BREAKING NEWS FROM 2011: California GOP Guards the Border
“If I have to, I’ll send the National Guard to the border. If that doesn’t work, I’ll send the California Highway patrol to the border. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll send the California Republican Party to the border.” – Steve Poizner, March 2010
CALEXICO, Calif. (Associated Press), July 5, 2011 — The difficult first day of Gov. Steve Poizner’s deployment of thousands of California Republican Party regulars to the Mexican border ended in frustration, with reports of dozens of injuries.
No immigrants were harmed during the day – or even apprehended. Those who were confronted by Republicans as they tried to cross the border found that they could easily outrun their would-be GOP capturers, who in most cases appeared to be more than a quarter-century older than the would-be migrants they attempted to turn back.
The Republican border watchers were not nearly as fortunate. Several collapsed from the heat during the chase for immigrants. There were dozens of reports of falls and broken hips, and paramedics were dispatched to treat two GOP border police for heart attacks.
Banned By Labor
What are we to make of the California Labor Federation’s decision to put a prominent Bay Area Democratic political consultant on a banned list that includes Wal-Mart, union-busting hotels, and a major donor to Prop 8?
In case, you missed it, consultant Jude Barry was placed on the fed’s “Do Not Patronize” list, a dishonor reserved for who “have been identified as unfair employers and adversaries of the labor movement.”
What was Barry’s sin? Did he work for a strikebreaking firm? No. Did he become a Republican?
No.
Barry’s sin was his involvement in a controversial electronic signature technology.
Is There a GOP Strategy for Winning Back the California Legislature?
If there is such a strategy, it is a very closely held secret.
From what I can discern from examining the party’s efforts in legislative elections, Republicans have no plan for winning back the legislature. Yes, the party and legislative leaders have plans for winning a few seats this year, but that’s not the same as winning back control. Heck, it’s not even clear that winning back the legislature is a strategic objective.
Why? Well, the answer one gets when posing that question to Republicans is the obvious one: the districts as now drawn put winning the majority out of reach. That answer should be unsatisfying if you’re a Republican, because it reveals the mentality of a permanent minority. It’s hard to see, given how Californians have sorted themselves geographically into communities of the like-minded, how redistricting reform is going to produce a legislative map that will permit the GOP to recover the majority.
What’s required is a change of mindset – and the embrace of change that Republicans have too long resisted.
Californians Turn Against Legislative Democracy
Who says Californians can’t come to agreement on anything?
In fact, we seem to have reached a significant consensus: we’ve given up on legislative democracy.
Perhaps that overstates things, but the most recent poll numbers from Field suggest that Californians’ have had it with lawmakers. The survey results are nearly identical, with Californians not distinguishing between the state legislature of the U.S. Congress.
For the state legislature, 13 percent of Californians surveyed approve of the legislature’s job performance; and just 12 percent approve of Congress’ job performance. Seventy-eight percent disapprove of the legislature, and 79 percent disapprove. And these ratings aren’t much different between the parties. Democrats and Republicans alike give very low approval ratings to these legislative bodies.
Mark DiCamillo of Field told me Tuesday that it is “unusual” for Californians’ views of both the legislature and the Congress to be so similar. He cited public frustration with the partisanship and ineffectiveness of each body in a time of urgent economic and budget challenges.
Calbuzz Is Right About Me
As the wisest and most powerful actors in California’s
journalistic and political words, Calbuzz did me a great favor by putting me in
my place today.
In
fact, what they said is an honor. It is especially gratifying to get such a
knuckle-rap from bloggers who – in these times of great challenge – focus their
reporting on important public service topics, such as Jerry Brown’s eyebrows.
One
strong bit of evidence that the Calbuzzers are right about my not having done
enough reporting is that I have never been able to confirm the factual claims
that Calbuzz makes in their attack on me. My meager reporting for example
failed to turn up the fact that:
-the Whitman campaign bowed to
Calbuzz in deciding to become accessible to the press corps.
Opening Up Governors’ Papers
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.
Memo to Reporters: Be Careful What You Wish For
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
Five Questions That Probably Won’t Be Asked At Today’s Debate
Here are the five questions that I wish would be asked at today’s debate, but probably won’t be.
1. Ms. Whitman and Commissioner Poizner, the next governor will face budget deficits estimated at $20 billion annually, and a broken governing system that makes it virtually impossible to balance that budget. Several commentators have said you’d have to be crazy to want to be governor under such circumstances. So please describe your entire family mental health history and whatever treatment you are currently receiving.
2. To both of you, polls show that you are a member of a political party whose members believe that President Obama was born in another country and that the theory of evolution is nonsense. Do you agree? If so, what other patently false things do you believe?
3. Commissioner Poizner, early reporting in this race suggested that you are a billionaire like Ms. Whitman. It turns out you are not. Why is it that Meg Whitman richer and more successful than you are?
Your Signature Is Already Electronic, and Other Notes from the San Mateo Case
Guess what? Electronic signatures aren’t new to California politics. In most counties of this state, records of voter registration are kept in electronic form. So when the clerk’s office checks to see if your pen-and-paper signature on an initiative petition matches the signature they have on file, the signature they’re comparing it with is an electronic one.
I learned more about this through reading the fascinating court filings in the case of Ni v. Slocum, a new lawsuit that asks a superior court judge in San Mateo County to find that an electronic signature on the marijuana initiative – Michael Ni signed it electronically with the touch screen of his iPhone – is valid and should be counted. The county’s chief elections officer, Warren Slocum, ruled the signature invalid.
Arnold’s Third Term
Californians, meet your next governor.
Let’s call him Jerry Schwarzenegger.
As former California Gov. Jerry Brown officially rolled out his 2010 campaign for governor this week, he was confronted by questions about how a new Brown term in the stateh ouse might be different than his first, an entertaining if unfocused eight-year stretch from 1975 to 1983.
But in trying to reassure voters that he’s learned lessons, Brown looked and sounded like an older, Zen version of the unpopular incumbent, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who can’t run for re-election because of term limits.