'Attacking Free Enterprise And Capitalism'

How some conservatives see Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's commitment to fully a fund the Institute for Labor and Employment, a think tank at the University of California: "It marks a new milestone on Arnold's slow motion stagger toward liberalism. The ILE, often cited in the press as a division of the University of California or a labor think tank, is really a prime example of left-wing agitprop funded by taxpayers."

Evidence: Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a big supporter, once wanted to join the Sandinistas. Nunez has suggested cutting U.C. business school budgets if the labor school is cut.

Poll: Voters Want to Keep 'Living Wage'

The L.A. Times' Joe Mathews reports: Los Angeles voters favor keeping a new law extending the $10.64 an hour "living wage" ordinance to LAX-area hotel workers by better than 3 to 1, according to a poll commissioned by a nonprofit group affiliated with labor unions. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez had intervened to support hotel workers who had fasted to protest the referendum.

Oh, No, Not a Full Page Ad!

There is a nasty little fight brewing in Orange County between a law-enforcement union and a tough-talking supervisor. The animosity has descended into outrageously broad insults and vicious personal slights, which means it's now appropriate for Political Muscle.

The central player is newly elected Supervisor John Moorlach, who famously predicted the Orange County bankruptcy in the early 1990s, and don't you forget it. Lately, he has been calling for a formal audit of the union's health trust fund operated by "union bosses" for the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs. Moorlach called them "thugs" and it pretty much went downhill from there.

The union rounded up nearly 900 retired and current deputy sheriffs who signed a form letter requesting that Moorlach be barred from attending academy graduations, award services, funerals and news conferences. To add insult, the letter writers also requested that Moorlach be barred from attending their own funerals should they die any time soon. (The obvious response: He cannot be barred from public functions.)

Now, a group that has worked to dilute the political power of unions is responding with its own campaign. Sunday, they ran a full-page advertisement (right) in the O.C. Register saying the union had sunk to a new low and called again for an audit of the health trust fund. The new group, Veritas Public Policy Center, is billed as a "project" of the California Foundation for Campaign Reform, the 501(c)(4) group that ran an unsuccessful bid in 1993 to bar union dues for political campaigns, Proposition 226.

The foundation was started by three O.C. businessmen, real estate developer James Righeimer, engineer Frank Ury and personnel company owner Mark Bucher. In an interview today, Bucher wouldn't reveal who is funding the anti-union campaign but said it was a broad group and not just one major donor. He said Veritas might run additional ads. "When they engage in campaigns to mislead the public, we want to be there to put forward what we believe is the truth."

The union hasn't fully engaged on the new ad campaign, but general manager Bob MacLeod told the Register that the ads would actually clarify the issue: "Anyone who wants to know what's behind this issue should know now. It's politics, and it's nothing more."

Labor Activist Who Built 'Voter Turnout Machine' Departs

Joe Mathews, The Times' labor reporter, writes to Political Muscle about a big change for organized labor: Courtni Pugh -- who, as political director of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, built a voter turnout machine that would make Mayor Daley envious -- is departing for D.C. to work as chief of staff to Illinois Congressman Danny K. Davis.

Pugh's organizing and data skills are a big reason why Los Angeles has delivered a larger, more reliable turnout of progressive votes than the Bay Area in recent election cycles. On election night in 2005, Gov. Schwarzenegger's team thought he had pulled off a victory on Prop 75, the measure that would have restricted public employee unions' ability to spend dues money on politics, until returns started coming in from Los Angeles, where the labor effort surpassed all turnout models.

Pugh, in an e-mail to friends, says she'll spend her time in D.C. working with the Oversight and Government Reform Committee (where she'll take a look at Iraq and post-Katrina contracting) and the Education and Labor Committee (where legislation supporting "card check neutrality" -- allowing workers to join a union by signing cards, rather than through secret balloting -- will be debated).

Who Killed Joe Nunez?

Many readers have asked: Why isn't Senate leader Don Perata being blamed for killing the appointment of California Teachers Assn. executive Joe Nunez to the state Board of Education?

Indeed, Republicans provided the two votes necessary to put Nunez over the top. But two Democratic lawmakers, Sens. Ed Vincent and Ron Calderon, called in sick Thursday, and Nunez went down. But it looked like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had reappointed Nunez to the school board, had been sabotaged by his own party.

The conventional explanation is this: The two Republicans who voted for Nunez and the two Democrats who didn't show up should be considered outliers. There is always someone sick, someone crossing party lines, someone in the bathroom. Once you get that out of the way, you look at the political situation: Senate GOP leader Dick Ackerman and his fellow Republicans, and Schwarzenegger himself, did nothing to round up the sufficient votes needed to get the governor's appointee over the top. And Perata corralled almost every Democratic vote for Nunez.

The Senate had to vote to confirm Nunez before Jan. 15, which is a holiday, said Perata spokeswoman Alicia Trost. So yesterday was the last day the Senate could act. Vincent recently had surgery and Calderon had a fever; Perata said it wasn't worth forcing them to come back. (But Perata could have held the vote earlier perhaps! And so on.)

Some Capitol insiders smell something rotten, given that the CTA ran billboards and made phone calls in Perata's district after he dared to suggest Proposition 98 should be tweaked to help balance the state budget. One Republican wrote in about CTA chief Barbara Kerr: "If she had done her job and made sure all the Dems were here yesterday, she would have gotten her boy confirmed." A Democratic operative: "If Perata had wanted to make this happen, he could have made sure the ('effing) votes were there." Another reader: The "CTA won't make a big stink about it because they don't want to show that they just were served payback for their hits on Perata."

I dunno. It's quite possible that if Vincent and Calderon had made it to Sacramento, Republican Sens. Abel Maldonado and Jeff Denham would have stayed neutral, killing his reappointment anyway.

Nevertheless, it was the perfect political scenario, the kind they love in Sacramento. Maldonado and Denham made easy "yes" votes on Nunez without really offending their party or their CTA patrons. Beleaguered Republicans eagerly poked a stick in Schwarzenegger's eye. The governor looked post-partisan for appointing his former CTA enemy to the school board, but now gets another appointment. And Perata voted in favor of the union, while he simultaneously allowed the destruction of their nominee.

Like on the Orient Express - everybody killed Joe Nunez.

(Photos: Rich Pedroncelli / AP)

Post-Partisanship: GOP Kills Schwarzenegger Appointee

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's surprising re-appointment of a California Teachers Assn. executive to the state Board of Education now in trouble. Republicans think Joe Nunez, in photo, is too connected to the CTA union because, you know, he kind of works there. Is Schwarzenegger doing enough to help his former enemy? Vote comes today.

UPDATE: State Senate Republicans just killed the governor's appointment of Nunez, on a 24-11 vote. Senate GOP leader Dick Ackerman said Nunez's affiliation with the CTA was a conflict of interest he could never overcome - the union has issues before the board every day, on every item: "I think because of the position Mr. Nunez has, it is impossible for him to do this."

An administration source said Schwarzenegger decided to leave this battle alone and declined to arm-twist for Nunez: "The governor respects the Democratic and Republican legislative process and felt he was going to allow Republican legislators to make their decision." California Republicans, after watching their governor offer "universal health care" and more government debt this week, were hardly in the mood to grant Schwarzenegger any favors. They flexed their muscle (Nunez required a 2/3 vote) because they could.

(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP)

Unions Swagger About Power, Image

Despite the overwhelming re-election of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, organized labor is feeling pretty cocky about its power and its image. (Labor pretty much did the bare minimum for Phil Angelides, his Democratic opponent, anyway.) A poll conducted in Los Angeles found labor with high marks among voters there and union leaders are pushing for "union-led" solutions on contracts, health care and protecting the city's new living wage.

L.A. does not represent the whole of California by any stretch. But the confidence that organized labor is showing undoubtedly will be mirrored in Sacramento, where lobbyists are closely watching Schwarzenegger's health care proposals and a new commission he started to overhaul the state's troubled pension system. The poll was conducted by Democratic pollster David Binder. The Times' Joe Mathews got a copy of it, which shows:

• 67% of people surveyed said state government has been doing a fair or poor job, compared to 29% who said it has been doing a good or excellent job.
• Voters are terribly cynical about government; 72% said the government is worse today than it has ever been, and only 34% said they trust the government to do the right thing.
• A whopping 73% said they care more about themselves than helping people; 51% said, "Most people in politics are corrupt."
• 73% said, "Big corporations are taking advantage of people like you," and 56% said elected officials are in the pocket of special interests.
• As for unions, 55% said that without organized labor, "There would be no middle class left in America." Only 31% said they thought the demands of unions were driving businesses to outsource jobs to other countries.

Just a weighted snapshot folks. Take it for what it's worth. Meanwhile, unions this month want to make sure Schwarzenegger's appointee to a commission on pensions doesn't come from labor groups that stayed neutral during the special election in 2005. They want fighters. Those appointees have yet to be announced.

(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP)