Abel May Follow Lungren Map
Jumping ahead here, but what happens to Abel Maldonado if the state senate and assembly do not confirm him as Lt. Governor? Almost assuredly, he follows the trail blazed by Dan Lungren and runs statewide waving the senate rejection as a bloody shirt.
I read two articles over the weekend that referred to Dan Lungren’s rejected nomination to become state treasurer in 1987. Garry South’s piece in the L.A. Times spoke mostly about nominees who were confirmed to fill state offices but were turned out by voters in the next election. Cathleen Decker, also in the Times, discussed the Latino angle of the Maldonado nomination and how Maldonado might be treated differently than Lungren.
Fiorina Still Making Rookie Mistakes
Carly Fiorina has officially been in the Senate race for almost a month and the kindest possible take on her campaign is that she’s still got a long way to go.
Fiorina served a decades-long business apprenticeship before she took over as CEO at Hewlett-Packard, but she’s now looking to move to the top of the state’s political ladder without the benefit of any real experience in California politics.
It shows.
Last week, for example, she brushed off Irvine Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, her GOP primary opponent, by arguing at a Washington breakfast that he wouldn’t have a prayer against Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer because he’s, well, a white guy.
While Fiorina insisted that some of her best friends were white guys, she said they just can’t win against Boxer because “she knows how to beat them. She’s done it over and over and over.”
Public Employee Gain Reason for Higher Ed Loss
This Thanksgiving I gave special thanks for the University of California and California State University systems. In California, jobs and economic growth are inextricably linked to the well being of higher education. With their 33 campuses and 670,000 students, UC and CSU play central roles in providing opportunity to students, preparing California’s workforce, and powering our diverse and entrepreneurial economic growth. Put simply, a healthy California economy requires a healthy university system.
Yet, despite its essential importance, higher education’s share of the state budget has been reduced by 30% over the past thirty years, largely to make room for more compensation for state government employees. In the last ten years, cash expenses relating to state employee compensation (just for direct employees only) have more than doubled and now total more than $20 billion per year, in excess of three times what the state provides to higher education. On an accrual basis it’s more like four times.
Commercial Real Estate on the Eve of Destruction
I have written over the past year
or so that the impending crisis in commercial real estate is yet to be fully
felt or appreciated. In the last
couple of weeks, pronouncements from Media sources, think tanks, and real
estate/economics conferences have reinforced my prediction and belief. The ‘Other Shoe’ that hasn’t fallen yet
in this sad economy is about to fall – and, when it does fall, it just might
clobber that shopping mall, office building and other commercial real estate
right in your town.
I spent a few days in Cleveland in
late Summer appearing at a Mediation of a commercial real estate case (the
‘horse-trading’ exercise in what is called ADR – Alternative Dispute
Resolution; otherwise known as the full-employment-for-retired judges
settlement procedure which has swept our legal system.) We sat in a largely empty office building
downtown, looking out over misty Lake Erie, and heard stories of many other
empty or near-empty office buildings in that recently refurbished downtown that
was the bright hope of so many there.
I keep thinking about that nearly empty office building, those empty,
huge corridors and all the people adversely economically affected by that
emptiness.
Coming Together for a Better California
This week’s sobering news that the state may be facing another staggering budget deficit – reported to be nearly $21 billion – should be another indication that, much as we might wish it could, government just can’t do it all in times of shrinking public dollars.
That is why I’m so glad that Keep California Beautiful (KCB) is part of a highly successful public/private partnership that has provided millions of Californians the ability to do the right thing – recycle and keep trash away from our oceans, streams and waterways.
In fact, more than two years ago, KCB began an active and ongoing partnership with the California State Parks and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) that has placed, and continues to maintain, more than 500 seasonal and permanent recycle bins at more than 20 key beaches along California’s coast.