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This is my last posting on Political Muscle. After a decade of covering California governors, lawmakers, the gubernatorial recall, the Florida recount, dozens of propositions and endless campaigns, I've decided to take the buyout offer from the L.A. Times. It's time to travel in a different direction.
It will be difficult to leave such a remarkable news operation with such talented reporters and editors. The Political Muscle blog has been fantastic real estate for the Sacramento bureau. It has allowed us to spotlight the floating opera of California politics in playful, occasionally serious and sometimes outrageous ways. And we poked fun at the king in public. What could be more important than all that?
Stay tuned for a new Political Muscle blog after a brief hiatus. Meanwhile, get your fix of California political news from the L.A. Times here. Take care.
- Robert Salladay
Get out your designer Gucci hospital gowns and your diamond-studded radiation safety goggles: The red carpet's coming to the Capitol. "Sicko," Michael Moore's latest Mooramentry about America's health-care system, is debuting in Sacramento (as well as lesser metropoli: New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.) on June 12. The big man will be here--and just in time for the state budget conference committee to be finishing up. It'll be just like Cannes!
Moore's choice of venue isn't hard to grasp, as the Capitol here and in D.C. are enmeshed in debate about cost and availability of health care. (NYC and L.A. share a slightly different political focus, on universal access to rhytidectomies). Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez is hosting the premiere and will meet with Moore in the Capitol as well. (Note to Michael Moore: possible next project: "McClintock and Me".)
Don't bet that Moore will have too much enthusiam for Nunez's reform plan--or those of anyone in Sacramento except for single-payer icon Sen. Sheila Kuehl--because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic leaders have already agreed to build on the existing system of private insurers, which Moore's movie blames for much of American's health-care ills.
Tickets to the premiere of "Sicko" will be $150,000 each, with Insurance covering $8.75 and a co-pay of $149,991.25.
-- Jordan Rau
Update: During his visit on June 12, Moore will testify at a legislative briefing put on by Kuehl. He'll also participate in -- prepare for a big surprise -- a rally put on by the California Nurses Assn., which supports single-payer, and Physicians for a National Health Program, which, well, take a giant crazy guess about its ideological orientation. Then there's the actual screening; no word yet of an afterparty. The movie opens June 29.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger brought to Canada his vision of an independent, new world, desired by all people, that will appear as
brilliant features of Schwarzenegger's century and remain forever under
the rays of the great sun. The august name of Schwarzenegger represents glory
and happiness of humankind and hope and future of the world and it
would shine forever.
 
(Photos: Duncan McIntosh, Office of Governor Schwarzenegger; Text: DPKR)
"Democratic Presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton will announce
the endorsement of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Wednesday, a
prize that could help the New York senator expand her reach among
Latino and union voters, sources confirmed today.
"The announcement, scheduled to take place at UCLA, follows months of
political courtship on both coasts. Clinton has met with Villaraigosa
several times in Los Angeles and Washington, wooing him more than any
other top Democratic candidate." L.A. Times
In a statement today, Clinton campaign advisors Mark Penn and Sergio
Bendixen immediately shoved Villaraigosa into the "Latino" aisle. They said his endorsement "is proof that the Clinton Campaign's focus and strategy to win the Latino vote
continues to grow stronger. ... Latino voters have great respect for Senator Clinton."
A few other items on the Web today:
Stem Cell deal: "California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ontario Premier Dalton
McGuinty are set to announce a new $30-million joint research venture
to facilitate stem-cell research. McGuinty and Schwarzenegger are expected to sign the deal on
Wednesday as part of the California governor's three-day trade mission
to Canada." CTV.ca
Coincidental or ironic? Arnold Schwarzenegger: language master. (Really!) Sporkfancier. Maria Shriver, multi-tasker. Buzz Foto LLC.
Democratic AGs back off Wall St. "The political priorities that congressional Democrats have adopted will
leave state attorneys general to focus scarce resources on a more
traditional consumer protection and health and safety agenda. This
suggests that states will play a smaller role in investigating alleged
Wall Street abuses than in the recent past." Forbes.
(Photo:
Chris Carlson/AP)
California's Williamson Act, which was designed to protect farmland from development, is under threat in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's state budget plan, according to the S.F. Chronicle and The Ethicurean and The Sacramento Bee and Grist and a local Assemblywoman and the Tulare Chamber of Commerce.
Environmentalists are closely watching the budget-cutting proposal from the pro-growth "green" governor, who simultaneously wants to curb global-warming emissions while spending billions on new or refurbishing freeways. He's so complicated!
The Williamson Act, says the Ethicurean, "helps preserve farms and ranches by allowing those who enroll in the program to have their land taxed at a rate based on actual use, not potential use. The state then compensates cities and counties for the revenue loss." But the governor's budget would shift the $40 million cost to cities and
counties, which would increase the temptation on farmers to "to
shut down operations and sell to the highest bidder, namely developers."
"It was a bad idea then and an
even worse idea today," Assemblywoman Lois Wolk wrote to Schwarzenegger recently, referring to a similar proposal by Gov. Gray Davis in 2003.
"We urge you to reconsider this ill-advised proposal that will only
harm our rural economies while providing negligible benefit to the
state budget."
The governor's agriculture secretary, A.G. Kawamura, says the Schwarzenegger administration doesn't want to end the Act, but rather shift responsibility: "These
local budgets have seen tremendous growth in property tax revenues in
the past decade and are in a better position than the state to continue
with this responsibility."
(Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger does the ceremonial puck-drop
before Game One of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals hockey game between the
Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators in Anaheim on Monday. Schwarzenegger and the
premier of Canada's Ontario province have a wager hanging on the
outcome of the Stanley Cup Finals.
Schwarzenegger, who is traveling in Canada this week, said he bet Premier Dalton McGuinty a
custom-made jacket by designer Tony Nowak (who has done clothing for Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding and political careers) and a collection of
California products, including various fruits and wines, that the
Anaheim Ducks will best the Ottawa Senators and take home the Stanley
Cup. Associated Press.
A few other things on the Web:
Order for the mayor: "Just eight days after Phil
Ginsburg began his job as Mayor Gavin Newsom's chief of staff, he found
himself at a hastily called news conference, looking on as his new boss
apologized for having an affair with his campaign manager's wife. 'Wow," Ginsburg recalled thinking at the time, 'this wasn't in the job description.' Since taking the job in January -- and the nearly $75,000 pay
cut that came with it -- Ginsburg has spent much of his time dealing
with the unexpected." S.F. Chronicle.
Bullet train derailed: "Traveling in California this holiday weekend, it certainly
would be convenient, even fun, to step aboard a 200-mph bullet train
and zip around in quiet comfort. It
definitely would beat suffering through long, inane security lines at
oppressive airports — or enduring a daredevil, but dull, drive along
Interstate 5 through the San Joaquin Valley. The long-dreamed-of California bullet train, however, keeps encountering difficulty leaving the station." George Skelton.
Canada trip special interests: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will head to Canada today for a three-day
trade mission with California business leaders that will be largely
financed by undisclosed private donors. ... Fifty-two business delegates will join
Schwarzenegger on the trip, according to a list the Governor's Office
released Friday. A third of those going represent interests that have
donated to Schwarzenegger's campaigns. Sacramento Bee.
(Photo:
Kevork Djansezian/AP)
The Carole Migden Media Cycle came full circle this weekend, about 10 days after her car accident(s) in the Bay Area. The state Senator from San Francisco revealed she may have been disoriented from treatment for leukemia, a condition she had kept secret for a decade from her colleagues and the media. Now: the profiles.
You know you have a kinetic, fiery personality when you drop the C Bomb into the conversation and it still doesn't stop people from assuming it was more than just the cancer drugs that caused the car to swerve around the freeway and rear-end another vehicle. Steve Harmon with Media News in the Bay Area goes for the direct approach: "Even before her wild ride on I-80 that ended in a collision, Sen. Carole Migden blazed a jagged political path as a state legislator known for her fiery temper and often impertinent attitude.
"In one tightly-wound package, Migden embodies the best and worst of liberal San Francisco politics. She is an effective lawmaker, without a doubt. But she's also a throw-back emblem of political entitlement whose career has been marked with infamous moments — such as the time she pushed another lawmaker's vote button — for her own bill, in the Assembly.
The Times' Jordan Rau found a typically Carole anecdote. Dennis Kelly, president of the United
Educators of San Francisco, recalled "a meeting at Migden's office a year ago when the two were
calling each other by their first names. "When one of the other union
officials addressed her as Carole, 'she wheeled around and said, 'That's Senator Migden to you,' " Kelly said.
"The meeting continued, he said, but Migden again rebuked Kelly's associate, for using the term 'bang for the buck.'
"She
said, 'Don't ever say that in my office; that's a prostitution term,' "
Kelly said. In fact, he said, the phrase was coined during the Cold War
in reference to defense spending.
" 'It was really a hostile and nasty interview,' Kelly said."
Migden has always been nice to me, perhaps because I once worked for her hometown newspaper. Duh. But I've seen her act sweet to lots of people, and she has a big heart when it comes to the poor and the sick. I have always assumed that Migden, being from New York, believed anyone working in the Capitol must have thick skin to get this far, and if you can't take it you're probably in the wrong business. There are billions of dollars at stake, and lives.
She told Rau last week: "I can also be forthright and blunt, and I think I enjoy a reputation
of being straightforward and honest and working well with my
colleagues."
(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)
Jimmy Camp sent an email out over the weekend: He's found himself a job.
The punk rock Republican, a regular fixture in Orange County politics, has been appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the new deputy director of communications for the Dept. of Fish and Game. Pay is $91,128 a year, which should supplement his music career nicely.
Camp, 42, was the political director for Bill Simon for governor and the California Republican Party, and a consultant for newly elected O.C. supervisor Janet Nguyen. And he recently released a new CD recorded solely on an iPod. Camp's folk-rock album includes "White Trash Weekend" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Hate," which has these lyrics: "Well there's lots of Jews and Mexicans.
You got Japanese and lesbians,
people rolling around without no legs.
"There's candidates who won't shut up,
rich girls that drink from silver cups,
people with 12 items in a line that's meant for nine.
"Well, there's hippies smokin' pot all day,
children gettin' in the way,
somebody on my telephone.
Well, he's got a deal for me."
In his email to friends, Camp said Fish and Game "is a perfect fit for me. ... Could you imagine me working for the
Department of Corporations or the Department of Health and Human Services? Me
neither. Although I expect that I may need to buy at least one suit. However, I
did tell the Governors Communications Director that I would only take the
appointment if I were able to wear a 'Smokey the Bear' hat. He said 'no problem.' "
Let's stop for a moment look at one case of special interest lobbying involving Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The governor recently turned down a request by
Australia's BHP Billiton Ltd. to build an $800 million liquefied
natural facility off the coast of Oxnard and Malibu. Schwarzenegger rejected the
project after the California Coastal
Commission and State Lands Commission both turned down the
proposal last month, and after fierce objections from environmentalists.
Throughout the battle, BHP and other natural gas producers engaged almost every political player closely connected to the Schwarzenegger
administration. In fact, no other lobbying campaign since the 2003 recall has hired as many Schwarzenegger friends than the LNG effort.
Not everyone worked directly for BHP. But the full-court press over the past three years included Schwarzenegger political guru Mike
Murphy and his company, Navigators, which worked on an LNG coalition to move public opinion on the subject; Marty
Wilson, the governor's chief fundraiser, who also worked on the LNG coalition; and consultant Joe Rodota, a
behind-the-scenes Schwarzenegger advisor since the 2003 recall. BHP hired a Los Angeles law firm that employs George
Kieffer, a Schwarzenegger friend and the personal attorney to Maria Shriver, and Richard Costigan,
the governor's former legislative affairs director. And they engaged Karen Skelton, a prominent
consultant in Sacramento and a Shriver friend.
And yet the governor turned down the LNG terminal. Isn't this exactly the opposite of what Schwarzenegger critics suggested would happen? Why?
Indeed, how do politicians make their decisions? Do campaign contributions buy votes from elected officials? Does pressure from lobbyists matter? The general assumption in Sacramento and Washington D.C. is absolutely yes yes yes, when it comes to money. Many corporations and unions believe that, say, a $250,000 contribution to support a candidate is a prudent investment, particularly if they can reap millions from tax breaks or public pension boosts.
A new search engine that tracks the contributions made to California politicians, Maplight.org, has opened a debate over what causes elected officials to make specific votes. To N.Y. Times technology columnist Davis Pogue, the Maplight database is so disturbing that he must conclude: "I can't quite figure out why these contributions are even
legal. Let the various factions explain their points till they’re blue
in the face, sure — but to cut checks for millions of dollars?" "Another mind-blowing example: from the home page, click 'California.' Click 'Legislators,' then click 'Fabian Nunez.' The
resulting page shows you how much this guy has collected from each
special-interest group — $2.2 million so far — and there, in
black-and-white type, how often he voted their way. Construction unions: 94 percent of the time. Casinos: 95 percent of
the time. Law firms: 78 percent of the time. Seems as though if you’re
an industry lobbyist, giving this fellow money is a pretty good
investment."
A few people on Pogue's blog agreed. One man wrote: "Let's stop calling them contributions and start calling them what they really are, bribes. Or how about kick-backs?"
But then political scientist Matthew Jarvis and others jumped into the debate. Jarvis said that "establishing CAUSATION is much harder" than simply juxtaposing a particular vote next to the amount of money from special interests. More: "The problem is the reverse direction of causation. If you were a
large corporation seeking to get certain policies passed, you could try
to bribe members of Congress to pass that policy (which is,
essentially, the accusation that is made about votes and campaign
contributions). Or, you could take the approach that what you’d rather
do is elect those who already agree with you. So, when you see a correlation between money and votes, ask
yourself: who ELSE would they give the money to? Those who are going to
vote AGAINST them?"
When it comes to pressure from lobbyists, why did Schwarzenegger reject the BHP terminal off the coast of Malibu?
It's possible the massive lobbying effort just went too far, hired too many Schwarzenegger friends, and was too public. BHP Billiton paid Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, the prominent L.A. law firm that includes Kieffer, about $2.7 million to lobby the governor's office, the Lands Commission, the Coastal Commission and the Legislature on the project over three years. It should be noted that BHP Billiton never gave a campaign contribution to Schwarzenegger or any elected official.
Perhaps the deal died because of behind-the-scenes pressure from other friends and advisors, such as
environmentalists Bonnie Reiss and Terry Tamminen. Perhaps Schwarzenegger really did believe the project would
contribute to global warming, harm marine mammals, ocean
views and birds near Channel Islands
National Park.
Perhaps he knew he would never eat lunch in Malibu
again.
(Photos:
Win McNamee/Getty Images; BHP-Billiton-LNG International via AP)
Playboy politics: "In location scenes for his cameo on last Sunday's 'Entourage,' music
blared by the pool at Brett Ratner’s Benedict Canyon home. Women were
clad in lingerie. Women wandered in bikinis. In fact, at this party,
women were everywhere. That should give a sense of how unlikely a place Ratner’s pad will be for a Hillary Clinton fund-raiser next Wednesday. Event is aimed at young Hollywood, and although organizers say the vibe will be quite a
bit more staid with Clinton's visit, it reflects the new efforts
presidential campaigns are making as they search for new dollars." Variety.
Other items on the Web today:
Oropeza loses union: The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has dropped its longstanding
support for state Sen. Jenny Oropeza, endorsing her opponent in the
race to succeed the late Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald. Oropeza traced the decision to her vote last month for five
tribal compacts that would more than double the number of slot machines
at California's American Indian casinos. Labor groups have strongly
opposed the compacts on the grounds that they contain insufficient
organizing protections. Press-Telegram.
Meanwhile ... "Issues of racial and ethnic representation influence the contest in the 'minority-majority' 37th District. Oropeza is Hispanic, as are more
than two-fifths of district residents. Richardson is African-American,
as are about a quarter of district residents, and has rallied support
from a number of activists who want to maintain black representation as
previously symbolized by Millender-McDonald, who died April 22 after
serving slightly more than 11 years in Congress." N.Y Times.
Paris sex tape. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger "also suggested he’s a big fan of Paris’s home
sex video, leaked to the net. He joked (on Jay Leno): 'I’ve seen all her films.
Obviously, we both do action movies.' " The Sun.
(Photo:
Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
 Marian Bergeson--the first Republican woman elected to the Assembly and the Senate, and a former education secretary for Gov. Pete Wilson--is celebrating her 83rd birthday Friday by skydiving with Caltrans Director Will Kempton at the Lodi Airport.
Bergeson and Kempton will jump from about 13,000 feet and reach speeds up to 120 mph "while plummeting to Earth," Caltrans says. Bergeson is a member of the California Transportation Commission.
 The campaign to replace Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald has attracted more than a dozen candidates, including the late congresswoman's daughter.
Valerie McDonald's insistence on entering the race has split the African American community in Long Beach, where some black leaders believe Assemblywoman Laura Richardson may have a better chance of taking the Democratic seat against Sen. Jenny Oropeza, a Latina. Now, the African American vote is split.
But McDonald is pressing on. In an e-mail to potential supporters this morning, she pleads for campaign donations and blames the late start on making funeral arrangements for her mother. At least I think that's what she's saying. McDonald wants to collect $600,00 (sic), and includes a cheerful campaign flier complete with creative clip-art balloons. From: Valerie McDonald
Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 07:55:06 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Fwd: Campaign Kick-Off Flyer Final
Good morning,
I am running for the seat left vacant by the passing of my mother, Congresswoman Millender McDonald. I need funding (raising $600,00) and volunteers as the competition organized before I could organize the services for my mother. Please do what you can and remit any donations to: McDonald for Congress, 4450 California Place, PMB 331, Long Beach, CA 90807 and volunteer any day Monday-Friday 5.-8:00 pm, Saturday 10 a.m. - 8pm and Sunday noon to 8:00 p.m.
Thank you for your assistance.
I'm not sure "please do what you can and remit any donations" is exactly what they had in mind with McCain-Feingold.
Damage to the front end of the state-issued 2007 Toyota Highlander
Hybrid sport utility vehicle driven by State Sen. Carole Migden, shown parked in the Capitol garage.
Migden was driving eastbound on Interstate 80
in Fairfield on Friday when her vehicle bounced off the concrete median
and nearly ran other motorists off the road, before slamming into the
back of another vehicle. The rear-end collision injured a woman, who was traveling with her 3-year-old daughter.
Migden says disorientation caused by her cancer treatment may have contributed to the accident. (Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)
 I'm sorry I missed the spring convention of the United Republicans of California at the Embassy Suites in Arcadia. The $45 registration fee and a complete ignorance that the United Republicans of California even existed kept me away, unfortunately. My bad.
A featured convention speaker Saturday was Dr. Stanley Monteith, who is currently selling water filtration systems, home-schooling CDs, Miracle II soap and "Bible Bars" on his Radio Liberty website.
"The Bible Bar is a complete, wholesome food jam packed with nutritional and spiritual goodness. It is based on the seven foods from the Book of Deuteronomy 8:8 'A land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey.' The Bible Bar is a great way to control hunger pangs while still providing your body with the highest level of biblical nutrition. Case of 18 for $32.95, plus shipping. (priority mail $8.00--UPS call for quote)"
Created in 1963 to support Barry Goldwater over "liberal" Nelson Rockefeller, the United Republicans believe "God is the source of the rights and freedoms of the individual," and that "the threat of the evil of Communism must be met and overcome by a determination to achieve victory for the free way of life." Score one for the United Republicans of California (except in North Korea, Cuba and north Berkeley.)
This week, the group announced it was supporting Dr. Ron Paul for president. "The unanimous endorsement from the United Republicans of California proves what the campaign has been saying all along," said Paul's campaign chairman, Kent Snyder. "Ron Paul is the only true conservative and real Republican in the race."
A group of ExxonMobil shareholders--including the California State Teachers Retirement System and the New York City Employees Retirement System--said they planned to increase pressure on oil giant ExxonMobil to change its climate change policies. "ExxonMobil's go-slow approach on renewables, its resistance to a strong national climate policy, and its campaign to muddy the waters on climate science is troubling to investors," said California state controller and CalSTRS board member John Chiang. IndustryWeek.
 Blue Cross of California wades into the health-care debate today with a new advertising campaign pushing the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on health-care reform--while casually dropping a little bomb by raising the specter of the energy crisis that sunk the previous administration.
"Unintended consequences do happen," the new ad says. "Other states have tried healthcare reforms like 'guaranteed issue' that sounded good. They now have the highest premiums in the country while California has the lowest. Sound familiar? Remember how the rash deregulation of the energy market in California spawned power outages and soaring rates? Let's not go there again."
Schwarzenegger Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy and senior advisor Daniel Zingale worked in the Gray Davis administration during the height of the chaotic energy crisis, which was spawned by the Legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson in 1996. Now, Kennedy and Zingale (who worked in the Dept. of Managed Health Care under Davis) are leading negotiations on health-care reform for Schwarzenegger.
In many respects, creating universal health care while satisfying California's powerful business interests, health plans, doctors and hospitals is more complicated than the energy deregulation discussion a decade ago. There are too many moving levers.
But there is a lot more attention from the media and lawmakers on health care reform in 2007 than on energy deregulation in 1996. Few Capitol insiders understood the energy legislation that eventually triggered a meltdown in the system, market manipulation, blackouts, endless Jay Leno jokes, and the political destruction of Gov. Gray Davis.
Nick Garcia, director of public relations for Blue Cross, said the company created the Coalition for Responsible Health Care Reform with an initial $2 million investment. "We must engage in a well-thought, thorough evaluation that protects consumers choice, affordability and access to world-class care in California's health markets," he said.
Or face the end of your political career and the destruction of this great state. Wink wink.
UPDATE: Health Access rips into the ad campaign, saying if Blue Cross wants to make analogies to the energy crisis, then they are Enron.
 "So this is without any doubt the most important award that I have ever received."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger--winner of five Mr. Universe titles, seven Mr. Olympia wins and the Golden Globe--upon accepting an award yesterday from California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance at a Sacramento hotel. He shared the award with Senate leader Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.
State Sen. Carole Migden was first described by the CHP as "disoriented" when she rear-ended another car on her way to an appointment in the Bay Area. Then her office issued a statement saying she was reaching for her cell phone when the accident occurred last Friday morning.
Then a Bay Area TV station said multiple people called 911 before the accident saying a driver was acting "crazy." Migden may have, in fact, been involved in three nonserious accidents that day along her route. (One driver suffered minor injuries in a fender-bender near Fairfield.)
Now, Migden has "revealed
publicly for the first time that she has been battling leukemia for the
past decade and that medication she takes may have caused her to become
disoriented while driving," according to the S.F. Chronicle. "My only explanation is that it is medically related in some way,"
Migden, 56, said in an interview with The Chronicle. She said she would undergo neurological tests.
Story by Greg Lucas here.
The East Bay Express pored over hundreds of pages of expense reports for Senate leader Don Perata, and discovered the Oakland Democrat's campaigns have spent more than $1 million on parties and "high-end lifestyle expenditures."
The spending includes frequent visits to posh restaurants - at least $119,000 over ten years on meals - and stays at luxury hotels worth $68,503.
His campaign hosted a December 2000 fundraising party in a luxury box at the Oakland Coliseum that cost $43,600 and featured a Dungeness crab feast, the newspaper said. He has used his campaign money to "shower gifts on his donor
friends, colleagues, lobbyists, and staffers. He shops at Macy's and
Nordstrom or buys expensive luggage, monogrammed pens, and upscale
office supplies," writer Robert Gammon reported.
Perata's spokesman, Jason Kinney, told the newspaper that the expenses were "entirely legal," "legitimate," and "run-of-the-mill
and commonplace." Story is here, and the Express blog has a spreadsheet of all the expenses.
You may not know this, but Kenneth Matsumura saved California. I know this because I have just read a new nonfiction book written by Kenneth Matsumura M.D., inventor of an artificial liver.
In his self-published book, "Arnold Remade: How the Fear of His Own Recall Transformed Him & Reshaped California," Matsumura chronicles his efforts to recall the Republican governor from office. His narcissistic journey, written in the third person, claims Schwarzenegger "acceded to virtually all of the demands of the recallers."
There was a recall? I doubt Schwarzenegger could name Matsumura, who lives in Berkeley, or even remember that somebody tried to recall him in 2005 and early 2006. But Matsumura writes that his recall effort is responsible for Schwarzenegger's decision to increase the minimum wage, hire a lesbian chief of staff, sign global warming legislation, and generally become a nicer human being.
"Those who are not so cynical ... could say that when Matsumura went before the cameras and listed his grievances and told the governor about the plight of the poor, Schwarzenegger suddenly realized the Scrooge he had become," Matsumura writes abut Matsumura.
Cameras? A few on announcement day, sure. And the New York Times called, causing Matsumura to "pull off the side of the road for this important interview." Later, "a large daily in Singapore sent an email to the recall website asking for an interview."
How did Matsumura achieve this incredible feat?
"Matsumura called on his local volunteers, including a nurse midwife, the editor of the liberal weekly Common Grounds, and a staff member at Highland Hospital, to each gather 15 to 30 signatures" on a recall petition, he writes. Once that was done, he needed to collect 1 million signatures.
According to the epilogue, Matsumura ended up simply thanking his volunteers "for achieving so much without actually doing a recall." What's important, he concludes, "is that for at least a year, California enjoyed a golden era of caring for the poor, its children, and the environment."
Thanks, Kenneth Matsumura! We wouldn't have know about you without you.
Attention deep-deep political insiders with no lives: U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton has a new senior staff to run her California presidential operation.
Ace Smith, political advisor to Jerry Brown and Antonio Villaraigosa, is the campaign director. The new political director is Chris Lavery, who has worked for the DNC, Joe Lieberman and Al Gore; the communications director is Luis Vizcaino from the Human Rights Campaign and Kerry-Edwards. Clinton's field director, Michael Trujillo, worked for Villaraigosa from 2001 to 2006, as field director for his city council race and adviser
for his mayoral race.
Let's see: Former President Bill Clinton has dinner with Villaraigosa in New York last week, and Hillary Clinton has been hiring the L.A. mayor's political staff. Could an endorsement come soon? Now, return to your normal lives.
(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
May polling by the American Research Group shows former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani remains the favorite among Republican primary voters in California, although his position has slipped and John McCain has jumped to within the margin of error. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has lost his luster, but Sen. Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney jumped.
| California |
| Likely Republican
Primary Voters |
Jan
2007 |
May 2007 |
|
| Brownback |
- |
1% |
| Gilmore |
- |
1% |
| Giuliani |
33% |
27% |
| Gingrich |
19% |
5% |
| Hagel |
5% |
1% |
| Huckabee |
- |
1% |
| Hunter |
1% |
1% |
| McCain |
18% |
24% |
| Pataki |
- |
- |
| Paul |
ni |
- |
| Romney |
3% |
11% |
| Tancredo |
ni |
1% |
| F Thompson |
ni |
12% |
| T Thompson |
- |
1% |
| Undecided |
22% |
13% |
Among the likely Democratic voters in the Feb. 5 primary, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton still leads among California voters, while U.S. Sen. Barack Obama has lost a bit of support. John Edwards jumped. The results:
| California |
| Likely Democratic
Primary Voters |
Jan
2007 |
May 2007 |
|
| Biden |
1% |
2% |
| Clark |
2% |
- |
| Clinton |
36% |
37% |
| Dodd |
- |
2% |
| Edwards |
6% |
15% |
| Gravel |
- |
- |
| Kerry |
4% |
ni |
| Kucinich |
1% |
2% |
| Obama |
33% |
28% |
| Richardson |
1% |
3% |
| Vilsack |
- |
ni |
| Undecided |
16% |
11% |
The polling company conducted 600 telephone interviews among a random sample of voters from each party and independents from May 4-8. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage
points, 95% of the time, on questions where opinion
is evenly split.
Billionaire Warren Buffett, who is often admiringly praised for his "homespun wisdom," informed a recent Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting that casino gambling was a "tax on ignorance" and "socially revolting."
This marks the third time Buffett has gone separate ways from his friend Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. During the 2003 recall, Buffett suggested California's vaunted Proposition 13 property tax limit might need to be restructured, prompting Schwarzenegger to condescendingly rebuke Buffett, a campaign advisor, by demanding the elderly man perform 500 situps as penance. (He was joking!)
Now, as Schwarzenegger is seeking to expand casino gambling for certain California Indian tribes, Buffett said this in Omaha recently: "To quite an extent, gambling is a tax on ignorance. I find
it socially revolting when the government preys on the ignorance of its
citizenry. When the government makes it easy for people to take their
Social Security checks and pull [slot machine] handles, it relieves
taxes on those who don't fall for it. It's not government at its best."
It's amazing Buffett would offer moral advice given that he is helping prop up the genocidal regime in Sudan, where an estimated 400,000 people have been killed.
On the same day Schwarzenegger signed legislation last year requiring the state of California to divest in companies that do business in Sudan, the Republican governor met with Buffett for breakfast in San Francisco at a fundraiser.
Later, at a press conference with Dafur activists George Clooney and Don Cheadle, the governor failed to mention that Buffett is the largest
individual U.S. investor in a Chinese oil conglomerate that does major business with the regime in Khartoum. Berkshire
Hathaway holds 2.3 billion shares of PetroChina, or 1.3% of the
foreign ownership of the oil company, which is part of the state-owned CNPC. The shares are worth about $3 billion.
Darfur activists have convinced Fidelity Investments to sell a big portion of its holdings in PetroChina. But at the same meeting in Omaha where Buffett sneered at the revolting pastime of gambling, he and other shareholders rejected a call for Berkshire Hathaway to divest in companies that are complicit in the Sudan genocide.
Buffett told Charlie Rose recently: "But the idea that a shareholder of PetroChina is going to change the
Chinese government's policy, or that - that having China leave the
Sudan would hurt the Sudanese government, those are very tenuous
propositions."
(Photos: Stephen Morrison/EPA; David McNew/Getty Images)
The "gala" fundraiser for the California Republican Party last night in Beverly Hills was absent one important guest: the chairman of the California Republican Party.
The event featuring Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was organized to help the GOP retire some of its $4.5 million in debt from the 2006 election. The Republican governor agreed to host two fundraisers for the financially struggling party, but the first one in Sacramento was canceled two weeks ago for lack of interest. The Beverly Hilton event, according to one Republican source, was pared down as well.
The new state chairman, Ron Nehring, was in Germany visiting relatives for his birthday. He just turned 37. And he is attending the St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland, which is a sort of mini Davos conference from May 31 to June 2 that promotes the "interfaces between business, politics and society," according to the group.
That means he'll also miss the next California GOP fundraiser, in Napa.
The St. Gallen forum is chaired by Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach, who also is a vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, and this year features multiple seminars on energy, water and the exploitation of natural resources. Judging from some of the panel participants, they are for it. Seyed Mohammad Khatami, the former president of Iran (pictured), is a featured speaker, along with various business and political leaders, and oil and steel barons. International buffet at 8 p.m.
Nehring said he was using a ticket purchased with frequent-flyer mileage that was difficult to change.
"Today is my birthday (37th) and I travel each May in conjunction with my birthday, and visiting with family overseas," Nehring said in an email. "This trip is part vacation, visiting with family in Germany, and part participating in the St. Gallen Symposium in St. Gallen, Switzerland next week, as I have every year since 2003."
(Photo: Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
Today at a breakfast organized by the California Chamber of Commerce, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger went out of his way to say he wasn't really interested in the new Terminator movie. Lately, there has been a lot of speculation that he would have a small part in the next installment.
"Terminator 4" is starting preproduction without him, after the rights to the science fiction epic were purchased by The Halcyon Company. No other film has been more closely associated with Schwarzenegger than the Terminator character - his movie career went into overdrive after the first film in 1984.
"And people ask me all the time about, 'They just announced they're going to do
another Terminator movie, Terminator 4. Don't you want to do that? Don't you
miss that?' " the governor said today. "And I always tell them no, I don't miss it at all, never think
about it. I love my job, I love serving the people of California, it is the
greatest thing I've ever done."
Well, he hasn't exactly left the Terminator series.
Later in the speech, he repeatedly used lines from the movie: "You know, last time I was here I said to all of you that, 'I'll be back,' and so it is so nice to be back here again." And: "But you know my opinion about job killing bills. I mean, that's what we have
done for the three years, is we said hasta la vista, baby, to those bills. Exactly. And that's what we're going to do the next four years, terminate those
bills."
And finally, at the end: " Thank you very much, and
I'll be back."
The state Fair Political Practices Commission has given up trying to limit donations to candidate-controlled ballot committees, such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's California Recovery Team. Chairman Ross Johnson says he's disappointed with recent court rulings, and now is looking to the Legislature for reforms. Good luck!
The courts have said that Proposition 34, which restricts donations to candidates, allows politicians to operate separate committees that can raise unlimited amounts of money. The donations can only be used for legislative "advocacy" or ballot-measure business - descriptions that permit all sorts of campaign-like activity that promote the individual candidate.
The California Recovery Team is still collecting huge donations that ostensibly help pay for the governor's private jet travel and other major expenses. (Among them, the California Assn. of Hospitals and Health Systems donated $100K last week, amid ongoing negotiations over health care reforms in the governor's office.)
"The intellectual inconsistency of the courts astounds me," Johnson said in a statement. "What represents the greater potential for the appearance of corruption, $3,600 to a candidate’s reelection committee or $100,000 to
a ballot measure committee controlled by that same candidate? The
answer is obvious: The appearance of undue influence comes from the
receipt of the contribution, not in how the money is spent!"
A ballot measure committee that was working to advance Schwarzenegger's special election agenda in 2005, Citizens to Save California, filed a lawsuit challenging the rules in February 2005.
Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang ruled the commission lacked legal authority to impose contribution limits on candidate-controlled committees. A Court of Appeal upheld the ruling last December, and now the FPPC under Johnson has decided it will drop the case altogether.
UPDATE: So let's just recap: The governor's only major accomplishment from the 2005 special election was to assure unlimited political donations to ballot committees, two years after winning the recall on a promise of sweeping away special interests.
TMZ.com, the celebrity gossip site, is taking up politics - namely, legislation by Assemblywoman Julie Brownley that would impose criminal penalties for law enforcement officers who sell details or tips to the media.
But TMZ editors are a bit upset that Brownley would imply they paid for information about Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic rant. They write: "Brownley seems to think TMZ may have actually bribed someone to get the
critical pages of the arrest report detailing Gibson's anti-Semitic
tirade. Well, Brownley is an idiot."
The bill, by the way, was suggested by the L.A. County sheriff's department, after
the name and photograph of one of Michael Jackson's alleged victims was
released to the media. But TMZ and the Smoking Gun keep getting mentioned by politicians as sites that pay for information.
The Smoking Gun,
which is owned by Court TV, often dips into the criminal and civil courts for information. Editor William Bastone told Political Muscle recently: "We follow the same
ethical guidelines as the L.A. Times, the New York Times, the New York
Daily News or CBS News. We do not pay, nor do we ever pay. She should
not be lumping us in there and raising concerns about whether we do
that."
The bill, AB 920, was approved by the Assembly and now heads to the state Senate.
Rita Williams with KTVU in the Bay Area reports that the California Highway Patrol has expanded its investigation into a car crash involving state Sen. Carole Migden. The San Francisco senator passed a Breathalyzer test and was not cited after the Friday accident, but "several motorists phoned the CHP warning them to stop an erratic and
dangerous driver just before Migden crashed her car."
At least a half-dozen people called 911 on Friday, including one man who said: "Please get out here, she's scary."
And after the accident, Migden reportedly screamed at the driver of the car she hit, saying: "I'm a senator!" Witness Adrian Romo told the station: "I said 'Fine, let's just see if this is OK.' She didn't seem all there." Just before the accident, Migden reportedly cut someone off. From KTVU: A "Peninsula driver says ... Migden passed
him the first time eastbound on Highway 80 going at least 80 miles
an hour and swerving from one lane to another. 'I noticed there
was a female that was both reading and talking on a cell phone at the
same time while trying to negotiate the lanes,' says the witness. [Snip.]
View report here, and video here.
Migden was driving her new state-leased Toyota Hylander hybrid on Highway 12 when she reached for her cell phone and took her eyes off
the road just before the accident, the senator's office said in a
statement. The driver of a Honda sedan suffered minor injuries and was taken to
a local hospital.
An early report of the accident quoted a CHP officer saying Migden
was "disoriented," but the later reports said she was reaching for her
cell phone and took her eyes off the road.
(Photo: Steve Yeater/AP)
Daily Kos, the progressive blog run by Markos Moulitsas, posted an item yesterday about how Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was looking like a Democrat. "So it's pretty funny seeing California's neanderthal Republican Party
reduced to an irrelevant sideshow as Arnold and the state's Democrats
work to enact a surprisingly progressive agenda," Kos wrote.
This Arnold-is-a-Democrat analysis is about a year old, and it's the sort of lazy, primitive meme on which Schwarzenegger's political career has thrived. (I'm guilty as well of writing it, joking about it, perpetuating it, and occasionally believing it.)
Saying that Schwarzenegger (pictured with Republican Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman signing a global warming agreement) was enacting a largely progressive agenda went a little too far for Kos' regulars. In dozens of comments, readers meandered around the subject for awhile and then let loose: "Some "Green" governor - he is stealing billions from mass transit to
balance the budget and pay off his credit card bonds he passed 2 years
ago. It's going to take a ton of money away from much needed
improvements in LA, Sf and around the USA. Arnold also gave all his consultants and staff big raises, while cutting money for the poorest of the poor. THIS is progressive? Arnold will say anything and do anything to stay in power. One
minute he's an anti tax crusader, then a hardcore right wing
Republican, now a faux Democrat. It does not matter. [Snip.]
"once again, kos proves that he's clueless
on california politics. stop
just repeateing the insider dish your friends hand out and read the
goddamned papers a bit more closely. that 'democrat' schwarzeneggar
- vetoed universal health care.
- vetoed marriage equality
- is trying to kill electricfied high speed rail
- demagogued on immigrants, and praised the fascist minutemen
- supported parental notification, twice.
- jacked up college tuition over and over again, and
even turned students admitted to the UC away instead of increasing
funding a couple of years back
- campaigned for bush and other national republicans" [Snip.]
And so forth. One Kos diarist even did a poll. The result: Not a Democrat.
(Photo:
Douglas C. Pizac/AP)
Angelina Jolie has been careless. While she was touring the world collecting children, the actress left $21,633 in paychecks uncashed. The money from the Walt Disney Co. and other entertainment groups sat around so long, it has been turned over to the state of California and now is listed in the state's unclaimed property database under Angelina Jolie, Angelina Jolie-Thornton, and Angelina Jolie-Voight.
It would seem like the Walt Disney Co. and the government could easily find Jolie. Just open Us Weekly. But she has become the poster child in a dispute over California's $5 billion unclaimed property database. The right of the state of hold and sell unclaimed property goes back to feudal England, where tenant property often was escheated back to the Crown and became a regular source of government income.
The S.F. Chronicle showed the state Controller's office was using a 30-year-old computer with ancient software and did little to let people know they were owed money. People such as U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is owed $50 from the First Trust of California, and Reece Witherspoon, owed $97.42 from Tiffany & Co. The right of the government to hold such assets is
The new state controller, John Chiang, is asking the Legislature for new money to search for owners and authority to cast a wider net. Right now, the law denies him the right to contact individuals such as Jolie to
tell them about their unclaimed property, Chiang's office said. He has nevertheless ordered
all stock shares to be held for
up to two years before being sold, and the contents of safe-deposit boxes to be preserved for as long as two years.
Meanwhile, the U.S. District Count of Appeals is watching. The three-judge panel ruled this month in the case of Chris Lusby Taylor, a British citizens who held 52,000 shares in Intel. His shares were transfered to the state and were sold. He estimates that it cost him $3 million. This "seizure" of property prompted the court to threaten a takeover unless property owners are notified their assets are being held by the government, as required by the Constitution.
(Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images)
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell, both Republicans, have authored a scathing opinion piece accusing the Bush administration of inaction and denial that "borders on malfeasance" for blocking tailpipe emission regulations in several states. In the Washington Post today, the duo write:
"By continuing to stonewall
California's request, the federal government is blocking the will of
tens of millions of people in California, Connecticut and other states
who want their government to take real action on global warming.
"The
EPA is finally holding the first of two hearings on the waiver request
tomorrow, and we welcome the opportunity to call attention to the
harmful effects that global warming is having on people and the
environment. But we are far from convinced that the agency intends to follow the law and grant us our waiver. If it fails to do so, we have an obligation to take legal action and settle this issue once and for all." [Emph. added.]
Schwarzenegger and Rell (pictured together looking rather gloomy at a White House event in February) said President George W. Bush's recent executive order requiring further study on global warming "sounds like more of the same inaction and denial, and it is unconscionable."
(Photo: Charles Dharapak/AP)
New Mexico Gov. Bill "Give Me a Break, I'm Only at 8%" Richardson formally announces his presidential campaign at 10 a.m. today in Los Angeles at the Millennium Biltmore. Expect a Latino-themed event. You can watch the announcement, along with Richardson's odd but compelling "Job Interview" ad, on his website here.
Actor Burt Reynolds, left, accepts the action movie star lifetime achievement award from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during the 7th Annual Taurus World Stunt Awards yesterday in Los Angeles. Schwarzenegger called Reynolds "the greatest of the great."
Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger is in Salt Lake City today for a ceremony that will add Utah to the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative. So far, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia have agreed to join the registry, which would track carbon emissions and establish a trading scheme among the states.
Schwarzenegger is signing the agreement with Jon Huntsman Jr., the California-born Republican governor of Utah. Huntsman's decision, according to the Deseret News, "is a bold move that sends a
national message to conservatives that global warming demands
attention, according to Dan Schnur, a political science instructor at
the University of California Berkeley. Schnur said: "This has the potential to be the energy version of Nixon going
to China. A lot of cold warriors felt much more
comfortable establishing relations with China once Nixon was on the
issue. A governor like Huntsman from a state like Utah provides cover
for conservatives in other places."
Something tells me Schwarzenegger (who is traveling to Canada, England and India this year) likes playing the global diplomat more than policy wonk. The excruciating details of health care reform await him when he returns from Utah. Or, rather, after "The Tonight Show" alongside Debra Messing.
The caricature of a California immigrant is often someone stooped over in a lettuce field or trudging across the Tijuana border checkpoint to work construction in SanDiegoOrange- LosAngelesurbia.
But the new immigration reform package being debated this week by the U.S. Senate could help transform California's labor market by feeding more skilled workers into high-tech jobs. The changes also allow policy makers to sell the politically divisive overhaul by dividing immigrants into classes - the wanted and the rejected.
Under the legislation, the number of permanent visas would increase from 140,000 to 380,000 - and favor certain people based on a point system. Skilled workers in specialty fields such as engineering would earn more points. An education background could garner as many as 28 points out of a maximum of 100, and English speakers could receive an extra 15 points.
In the L.A. Times' today, Hans Johnson of the Public Policy Institute of California said the point system could solve a potentially critical problem with the state's economy. In a study scheduled for release this week, Teresa Watanabe writes, Johnson and
others have found that the state's projected skilled-labor shortage
will be so severe in the next several years that even large increases
in immigration may not solve it.
For California, the legislation could mean more immigrants from India,
which produces an estimated 500,000 technical graduates every year. (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is headed to India for a two-week visit this winter.) "Using a point system that
looks at education and skills," Johnson said, "makes sense in light of the economic
demand for high-skilled workers, not just now but also in the future."
(Photo:
David McNew/Getty Images)
Rudy Giuliani's California problem: criticize the U.S. Senate's recent immigration overhaul and risk losing the endorsement of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Stay silent, and risk losing conservatives. So says Mark Levin at the National Review Online. (I don't see Schwarzenegger endorsing any Republican before Feb. 5.)
Former Sen. Fred Thompson, the "Law and Order" star who is contemplating a run for president, is already being compared to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for obvious reasons. TV networks may remove his movies from rotation during the 2008 campaign, just like they mercifully did with Schwarzenegger movies during the 2003 recall.
Now, Thompson reportedly has scheduled a June visit to "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," the same non-confrontational chat show where Schwarzenegger made his own surprise announcement that he was running for governor. Let's speculate!
Schwarzenegger is scheduled to appear Wednesday on "The Tonight Show," by the way. His decision to announce on Leno in 2003 was seen as a nontraditional, populist gimmick calculated to bypass the traditional media. Or it could have been the place where Schwarzenegger felt most comfortable. It worked.
Rick Hasen, our favorite election law expert, has an interesting article in Slate.com this week about the sudden disappearance of the American Center for Voting Rights, the conservative "think tank" created in the wake of the 2000 Florida election recount and dedicated "to the
unproven idea that voter fraud is a major problem in elections."
Democrats and liberals have been leading a fairly aggressive campaign to prove that unverified electronic voting poses a serious threat to democracy because the machines can be hacked by partisan elections workers and others. But the American Center for Voting Rights took a different route. Hasen writes the center uses its influence ... "to support the passage of onerous
voter-identification laws that depress turnout among the poor,
minorities, and the elderly — groups more likely to vote Democratic.
Where the Bush administration may have failed to nail illegal voters,
the effort to suppress minority voting has borne more fruit,
as more states pass these laws, and courts begin to uphold them in the
name of beating back waves of largely imaginary voter fraud."
The group practiced the art of using anecdote as evidence, Hasen writes, but could never credibly prove widespread voter fraud. Now, they are gone. No website, no more documents or reports. And even the group's attorney has wiped the organization clean from his resume.
(Photo: Alan Diaz/AP)
 Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's birthday is May 28, but he's nevertheless holding two "birthday celebration" fundraisers two days later in California to collect money for his presidential run. U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton is scheduled to raise money in the state the next day.
Giuliani donors who raise $23,000 for the campaign receive 10 tickets to a VIP reception and, according to the invitation, "PHOTOS and a Preferred table seating of 10 at the Birthday Lunch." Presumably this is where contributors will hear Giuliani's Speech about Fighting Terrorism and watch Giuliani Eat.
(UPDATE: A birthday luncheon is being held in Burlingame May 30, followed the same day by an evening reception at the Beverly Hilton, featuring comedian Dennis Miller.)
Giuliani - with the help of his buddy Bill Simon, the financier who lost to Gray Davis in 2004 - has rounded up some well-known Republican donors on his finance team. They include venture capitalist Tim Draper and Floyd Kvamme, and takeover artist T. Boone Pickens. Giuliani also has Steve Kram, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's former agent, and Michael Huffington, on his team.
 State Sen. Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), initially described by the CHP as "disoriented," rear-ended another car Friday while she was headed to an appointment in her district. She was not injured.
The senator was driving her new state-leased Toyota Hylander hybrid on Highway 12 when she reached for her cell phone and took her eyes off the road just before the accident, the senator's office said in a statement.
"She was not injured and later passed a routine Breathalyzer test, and then she drove her car home," the statement said. "Senator Migden is very grateful that no one was seriously injured."
The driver of a Honda sedan suffered minor injuries and was taken to a local hospital. She was identified as 31-year-old Ellen Butawan of Vallejo.
No citations were issued, the CHP said. If Migden was on official Senate business, the Legislature would handle damages associated with the accident, a Senate aide said.
An early report of the accident quoted a CHP officer saying Migden was "disoriented," but the later reports said she was reaching for her cell phone and took her eyes off the road.
* * *
Perhaps Migden, who faces a tough re-election fight against Assemblyman Mark Leno next year, can pick up some Survivor immunity at her next fundraiser:
Secretary of State Debra Bowen has unveiled a unique online catalog
that gives researchers and history buffs around the world access to
information about the acclaimed collections preserved in the California
State Archives, Government Technology Magazine reports.
The site, Minerva, has all types of records, from maps
and photographs to the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Investigation -
as well as information on elections and political campaigns, ZDNet says. "Minerva is a dynamic goldmine for historians, journalists, students
and anyone else who just loves California history," said Bowen.
But ZDNet has a few problems: "One, it doesn†| |
This is my last posting on Political Muscle. After a decade of covering California governors, lawmakers, the gubernatorial recall, the Florida recount, dozens of propositions and endless campaigns, I've decided to take the buyout offer from the L.A. Times. It's time to travel in a different direction.
