AUDITIONING FOR 'COLUMBO' OK, so
AUDITIONING FOR 'COLUMBO'
OK, so Peter Falk does it better, but this afternoon Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave his best portrayal of TV's Lt. Columbo during a brief news conference in the hallway outside his office.
Reporters were hastily summoned -- in fact, given 5 minutes advance notice -- of the event. Schwarzenegger proceeded to give a brief status report on budget negotiations, except that there was nothing new to report: talks are continuing and will continue through the weekend, still no progress on the biggest sticking points. Then, just as Columbo always turned as he started to leave the room and only then asked that one last question that made murder suspects squirm, Schwarzenegger told reporters there was just one more thing he wanted to mention: The administration is rescinding a proposal to eliminate the mandatory six-day period that county animal shelters must keep animals before destroying them. News that the proposal to eliminate the waiting period had been included in the fine print of administration's budget plan was reported Friday morning, and animal lovers were already on the warpath.
Schwarzenegger said the proposal had been an oversight, something that slipped through the cracks as his administration hastily prepared its budget back in December.
He then turned and walked back to his office. The sense among those holding tape recorders and notebooks was that Schwarzenegger's "one more thing" comment was in fact the principal reason they had been assembled in the hallway.
As many politicians before him have discovered, Schwarzenegger quickly realized that the one group of people you don't want to take on is animal lovers.
Posted by Timm Herdt at 4:05 PM
THE CASTING CALL WENT OUT
THE CASTING CALL WENT OUT
When a politician holds a news conference, invites a crowd and posts a sign that no cameras are allowed in the room, you have to figure the purpose of the event is something more than simply announcing news.
That was the case this afternoon, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's advance team staged an elaborate production to announce the signing of new Indian gaming compacts with six California tribes. The event was held on the stage of Sacramento's Veterans Memorial Auditorium, with chairs set up on the floor to accommodate several hundred spectators. As with the Academy Awards, care was taken to assure that every single seat was occupied. Those in the audience included gubernatorial appointees, lobbyists and campaign supporters. The press was herded to the back of the room.
The reason for the audience's presence was evident as soon as the event began, when an amplified voice from off-stage announced, "Please welcome the governor of California,
Arnold Schwarzenegger." The audience instantly rose and launched into a prolonged standing ovation. The compacts were signed on an oversized desk with the governor's seal in front, a desk that once belonged to Gov. Earl Warren,. At the back of the stage were oversized signs that said of Indian gaming compacts, "Promises Made, Promises Kept."
It had the appearance of more than just an exercise in ego-gratification, or the staging of an event that might look good on the evening television news. Schwarzenegger has pledged that he will aggressively campaign against two gambling-related initiatives on the November ballot, and today's event had the look of the production of a television campaign commercial.
All those people in the audience? In Hollywood, they call them extras.
Posted by Timm Herdt at 4:46 PM
GUARDS AT THE DOOR When
GUARDS AT THE DOOR
When you studied "how a bill becomes law" back in high school civics class, chances are no one ever mentioned this...
This afternoon security agents were stationed at the doors of the California state Senate with instructions to stop anyone from the Assembly who attempted to bring over a specific bill from the other house. A sign on the door read: "Anyone wishing to put bills across the desk must check in with the sergeant of arms."
A sergeant posted at the door said his instructions were to look for one particular bill — SB 9, by Thousand Oaks Republican Sen. Tom McClintock, and to not allow it to reach the Senate desk.
If all this sounds unusual or extreme, it is. Here's the background: McClintock, seeking to block scheduled pension increases for certain state workers from taking effect, announced he would amend a bill on an entirely different subject that had passed the Senate and was awaiting action in the Assembly. Going along, Assemblyman Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, placed the amendments in McClintock's bill — a process those in the Capitol call "gut and amend," which means to take one bill and morph it into something else entirely.
Assembly Democrats, perhaps because they didn't want to take up the sensitive issue of revoking promised pension increases to a state employee union, asserted the bill had been improperly amended and tried to ship it back over the Senate on Monday without taking any action on it. The Senate sent it back, saying there was nothing it could legally do with the bill until the Assembly acted on the amendments that had been added in that chamber.
The sergeants were stationed at the door today to prevent another passing of the hot potato.
Expect the issue to come to a head on Thursday when the Assembly meets again.
Posted by Timm Herdt at 5:59 PM
UNANIMOUS CONSENT When Gov. Arnold
UNANIMOUS CONSENT
When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger scheduled a rare press conference for today — June 15, the never-met constitutional deadline for the Legislature to pass a budget — the anticipation in the Capitol was that it would be a bash-the-Legislature affair. Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, the Legislature's leading Democrat, scheduled an afternoon news conference to respond to the anticipated criticism.
Instead, Schwarzenegger said negotiations with lawmakers are going well and that he is pleased with the progress being made. He pronounced Burton a "terrific" person and a "tough negotiator."
As reporters were leaving Schwarzenegger's news conference, an aide to Burton passed out a notice saying that Burton's event had been cancelled because Burton is in agreement that he is "a tough negotiator and terrific."
Now, if they could just agree so easily on whether in-home support workers who help disabled Californians with daily living should take a pay cut, or whether the blind, aged and disabled should lose their anticipated cost-of-living increase in their benefits...
Posted by Timm Herdt at 12:22 PM
DIFFERENT WAYS TO DIVIDE UP
DIFFERENT WAYS TO DIVIDE UP UP $300 MILLION
Amont the healthcare budget cuts proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in January was a plan to eliminate a state-funded program that pays relatives of disabled people a stipend to take care of that person. The program allows the disabled to stay in their homes, and advocates say it saves the state money by keeping them out of nursing homes, where care is far more expensive. In the face of widespread protests and the promise of a federal waiver that would qualify the program for federal funding, Schwarzenegger dropped that proposed cut and reinstated the program in his May budget plan.
An analysis of the original proplosal concluded that 27,000 disabled Californians would lose paid care, potentially forcing their parents or adult children to take a job outside the home and sending them to a nursing home. Another 18,000 disabled Californians, the analysis concluded, would be able to switch to nonrelative caretakers, a change that would qualify them for federal funding.
In other words, the cuts would have had a dramatic effect on the lives of 45,000 families. How much would it have saved the state budget? $277 million.
That figure took on a new significance last week when a legislative committee held hearings into the proposed buyout of Wellpoint by Anthem, a move that would consolidate two of the state's largest managed care providers. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, through a Freedom of Information Act request, disclosed before the hearing that a handful of Wellpoint executives stand to reap a compensation package, including cash bonuses and stock options, of at least $300 million in the transaction.
Anthony Wright, excutive director of the healthcare consumer group Health Access, found the amount invovled to be painfully coincidental. "The amount of executive payouts is in fact larger than many of the healthcare cuts we have debated as part of the state budget crisis; this amount of money could go to provide care to hundreds of thousands of
people."
The consumer groups were particularly critical of the Schwarzenegger administration's Department of Managed Care, which declined to conduct public hearings on the proposed merger. They noted that Schwarzenegger and his political committees have received $92,400 in campaign contributions from Wellpoint and its top executives.
Posted by Timm Herdt at 10:55 AM
ONE LECTURE, TWO LESSONS If
ONE LECTURE, TWO LESSONS
If you remember the electricity crisis and want to read something that will make your blood boil, check out the excerpts from taped phone conversations by Enron traders that were obtained this week by CBS News. You can find the story at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620626.shtml
The remarks, laced with vulgar language, make it plain that not only did power traders manipulate the California market but they also took perverse pleasure in the havoc they were wreaking as they lined their pockets with their victims' cash.
The tapes are so powerful that today both proponents and opponents of electricity reform legislation cited them as evidence for their position. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez said they make the case for a more stable market that he says his reform legislation will engender. Doug Heller of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights says the tape makes clear that anything short of reregulation of electricity markets will again make Californians vulnerable to such pathetic manipulation.
The tapes do underscore that former Gov. Gray Davis was right all along in asserting that federal regulators were turning a blind eye to the most egregious kind of market manipulation that only the feds were empowered to stop.
Posted by Timm Herdt at 2:29 PM
Over the last 22 presidential elections, Ventura County voters have backed the winner 21 times, or 95 percent of the time. It is one of only a handful of counties in the nation that has been such a predictable bellwether.
The Ventura County Star's Sacramento Bureau Chief Timm Herdt on state issues and politics from Sacramento to Ventura County. He can be contacted at 
