Perez May Be Forced to Anger Labor
Antonio Villaraigosa, elected Assembly speaker in 1998, was a union organizer for the United Teachers of Los Angeles before winning his Assembly seat.
Fabian Nunez, elected speaker in 2004, was political director of the Los Angeles County Federation of labor before winning his Assembly seat.
John Perez, who’s expected to take over as Assembly speaker next month, was political director for a United Food and Commercial Workers local before winning his Los Angeles County Assembly seat.
And Kevin de Leon, the man Perez nosed out earlier this month to get the nod for the speakership from the Democratic Assembly caucus? He was a staffer for the California Teachers Association and the National Education Association before winning his Los Angeles County Assembly seat.
Are you sensing a pattern here?
Random Thoughts on the Political Scene
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It is ironic that Courage Campaign is out there trying to compare Meg Whitman to Sarah Palin – I really don’t see where the two of them really have anything in common — the intellectual New England woman, with a penchant for over-analysis, versus the free-spirited “frontier girl” from Wasilla Alaska with a tendency to shoot from the hip.
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People keep asking me which of the myriad of reforms coming our way next year via the ballot box will help put California back on the right track. My answer is always the same, why don’t we try electing a Republican majority in the legislature – that’s the “reform” we need.
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Capitol Weekly’s recently released legislative scorecard gave an early Christmas present to the six GOPers who supported February’s massive $16 billion tax increase by leaving the vote on it, as well as the vote to place Proposition 1A on the ballot, off of their scorecard.
California – A Judicial Hellhole?
Well not quite, but it is now on the Watchlist according to the American Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF). The annual report issued by ATRF gives the latest rankings of America’s least fair legal climates. These are places where judges systematically apply laws and court procedures in an inequitable manner, generally against defendants in civil lawsuits. This is ATRF’s eighth annual report.
This year, California has been placed on the report’s Watchlist. The Watchlist shows jurisdictions that may be moving closer or further away from other Hellholes as their respective litigation climates improve or degenerate. I think it is fair to say that ATRF feels California might be slipping further and further into the litigation abyss.
L.A. Live Closes In on Times Square
I rolled my eyes a few years ago when AEG proclaimed that L.A. Live would be like Times Square of the West.
Yeah, right, I thought. Good luck with that. After all, a true Times Square-like town plaza must be widely recognized – accepted, really – by the community as its central gathering place. It must be the one spot where locals go to celebrate or mourn or mark the seasons or just hang out because, well, people yearn to be at the center, in the heart of a city. It’s got to get worn by use. In the public eye.
And L.A. Live? Only a year and a half ago, many Angelenos were dimly aware that it was under construction. Fewer still probably had a clue where it was. How could that vacant place be embraced as our Times Square?
Well, it’s only been a year since L.A. Live more or less opened, and darned if AEG isn’t pulling it off.