPherson. Montanez said the taxi taking her to the Costa Rica airport for her flight home broke down. It's probably just as well, since vice-chairman
Dave Cogdill had his dog eat his homework.
The hearing has been rescheduled for today and a full Assembly vote may follow later today. Speaker
Fabian Nuņez says he expects McPherson to be confirmed this week.
In
Real Embattled Appointee News, Senate pro tem
Don Perata announced yesterday that the governor's appointments to the
State Teachers Retirement System, including one scheduled for Rules Committee today,
will not be confirmed by the Senate. Perata wants the governor to address his removal of four yet unconfirmed members when they took a position against the governor's proposal to eliminate the retirement system's defined benefit program.
We're wondering what will happen when Citizens to Save California board member
Rex Hime's appointment to the fair board comes up before the Senate. People get quite testy if you start
messing with their free fair tickets. Following the governor's refusal to approve the state parole board's recommended release of a convicted murderer who has recently been ordained as an Episcopalian deacon, San Francisco Episcopal bishop
William Swing came out, well, swinging. The San Francisco Chronicle reports "'Governors of California are good at executions,' Swing told the 11 a.m. service at San Francisco's
Grace Cathedral. 'Governors of California are 90-pound moral weaklings when it comes to restoration of human beings.'"
The Merc's Jon Fortt has the story of how former San Jose school superintendent
Joe Coto left his former district
$10 million in the red while Coto was running for a seat in the state Assembly.
"Now Coto has another chance to deliver. Even as Santa Clara County's second-largest school district faces a $10 million budget shortfall next year and the
potential layoff of dozens of teachers May 15, Coto has sponsored
AB 952, which would allow the district to legally use $12 million in land sale funds to help close the gap."
Now that the FPPC's limit on coordination has been set-aside by a Sacramento court, the governor's team is
moving into the special election driver's seat. The governor's political consultant
Mike Murphy took the occasion to remind Democrats that a deal averting a special election was still possible. The Bee quotes Murphy "Now they're going to face everything we've got. If I were them, I'd make a deal."
Translation: We will
club you like a baby seal.Meanwhile, Democrats and their allies continue to unload everything
they've got. The latest installment is a
radio spot featuring police widows being used to criticize the governor's pension reform proposal. Harrison Sheppard reports: "One of the ads features
Terri March, whose husband, Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy
David March, was killed on duty in April 2002, leaving her to care for their young child alone.
"Moving forward from that day was difficult in so many ways, but death and disability benefits helped us to make it financially," she states in the ads, accompanied by violin music. "Now Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to eliminate death and disability benefits for all future government employees including police officers. If you value the job that our police officers and firefighters do to protect you and your family,
please don't sign this petition."
LA Mayor's Race Update In 100 words or Less: Jim Hahn calls Antonio Villaraigosa a waffler. So sayeth the LA Times. "The day after they clashed over personal integrity in the first debate of the runoff contest, Hahn lobbed the latest in a series of charges that his rival is duplicitous: He accused Villaraigosa of taking contradictory stands on gang injunctions."
When asked for comment, Villaraigosa responded.
"Mmmmmm ... waffles." From our
"Putting Us in Our Place" Files, after our little item about the First 5 PR campaign, we got a call from Democratic Consultant
Roy Behr, who is making commercials for First 5. Behr called to clarify that, while he worked for Reiner's Prop. 10 and Prop. 28,
he is not a "political consultant" to Reiner. And Behr also wanted to clear the air about a quote attributed to him in a recent LA Times story. In the story, Behr says "The odds are that by the time election day rolls around, Schwarzenegger will look a lot more vulnerable than he does today," Behr said. "But I don't think he is more vulnerable to a career politician'" adding that
Phil Angelides is "'clearly the master of Democratic red meat rhetoric and will play very well at the [Democratic] convention, but he's
probably not what voters are looking for.'" Now, given the Behr/Reiner connection,
one could assume, as we did, that he was talking about Reiner for governor. In fact, we insinuated as much in what we thought was a rhetorical quip yesterday. Turns out, Behr tells the Roundup,
"I was talking about Steve Westly." Now again, Behr says that's not an endorsement of Westly, but he says he has had no contact with Reiner about a possible run for governor.
But if Westly does wind up running for governor, he will need a new consultant, since his consultant from last time,
Bill Carrick, is signed up to run
Bill Lockyer's gubernatorial campaign, assuming of course that there is one ...
Also, yesterday, we said the
Alliance for a Better California was backing the
commercial property tax hike. Members of the alliance are supporting the measure, but officially, the
Committee for Tax Fairness is backing the measure. Looks like the Democrats are going through the same kind of political mitosis on ballot measures as the Republicans. Regardless, we regret the error.
