Brown urges unions to go on the offensive

While she’s anything but an unbiased source, Janice Hahn makes a good point in her effort to have the state’s election cops shackle Gavin Newsom’s fund-raising efforts in the Democratic race for lieutenant governor.

The Los Angeles councilwoman and her attorneys have filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission, arguing that Newsom shouldn’t be allowed to accept money from anyone who gave him more than $6,500, the contribution limit for the LG race, during his aborted run for governor.

By collecting big contributions for his run for governor, spending the cash before dropping out and then raising new money from the same people to finance a run for lieutenant governor, Newsom “has flouted state (campaign finance) law in an unprecedented manner,” Hahn’s FPPC filing said.

The stakes are huge for both Newsom and Hahn, even if the power of the LG’s office isn’t. Since the contribution limit for the governor’s race is $25,900 and Newsom collected more than $2.3 million from a whole bunch of donors before waving the white flag, the San Francisco mayor has lots of deep-pocketed friends who could find themselves maxed out on contributions before the LG race even gets started.

Recently, Allan Zaremberg penned a piece for Fox & Hounds announcing the launch of a new website, CalChamber2010.com, for the upcoming gubernatorial election.

I think the one thing that struck me most about this site, which any true politico should visit regardless of political stripe, was the way that the site presents a depth of information in a highly organized and approachable way. (Full disclosure: one of my partners in Fox & Hounds, Bryan Merica, heads up the digital creative shop that built the Chamber's 2010 site.)

In particular, there are two really original features that I haven't seen anywhere else. Both of these features (Video Vault and Head-to-Head comparison) can be accessed using the Chamber's "widget" posted below:

When I wanted to try out a restaurant or a store or hotel that’s new to me, I’d first go online to check out the reviews by patrons.

I wrote that in past tense for a reason: I don’t do that too much anymore. I grew too suspicious of supposed critiques by supposed customers.

You’ve probably noticed that many online reviews fall into one of two categories. Using restaurant reviews as an example, there are the flowery critics (“This breathtaking restaurant is amazingly superb in every imaginable way!”) and there are the snarky ones (“Expensive mush served by resentful dropouts in a hard-to-find place with sticky floors.”).

Reviews in the first category apparently are ginned up by restaurant owners or their mothers or their bankers. Those in the second apparently are written by competitors or ticked-off ex-employees.

Momentum, thy name is Meg Whitman. The newly released Field Poll caps an extraordinary surge in energy for the Republican gubernatorial candidate in less than one week.

Just a week ago, Whitman was being excoriated by the media for holding a press availability and then would not talk to the press. Questions were asked whether she could handle the heat of a political campaign and the knock-about, unscripted situations that test one’s mettle during a campaign.

She quickly turned those doubts around with two steady performances in front of the media microphones at the state Republican convention and topped it off with a confident turn at the Monday debate with Republican gubernatorial rival, Steve Poizner.

Now the Field Poll finds Whitman pulling away and trouncing Poizner by 63% to 14%. For good measure, the poll revealed for the first time Whitman was ahead of Democratic gubernatorial opponent, Jerry Brown, 46% to 43%.

Could there be a small break in the dam protecting records of California’s former governors?

Maybe. Last month, I received notice that former (and perhaps future) Gov. Jerry Brown had granted me a waiver from state laws that permit him and other former governors to restrict access to their papers for 50 years or until their death, whichever is later.

The waiver applies only to me, however, and not the public at large. (Peter Scheer of the California First Amendment Coalition told me that he received a similar waiver). The terrible 50-year restriction – part of a state law that effectively gives governors personal control over public papers – remains in place.

In an email, Zackery Morazzini, senior deputy attorney general, said my request for access was “only recently brought to the attention of the former Governor.”

What’s strange about that is that I filed the request in August of last year, and wrote about my request in the LA Times last November.

EDD released its “benchmarking” of 2009 payroll employment recently, and the results were dramatic. The monthly payroll surveys had indicated that payroll jobs declined during 2009 by 579,836 jobs. However, a fuller review of payroll data by EDD indicated the true job loss was 818,400 jobs—an additional 338,000 jobs lost. .

Taking this recent information, the chart below shows the payroll job numbers in California by sector in December 2006 and in December 2009—a period in which the state payroll jobs decreased by 1,400,000 jobs.

Cross-posted on NewGeography.com.

California is in trouble: Unemployment is over 13%, the state is broke and hundreds of thousands of people, many of them middle-class families, are streaming for the exits. But to some politicians, like Sen. Alan Lowenthal, the real challenge for California "progressives" is not to fix the economy but to reengineer the way people live.

In Lowenthal's case the clarion call is to take steps to ban free parking. This way, the Long Beach Democrat reasons, Californians would have to give up their cars and either take the bus or walk to their local shops. "Free parking has significant social, economic and environmental costs," Lowenthal told the Los Angeles Times. "It increases congestion and greenhouse gas emissions."

Scarily, his proposal actually passed the State Senate.

One would hope that the mania for changing how people live and work could be dismissed as just local Californian lunacy. Yet across the country, and within the Obama Administration, there is a growing predilection to endorse policies that steer the bulk of new development into our already most-crowded urban areas.

Republican gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner spoke talking points and policy for the most part in their first debate last night in Orange County. The two candidates tried to cut each other but there were no big bombs hurled at the debate after weeks of nasty charges made back and forth.

The focus of the debate centered on two major issues that Poizner emphasized to separate himself from Whitman: an-all-out tough stand on illegal immigration and across-the-board tax cuts.

Poizner attempted to distinguish himself as a bold reformer taking the path that few are too squeamish to follow. Cut taxes across-the-board and pull the benefit rug out from under all illegal immigrants. “Turn the magnets off” that draw illegal immigrants to California, he demanded.

Whitman would not go as far putting out a plan to control illegal immigration by eliminating sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants and requiring verification to determine workers are in the country properly.

To: The California Media

From: Joe Mathews

Re: Meg Whitman

Congratulations. After months of your complaints about how Meg Whitman was ignoring media questions, she gave two press conferences this weekend. Gee, thanks.

Now, we get to hear Whitman say really, really interesting and provocative things like…

“I think it’s firm and its ‘listen, here’s my approach, here’s what I want to get done, here’s what the people of California expect us to do so let’s focus on these three things…”

and

“The legislature is interested in many things but they’re interested in being re-elected, so can we focus the Legislature around my three priorities?”

and

A new survey published today by Xavier University reveals that Americans believe “The American Dream” is now harder to attain than ever before.

60% of respondents say that The American Dream is harder to reach today than it was for their parents – the Greatest Generation – even though their parents’ generation was ravaged by World War II.

A whopping 68% of respondents also think that, compared to the current generation, it will be even more difficult for their children to achieve The American Dream in the future.

The survey illustrates that Americans are rapidly losing confidence in America’s future, and it telegraphs every parent’s worst nightmare – that their children are the first generation in history not expected to do better than their parents.