It's usually a good thing when elected officials try to explain larger public policy issues by putting them on a scale that ordinary people can understand. That's why every summer in the state Capitol legislators compare the state budget to a family budget, why they explain the benefits of a proposed transportation bond by trying to quantify how many minutes it will deduct from the average commute.

Sometimes, however, the effort can backfire — specifically, when the elected official in question doesn't completely understand the lives of ordinary people. So it was last week, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sought to explain his support for the Minuteman Project by saying sometimes it takes private efforts to supplement the efforts of public police agencies. Like in protecting your house, for instance. "For years and years and years I've hired private security to take care of my house, because I felt that the police could not really cover every house and protect the children and families."

That, of course, is a perfectly understandable position for a celebrity multimillionaire. But coming from the governor of California, the comment carries a certain Marie Antoinette touch. If ordinary Californians feel unsafe in their communities, well, let them eat ... er, hire private security.

Schwarzenegger's foes in the law enforcement community were quick to pounce. A letter signed by the heads of numerous police unions was dispatched to the governor, asking for an apology to his "insult to the men and women who protect California families and communities."

And the California Young Democrats issued a stinging memo to political reporters, saying that Schwarzenegger "has only himself to blame if he feels they (police) aren't up to the job of protecting children and families. His administration has consistently slashed funds for local governments, taking money that would have paid for more police and public safety improvements."

Wrote Alex Reese of the Young Democrats: "It seems that Arnold's approach to public safety can be summed up in two words: Be rich."

California politicians from Phil Angelides to Arnold Schwarzenegger are up in arms over the U.S. House vote late last month to reopen oil drilling along the Outer Continental Shelf. Both candidates for governor strongly condemned the vote and had urged the state's congressional delegation to unite against the bill (in the end, 19 members of the California delegation, voted in support).

Perhaps the stars were aligned against California on this one.

Believe it or not, the Washington Post features an online service that details the votes of Congress by astrological sign. On the offshore drilling measure, the crabs (Cancer) were aligned against more drilling (30-23 against), but the fish (Pisces) felt the other way (13-11 for). Perhaps the fish were enticed by a provision of the bill that would allow oil companies to convert decommissioned platforms to artificial reefs rather than be required to restore the ocean floor to its natural state by completely dismantling offshore rigs after their productive life has ended.

And the Ventura County delegation? Rep. Elton Gallegy, a Picses and a Republican, voted in favor. Rep. Lois Capps, a Capricorn and a Democrat, voted no.

As California legislators last week were sailing through the list of bills necessary to approve the 2006-07 budget deal, there was a slight snag in the Assembly after Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, a career junior high civics teacher in the Moorpark schools, rose to complain about what she saw as a raw deal for teachers.

In a year when there was enough money to settle past scores with schoolchildren, college students, transportation agencies and other groups who'd taken hits during hard times, Pavley wondered why teachers were again at the back of the line.

Included in the budget deal, she complained, was another suspension of a teacher tax credit -- meaning that teachers will again have to forego tax about $165 million in state income tax credits. These credits, established in 2001, were designed to compensate teachers for the out-of-pocket expenses they inevitably incur buying supplies for their classrooms. Pavley read off a long list, starting with boxes of Kleenex, and including crayons, DVDs, poster board -- all the little things that make a classroom work.

For experienced teachers, the credits are supposed to amount to $1,500 a year.

Pavley said she understood when the credit was suspended in 2002 to help the state close a crippling deficit. And she didn't complain in 2004, when it was suspended again. She griped a little when it was taken off the books in 2005. But in 2006, she said, there was no reason to single out teachers as the only group in the state slated for a tax increase.

She withheld her vote on the bill to suspend the tax credit, and was joined by a handful of fellow Democrats. Not until after a brief Democratic caucus did the protesters reluctantly put up their votes.