** The respective Democratic and Republican leaders of the California State Senate and Assembly have just been meeting for the first time in days on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s protean call for a major infrastructure bond package. Having failed in the process of dealing individually and serially with the governor on his late-breaking drive to put some version of a package on California’s June ballot, the legislative leaders are at last talking among themselves to see what they can come up with for California’s November ballot. Expect nothing today. But next week? Stay tuned.
** State Controller Steve Westly, the ex-eBay honcho-turned-leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate, today announced that his office will conduct an investigation of California’s troubled prisons system. The probe will focus on the system’s malfunctioning health care system, where spending has doubled over the past half-decade. “The taxpayers have nothing to show for the billions spent on prison healthcare. Instead, we’ve seen the first federal takeover of a state agency in California history,” Westly said. “My audit will get to the bottom of this management meltdown and ensure that the people of California get a full accounting of their tax dollars.”
** State Treasurer Phil Angelides, the former state Democratic chairman and endorsed choice of most of the state’s Democratic establishment, announced another program in alliance with the state’s teachers unions, this for teacher recruitment. It is unclear how this is to be paid for:
“Restoring and expanding California’s teaching fellowship program to attract bright young people and mid-career adults to teaching.
Rolling back Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fee increases on teacher training.
Identifying the pay and incentives California needs to attract and retain talented teachers.
Restoring funding for teacher support.
Doubling the number of public school counselors to support teachers in the classroom.
Expanding homeownership assistance for teachers.”
** Governor Schwarzenegger has proclaimed tomorrow’s Cesar Chavez Day a day in advance. “As one of the century’s most remarkable civil libertarians, Cesar Estrada Chavez will always be remembered for working to safeguard and expand the rights of farm workers.”
Good for him in this charged moment in our history. Although it is amusing that he remembered Cesar’s day but forgot that little thing called Ronald Reagan Day until reminded of it here on NWN.
** Sac Bee columnist Dan Weintraub has an amusing item on Arnold appointing teachers union official Joe Nunez, the chairman of the Alliance for a Better California (ABC) — which is merely dedicating a couple hundred million dollars to his political destruction — to the state Board of Education. What next? Gale Kaufman to the Cabinet? Warren Beatty to the University of California Board of Regents?
Perhaps this is a new idea. Keep your friends close and your assassins closer.
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| Comments (62) |
Angelides must be whining and wheedling the CTA to pump money into his campaign. There isn’t anything he won’t promise them now.
“The respective Democratic and Republican leaders of the California State Senate and Assembly have just been meeting ..”
I just got a Sac Bee Alert at 2:00 pm, that Nunez has taken Arnold to task for his failure to CLEARLY state that he supports the McCain-Kennedy earned permanent residency/citizenship track. GOOD for the Speaker! Arnold should not be able to play games on this …if he thinks McCain-Kennedy is amnesty like Sessions and others then he should say it NOW…
And this has something to do with infrastructure?
Hey Bill, you should update and include our big lawsuit win. You should have gotten the release, but there is more here. Arnold could owe $25 million in fines out of the whole deal. The judges weren’t very happy that they decided to break the law because they felt like it.
Mr. Bradley, I took Nunez statement to mean that he was addressing the “infrastructure of California’s soul.”.. we are not just about roads & levees…
Seems like in the course of a couple of days, Phil Angelides has gone from being the frontrunner to the latest Democratic disappointment. Phil is evidently so annoying that he has to have his daughters do his ads for him. Unfortunately, “elect our dad” isn’t going to cut it. Neither is being the “Anti-Arnold.” We need a candidate who is going to solve problems, not create more of them by selling out to every union that comes his way.
So let’s get this straight…
Steve Westly is applauded for (finally) investigating a system that has been a failure for several years now (basically his entire tenure of office). The man is simply doing his job (again, finally). Yet, there’s no mention of his failure to investigate First Five (while I believe there was no wrongdoing, there probably should be an investigation).
Angelides is slammed for doing what every politician ever has done – propose a policy without a clear funding mechanism. And a good proposal at that. My girlfriend is a first year teacher in a public school. She can’t even think about purchasing a house in San Jose on her salary, at least in part because she’s got loans to pay off. She also hardly gets any support from her school or her district to do innovative things in the classroom that will positively reach the kids and actually make a difference in their lives. Hell, at least Angelides is proposing things. We’re learning where he stands and how he’d govern. We’ve not had one policy proposal from Westly in weeks and he’s done nothing in office to point to that will show us how he’d govern, and none from Schwarzenegger since the State of the State.
I thought this was the blog of a journalist, not the Westly cheerleading section.
You know, I have a policy of allowing handles for commenters. And you are clearly, shall we say, even with the fake handle, an Angelides partisan. Sorry that I have to note in passing that Phil has not identified a funding source for his latest spending proposals. (If you think that is a slam, you have another think coming.)
If you were not such an obvious partisan you would recognize that that is, you know, unavoidable. In this little thing called reporting facts. Inconvenient though they may be.
The Angelides hacks see their pork flying out the window and are absolutely beside themselves.
Incidentally, “Eli,” Westly has put some out policy proposals that I haven’t bothered to cover. So much for your theory. But never fear, I am sure they are in your files.
The truth of the matter of is that neither Democratic candidate is doing much in public. The policy proposals of either camp I don’t take very seriously since they are generally so much campaign boiler plate totally divorced from the news flow reality of what is happening in government.
Did either candidate weigh in on the great infrastructure policy debate?
No.
Not until pressed to do so. And then only in the most cursory of manners.
I think both candidates have been deficient.
And as for the very prepared Phil Angelides. Well, nothing to say on the great infrastructure debate, which should be his metier given his background as a developer and state treasurer. Nothing to say on immigration, even with the massive rallies around the country, until cornered in a radio station studio in San Francisco.
If I were going after Phil Angelides, believe me, you would know it.
Maybe it’s time to have folks actually sign up in some sort of fashion that locks them into their “pen” names?
The “Charlie,” “Foof,” and “Eli”s of this world are getting tiresome…
“Charlie,” not to surprise you or anything, is an aide to Rob Reiner who was posting from Rob Reiner headquarters. No investigation necessary there. It ended with him following my instruction to confess his sins to Rob.
Bill, I think you should hammer these guys. Think of it as toughlove. You will only make them stronger and better able to deal with the oppo storm Arnold & Co. will employ.
I can’t wait to see the first debate. But if it airs the same time as 24… Well, I’ll just have to read about it later.
“Governor Schwarzenegger has proclaimed tomorrow’s Cesar Chavez Day a day in advance”
It is a STATE HOLIDAY …he had to proclaim it today – his staff like all state workers are off tomorrow…Susie will be able to spend the whole day on his campaign without anyone questioning if she is doing campaign work on our tax payer dollars…Arnold should tell us where he stands on McCain Kennedy…
Is the governor planning any Chavez-related activities for tomorrow?
V. Beirko: Wonderful question!!! I wonder what his “public” schedule says?
Barbara, please read the entire paragraph before commenting on it. You don’t get the joke when you don’t hear the punch line.
I got the joke maybe someone else has troule with a joke
Oh, I know what the joke is. That state workers have to be notified in advance to take yet another holiday.
Why did it take Weintraub and everyone else so long to figure out Joe’s role at the Alliance?
Well Mr. Bradley …whatever…OR possibly, Arnold is little more than a JOKE, proclaiming tomorrow’s Cesar Chavez Day a day in advance…when he won’t tell us where he stands on McCain-Kennedy…and his consultants could be plotting a “Wilson”….
Cesar Chavez was against illegal immigration for awhile. The agribiz was aggresively importing cheap labor to undercut Chavez’s workers here. Chavez later stopped complaining about the cheap labor, once he discovered his celebrity being Mexican was more fun. In 1969, he even led a march down to the border in protest.
Sen. Feinstein with Fabian Nunez at her side said this shocking thing today:
10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants have come here legally.
Julia, I don’t know. I didn’t know he was chairman of ABC, either.
Athlon, Cesar Chavez was against illegal immigration for a very long time, since it provided the growers with an endless pool of strikebreakers.
Even if DiFi said this… she obviously mis-spoke. She and the other Senators are working around the clock and are exhausted and it is tense situation with people like Sessions providing disinformation at every opportunity, and Frist putting a gun to everyone’s head because he wants an enforcement only bill to prevail for PRESIDENTIAL political reasons only…DiFi has made an enormous contribution with amendments criminalizing the building of a tunnel and now this pilot program amendment to McCain – Kennedy for agriculture workers to work legally..
I’m not “Charlie” or “foof.”
I’m Eli. And I am a Phil Angelides supporter. He’s the most experienced of the candidates, and the best choice for California.
Bill, I really don’t want to start a fight with you or the other readers here, but this board has shown a distinct bias against Angelides and in favor of Westly. Various of the posters here have expressed support for Westly, so I’m doing the same, but for Phil, the better candidate.
And I’d also like to point out, that you can’t have it both ways. You said, “Westly has put some out policy proposals that I haven’t bothered to cover.” And “The truth of the matter of is that neither Democratic candidate is doing much in public. The policy proposals of either camp I don’t take very seriously since they are generally so much campaign boiler plate totally divorced from the news flow reality of what is happening in government.”
You can’t say that they’re not doing anything, when you admit that they’re putting out policy proposals (whether you like them or not).
And the fact is that Westly hasn’t put out anything policy-wise in weeks. He’s launched new commercials and released an internal poll, and announced an endorsement (which was actually a dual endorsement), but no policy proposals.
And even if what Phil is putting out is, as you affectionately say, “boilerplate,” at least we’re getting a glimpse of his principles and priorities for the state. And that’s significantly more than we can say for the “stealthy” Steve Westly, or the consumate flip-flopper Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Well, Eli, you are wrong. The Angelides proposals are no better than the Westly proposals.
And to be perfectly frank about it, since you insist, I have known Phil for many years and I am surprised by his inability to rise to the challenge of running for governor. He dodges questions, fails to articulate positions on issues which he should own given his background — infrastructure — EVEN WHEN THEY ARE THE MAIN ISSUE IN THE STATE, and seems to have receded from what I thought was his level of preparation for this project.
Bill, you said, “The Angelides proposals are no better than the Westly proposals.” That may be your opinion, and that’s fine, but you can’t deny that Westly hasn’t put anything out recently, at least not policy-wise.
Check out his website: On the “What’s New” part, the only policy proposal, is the one at the bottom of the page about making community college free. Click the link, and it’s date January 30. That’s two months ago. And you guys on this board refer to him as being stealthy – there’s nothing going on.
Angelides’ policy plans at the very least help us get to know him better as a candidate, and that’s a good thing, like them or not. I happen to like them, you happen to think they’re boilerplate.
That is simply not true. I have received a number of policy proposals from Westly’s campaign much more recent than that.
If you think this is an issue, you ought to take it up with his webmaster.
Angelides supporter? Say it’s not so! Just two month ago, Mr. Jacks was on our blog talking about his status as a “undecided.” Oh how times change.
He was more entertaining to watch when we had our old blog up because the only people reading the blog were us and the Angelides campaign. We also didn’t require a login, so he would post as a few different people – usually “undecided” as well…not realizing that I could tell it was coming from the same place.
No big suprises, but it was funny to watch what they would come up with.
Joel, you’re right. I was undecided then. But I’m not anymore. Partly because I don’t like the fact that you guys censor posts on your blog. Credit to Mr. Bradley who doesn’t condone censorship.
Joel, the other thing I didn’t like about your blog, was that you had staffers posting on your blog without identifying themselves as staffers.
And yes, I was looking at/posting on the Westly blog then, I’ve since stopped, because, as I mentioned before, I’ve been closely following this campaign for some time now.
As for the infrastructure bonds, Bill, try a Google search for “Angelides Infrastructure” and see what turns up. I found a few things:
“California State Treasurer Phil Angelides, Assemblymember Dave Jones
(D-Sacramento), Sacramento County Supervisor Roger Dickinson, and environmental leaders today called on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and members of the California Legislature to derail the State’s path toward sprawl, air pollution and traffic congestion by adopting a “green” infrastructure bond plan that supports smart growth, preserves California’s environment, and strengthens California’s economy for generations to come.”
http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/news/releases/2006/20060223_green.pdf
“The State Treasurer’s Office has conducted an initial review of Governor Schwarzenegger’s infrastructure proposal and found that it does not live up to its own stated commitments, contains misstatements of financial and other information, and leaves many significant questions unanswered.”
http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/news/releases/2006/20060109_infrastructure.pdf
(I’ll admit I’ve got no html skills)
We reserve the right to block blog postings which are patently offensive, those containing blatant lies about Steve Westly, or obvious hatchet jobs from Phil’s shills (i.e “Eli”).
Nothing I ever posted on the Westly blog was offensive, contained a lie about Steve Westly (or anyone else for that matter) and I’m not a Phil shill, just a supporter, and, when I was posting on your blog, I was undecided, and I identified myself as such.
And frankly Nick, I’m offended by the way that you treat California voters. You’ve attacked others on this blog before. If you reflect your boss, then California really would be in trouble if Steve Westly is elected.
Eli,
Thanks for the laughs.
Best,
Nick-
There is not enough information to know this for sure. I still have no clue where Westly stands on giving licenses to illegals. (Or documentation to the undocumented, if you prefer.)
> California really would be in trouble if Steve Westly is elected.
I don’t know his position on that. You know, I have talked with Arnold about that issue, although not recently. He has never been against drivers licenses per se. The current state of play on Arnold’s position there is that he favors giving licenses to illegal immigrants so long as they look different from the regular license, can’t be used for other purposes, and are in line with yet to be promulgated federal security guidelines. The people who are against any drivers licenses for illegal immigrants are going to be disappointed in the end by the governor.
Eli, I appreciate your position. Phil Angelides is a very impressive guy, and a great chairman of the Democratic Party, who may well end up as the next governor. I hope that he emerges from the relative cocoon that both Democratic candidates seem to be in.
this blog has become a food fight and/or sand box. grow up y’all.
seems to be a metaphor for our politics–childish and immature.
for those of us who love california and realize what it once was and could be, it is a shame that the political establishment can’t see past their own self interest and the day to day political advantage that motivates them.
35 million people are being let down every day.
and so it goes.
Oh, believe me, there are FAR worse. Trust me on that.
Comrade Bierko, you may have a very good idea there.
Perhaps this is a new idea. Keep your friends close and your assassins closer.
Not such a new idea ….
Sun Tzu – “Keep you friends close, your enemies closer” a line used in a lot of films …
Or did I miss another punchline?
I know. I changed it.
[...] proclaiming it “Cesar Chavez Day”, but neglects to honor Ronald Reagan on the day California has set aside each year as Ronald Reagan Day. This tells you all you need to know about where the Schwarzenegger administration is today. [...]
Eli: “And frankly Nick, I’m offended by the way that you treat California voters. You’ve attacked others on this blog before. If you reflect your boss, then California really would be in trouble if Steve Westly is elected.”
This is bunk. I can speak as someone who is truly undecided. Nick has been nothing but friendly and open minded. I have been critical at times of the Westly campaign, and Nick has responded graciously.
Eli, it’s good that you stick up for Phil. But stick to actual issues, please.
Time for a hug!
I am happy to share with you where Steve Westly stands on the issue of “driver’s licenses” for the undocumented.
Controller Westly supports Senator Gil Cedillo’s Senate Bill 60 (the current version). Under SB 60, the state would provide qualifying undocumented workers in California with a driving certificate that is in full compliance with the federal Real I.D. Act signed into law by President Bush and meeting two key security concerns – that the driving certificates be easily distinguishable from regular driver’s licenses, and that they can be used for no other purpose.
Interestingly, the current version of this legislation actually addresses the security concerns expressed by the Governor in previous years. Yet the Governor continues to oppose this legislation. His latest rationale is that he can’t sign the bill until the federal government has issued guidelines for implementation of the act at the State level. Frankly, this is viewed as a canard because the language in SB 60 stipulates that it would not go into effect until such guidelines have been established.
I started out as an Angelides supporter, mostly because he’s at least paid lip service to approaches to infrastructure building I consider worthy of discussion–namely “smart growth” and other new urbanist ideas. Bill’s right in that the treasurer ought to “own” this issue, given his background–why isn’t he front and center in the infrastucture debate?
Angelides’ inability to articulate (and sell) a coherent and thoughtful position on infrastucture when pressed is making me have second thoughts about supporting him in the primary. After all, policy is supposed to be his strong suit and if he can’t (or won’t) even talk about issues successfully, Dowd and Co. will make mince meat of him come September.