Californian of the Year
It’s easy enough to be a success in Sacramento: Make an occasional stirring speech and then vote with the party on everything. You’ll generally be on the winning side if you’re a Democrat and the losing side if you’re a Republican, but so what?
In these days of gerrymandered districts, a record of party-line votes is a virtual guarantee of re-election and personal political success.
But politicians interested in actually accomplishing something for the state should remember the words of that esteemed philosopher, Jay Ward’s Super Chicken:
“You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”
Cortines Challenges Teachers in L.A.
When L.A. schools Superintendent Ramon Cortines said last week that he wants to weed out ineffective teachers because “we do not owe poor performers a job,” it sent a ray of hope to educators across California.
Hey, if it can happen in the huge, sprawling Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the lowest performing urban districts in the state, it can happen anywhere.
Now it’s up to Cortines to make his pledge more than a one-time sound bite.
Cortines make the comment in advance of a Los Angeles Times story Sunday that showed just how lousy a job the district does in evaluating beginning teachers, often giving them tenure – the ticket to a virtual lifetime job – without ensuring that those rookie instructors know what they’re doing in the classroom.
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?
Traffic Problems Costing California Drivers
It’s one thing to hear that California is looking at a $20 billion-plus budget shortfall next year. It’s another to realize just what isn’t getting done in the state because of the financial mess.
A report released this morning by TRIP, a national transportation research group, said the state’s crummy roads are costing California drivers about $40 billion a year from traffic accidents, higher vehicle operating costs and just plain delays from highway gridlock.
The road troubles will do far more than inconvenience drivers stuck on Southern California and Bay Area freeways.
“With an unemployment rate of 12.5 percent … and with the state’s population continuing to grow, California must improve its system of roads, highways, bridges and public transit to foster economic growth, avoid business relocations and ensure the safe, reliable mobility needed to improve the quality of life for all Californians,” the report stated.
Questions Aplenty on Pot Vote
Next November’s election for governor and senator may have to take a back seat to a chance to legalize the sale and use of marijuana in California.
Hey, you can always vote for governor and senator, but the chance to open the market for bud …
Richard Lee, co-author of the legalization initiative, announced Wednesday that his group has collected more than 680,000 signatures, far more than the 433,971 needed to put the measure on the ballot. He plans to submit the signatures next month.
Collecting the signatures was no problem, Lee told Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle.
“People were eager to sign,” he said. “We heard they were ripping the petitions out of people’s hands to do it.”
Poizner Puts Much-Needed $15 Million in the Pot
Well, Steve Poizner’s in the governor’s race to stay.
The state insurance commissioner said Sunday that he’s putting $15 million of his own cash into his GOP campaign for governor, upping his personal contribution to about $19 million or roughly the same former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has given to her effort.
The money puts paid to the rumors that:
1. Poizner really didn’t really have millions to spend on his campaign.
2. Even if he had the money, the insurance commissioner really wasn’t serious about a 2010 run for governor.
Poizner said in a statement to supporters that he’s going to use the money to tell voters about his plan to close the state’s budget problems by slashing taxes, making the supply-side economic argument that lower taxes will stimulate growth and bring in even more tax revenue.
Perez May Find Speaker’s Job No Prize
Congratulations, I guess.
After a messy in-house squabble, Assemblyman John Perez of Los Angeles was anointed Thursday as the next speaker by his fellow Democrats. Although the formal vote on the Assembly floor isn’t anticipated until January, it’s expected to be a mere formality, with no Republican votes needed
So Perez, who’s been in office less than a year, now gets to step into what historically has been one of the most important posts in California after a landmark win for a young politician.
He should be careful what he wishes for. Just ask Karen Bass.
Bass, who’s also from Los Angeles, was sworn in as speaker in May 2008. During her first two terms, Bass pushed hard to make life better for California foster children, provide health insurance for California young people and make improvements in her district.
Consultants Relieved at Prop. 8 Case Ruling
Political consultants, both Republicans and Democrats, likely breathed deep sighs of relief last week when a federal appeals court blocked efforts to force Prop. 8 supporters to turn over private campaign strategy records to supporters of gay marriage.
It wasn’t the politics of the case that put the usually dueling opponents on the same side, since the Democratic consultants generally support same-sex marriage, while many of their GOP counterparts oppose it. No, this one was strictly business.
If political enemies – or even friends – could subpoena the private and often uninhibited musings that consultants put out during a hard-fought campaign, a new day was going to be looming for campaign work. And it wouldn’t be fun.
In an amicus filing in the case, the ACLU of Northern California, a longtime backer of same-sex marriage, argued that opening campaign documents for legal fishing expeditions would have a “chilling effect” on political campaigns.
Press Yearns for Brown Governor Fight
With Jerry Brown moving inexorably toward a profoundly boring walkover win in the Democratic primary for governor, desperate political reporters are making the rounds of would-be candidates, shouting their traditional war cry:
“Why don’t you and him fight?”
The latest plea comes from Dan Weintraub of the New York Times, a former Sacramento Bee columnist who should know better. He’s pumping up former state Controller Steve Westly as someone with “a forward looking centrist background” who might be the Democrat “best positioned for a general election campaign.”
Not only that, the story added, Westly could “combine money, experience, high-tech roots and relative youth” into a package that could keep the 71-year-old Brown out of the November election.
Initiatives Shouldn’t Be a Joke
Is $200 and a stamp a cheap price to pay for joke? What about when those giggles are being subsidized by California taxpayers?
John Marcotte, a 38-year-old Sacramento web designer, has a proposed 2010 ballot initiative that would ban divorce in California. He told the Associated Press that it’s a satirical piece aimed at opponents of same-sex marriage.
His proposed constitutional amendment would take marriage protection to a whole new level, Marcotte told the Sacramento Bee.
“If you want to protect traditional marriage, don’t stop gay people from getting married,” he said. “Stop straight people from getting divorced.”