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Sherman leads Berman in USC poll of Valley voters -- A USC poll taken days before one of the hottest congressional primaries in the nation shows Rep. Brad Sherman leading fellow Democratic Rep. Howard Berman, 31.7% to 24%, with more than 23% of those surveyed saying they had not yet made up their minds. Jean Merl in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/4/12 California's Gray Davis: Recall is 'a risk you assume' in office -- With Wisconsin voters heading to the polls tomorrow to decide whether to give Republican Gov. Scott Walker the boot, California's own recalled governor Gray Davis is sharing his thoughts on the process. Torey Van Oot SacBee Capitol Alert -- 6/4/12 Independent spending on legislative races exceeds $12 million -- Independent groups have spent more than $12 million to influence the outcome of tomorrow's primary contests for state legislative seats, campaign finance filings show. Torey Van Oot SacBee Capitol Alert -- 6/4/12 Smoke and mirrors: Tobacco tax fight comes down to money -- In California, tobacco is big business: Nearly 12 percent of the adult population, or some 3.8 million individuals, are regular cigarette smokers. On average, they’ll each consume about 210 packs -- more than 4,000 cigarettes – each year. Isaac Gonzalez Capitol Weekly -- 6/4/12 Pension reform: Dead until 2014 if Legislature doesn’t act now? -- If the Legislature doesn’t decide to place a pension reform measure on the ballot by June 28 — a bit more than three weeks from today — it’s essentially dead in the water until 2014, reformers are saying. Teri Sforza in the Orange County Register -- 6/4/12 Out-of-state colleges entice Californians -- As budget cuts plague the UC and Cal State systems, colleges in nearby states put more effort into attracting students from California. Stephen Ceasar in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/4/12 Wildermuth: Prop. 28 Only a Band-Aid for Term Limit Woes -- When Prop. 140, the original term limits initiative, passed in 1990, supporters vowed that it would create more competitive elections, banish career politicians from Sacramento and “remove the grip that vested interests have on the Legislature.” How’s that worked out so far? John Wildermuth Fox & Hounds -- 6/4/12 Assembly passes bill to cut commute time from SF to Sacramento -- Maybe it's just coincidence that it was proposed by a San Francisco lawmaker, maybe not, but legislation designed to ease the commute from San Francisco to the Capitol easily cleared the Assembly recently. Jim Sanders SacBee Capitol Alert -- 6/4/12 Jerry Brown aide hobbled by 'vestige of the smoking tent' -- Nancy McFadden, a senior adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown, could be found the other day pushing herself around the governor's office on a knee scooter, green with a basket up front. David Siders SacBee Capitol Alert -- 6/4/12 California cuts some alcohol taxes 94% -- Alcoholic beverage taxes on flavored malt beverages, such as hard lemonade and flavored wines, has been cut to 20 cents a gallon from $3.30 because of a recent state appeals court ruling. Jan Norman in the Orange County Register -- 6/4/12 Orange County officers conspired to dismiss traffic ticket, officials say -- Two Orange County police officers from different departments have been charged with illegally conspiring to dismiss a traffic ticket given to a driver who promised the officers “a bunch of alcohol.” Matt Stevens in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/4/12 Bill highlights tensions Romney would face from House GOP -- House Republicans are pushing a bill aimed at keeping President Obama from enacting new regulations, but they could end up hamstringing a President Romney as well. Russell Berman The Hill -- 6/4/12 California gas prices falling -- California motorists are still paying more than $4 a gallon for gasoline, but ramped-up refineries and falling crude oil prices have eased some of the pain. Mark Glover in the Sacramento Bee -- 6/4/12
State's top 100 political donors contribute $1.25 billion -- In a state with nearly 38 million people, few have more influence than the top 100 donors to California campaigns – a powerful club that has donated overwhelmingly to Democrats and spent $1.25 billion to influence voters over the past dozen years. Coulter Jones and Elizabeth Titus California Watch -- 6/4/12 Voter registration up for Tuesday's primary -- Nearly three out of four eligible voters in California have registered to cast ballots in Tuesday’s election, and fully a fifth of the electorate has declined to state a party preference, according to the state’s elections officer. John Howard Capitol Weekly -- 6/4/12 Contra Costa voter turnout predicted to be 'anemic' set to make tax and candidate decisions Tuesday -- Overall, though, Contra Costa Registrar of Voters Steve Weir predicts an "anemic" turnout that could dip below 40 percent. Lisa Vorderbrueggen in the Contra Costa Times -- 6/4/1 Term limits ballot measure attracts big-money donors, little else -- More than 17 million Californians took the time to register to vote. About 726,000 of them stopped long enough to sign a petition putting Proposition 28 on tomorrow's ballot. But in a signal of just how insular the state's political process has become, not a single person who could be considered a run-of-the-mill, "ordinary" voter has donated to Prop. 28, recent campaign filings show. Stephanie Snyder California Watch -- 6/4/12 Big money can erase big deficits in ballot initiative races -- It was midsummer 2006, and a Field Poll showed Californians favored an initiative for a stiff new tobacco tax by a 2-1 ratio. Three months later, after tobacco companies poured in $66 million to fund a blistering TV ad campaign -- the last ad featuring a doctor in a white smock excoriating the initiative -- the proposition went down in flames. Steven Harmon in the San Jose Mercury -- 6/4/12 Break from campaign mailers will be short -- Tired of all those robocalls and that campaign literature stuffing your mailbox? Take heart. Just one more day to go in this part of the election season and a small break before it starts all over again for the Nov. 6 general election. Rick Orlov in the Los Angeles Daily News -- 6/4/12 CA primary could pick 'birther' to face Feinstein -- A novel California primary that premieres Tuesday was intended to produce moderates, but in California's U.S. Senate race, it could yield a challenger who claims President Obama was born in Kenya. Carolyn Lochhead in the San Francisco Chronicle -- 6/4/12 Nonpartisan Primaries Face Test in California -- When new redistricting maps changed the boundaries of this Congressional district to give Democrats a slight edge for the first time in decades, party loyalists were elated. But now it seems possible that come November there will not even be a Democrat on the ballot. JENNIFER MEDINA in the New York Times$ -- 6/4/12 California voters often don't know much about judicial candidates -- Judges hold considerable sway over the lives of those in their courtrooms. But the average voter either has no clue how to assess judicial candidates or spends little time doing so. Ashley Powers in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/4/12 CalBuzz: Secret Struggles of the Blessed and Privileged -- Last week was a total grind around Calbuzz executive headquarters: We come home with a sunburn from a weekend playing Pebble Beach and our assistant tells us the pool house has termites, the Jaguar place can’t service the car until Tuesday, the 152-inch flat screen is on back order and there’s not a single aft balcony stateroom left on the Cabo cruise. And the gardener simply will…not…stop with the leaf blower. Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine CalBuzz -- 6/4/12 Fullerton residents divided as City Council recall election nears -- The death of Kelly Thomas, a mentally ill man beaten by police, fueled the recall, which has thrown a shadow over the town's leadership and polarized residents. Abby Sewell in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/4/12 D.A. candidates take a nuanced view on crime-fighting -- Several candidates in the race to replace Steve Cooley emphasize need for crime prevention and rehabilitation rather than simply locking offenders up. Jack Leonard in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/4/12 Will San Jose, San Diego lead pension reform? -- One of the reasons that San Diego and San Jose will vote on widely watched pension reforms Tuesday is that they share the same problem: Retirement costs are eating up about 20 percent of their general fund budgets. Ed Mendel Calpensions.com -- 6/4/12
California government unions move to squeeze out private contractors -- With California facing yet another budget crisis that threatens state jobs and pay, employee unions are moving on several fronts to push use of civil service workers instead of private contractors for state government work. Jon Ortiz in the Sacramento Bee -- 6/4/12 Bill would help job-seekers move into self-employment -- Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, introduced the Entrepreneurial Training Improvement Act of 2012 in late May. The bill would make training available for would-be entrepreneurs through local Workforce Investment Boards. Darrell Smith in the Sacramento Bee -- 6/4/12 Davis Dollars are homegrown cash -- When a shop in Davis sells something, the merchant may just get bicycles and tomatoes for payment rather than Benjamin Franklins or George Washingtons. Pamela Martineau in the Sacramento Bee -- 6/4/12
School bond measures raise funds from businesses with financial interest -- As voters around the state decide on more than two dozen local school bond measures tomorrow, the campaigns promoting many of them are funded largely by businesses that stand to benefit financially. Will Evans California Watch -- 6/4/12 More than 75 vocational schools under investigation -- State regulators intend to mete out swifter penalties and tighten oversight of dozens of private vocational schools that have been operating without state approval, in some cases for months. JENNIFER GOLLAN Bay Citizen -- 6/4/12 Class size reduction program continues to unravel -- In just three years, California’s class size reduction program in kindergarten through the 3rd grade has unraveled at a rapid rate, and continues to do so. Louis Freedberg and Sue Frey EdSource -- 6/4/12 Trends in California ed bills -- Tomorrow is primary day, but last Friday also marked some significant yeas and nays. It was the final day for bills before the state legislature to pass out of the house where they were introduced, also known as their house of origin. Kathryn Baron TopEd -- 6/4/12 Civil rights groups sue state for violating rights of English learners -- Civil rights groups are accusing the state of violating the constitutional rights of English learners in the Dinuba Unified School District by implementing a program that bars first- and second-grade non-English-speaking students from reading classes. Corey G. Johnson California Watch -- 6/4/12 Calendar closes in on key ed bills, including transit money protection -- A legislative attempt to secure school transportation funding in future years failed to muster support out of a key committee – a fate it shares with a slew of other education bills that did not meet a key May deadline. Kimberly Beltran SI&A Cabinet Report -- 6/4/12 Tech forecast shows crowded web for schools to navigate -- Even as some districts still are struggling to provide adequate access to computers in the classroom, a new report from a national educational technology group has a dire warning – just five years from now, Internet traffic will be 35 times greater than today, driven by the use of smartphones, tablets, cloud services and digital video. Tom Chorneau SI&A Cabinet Report -- 6/4/12 Stewart: Finance reform without accountability could devastate career tech -- Under the current K-12 public education system in California, programs that are not required, measured, or explicitly funded by the state will disappear from our schools. Jack Stewart TopEd -- 6/4/12
Far from cities, children lack specialized care -- Local health care is virtually non-existent for children with special needs living in rural California. Callie Shanafelt and Heather Gilligan HealthyCal.org -- 6/4/12 Audit: Health care district should do more for community -- The publicly funded El Camino Hospital District must change its business practices and do more for the local community or it should be dissolved, a new audit recommends. KATHARINE MIESZKOWSKI Bay Citizen -- 6/4/12
Walters: Environmentalists move to block Willits highway bypass -- A half-century ago, the 400-mile stretch of Highway 101 between San Francisco and the Oregon border was a two-lane roadway that meandered through dozens of small towns. During summer months, it was clogged with logging trucks and vacationers' trailers. Dan Walters in the Sacramento Bee -- 6/4/12 Sacramento scales back solar project at Sutter's Landing Park -- When Sacramento officials proposed putting solar panels on an old city landfill two years ago, they did so with the intention of providing clean energy to thousands of homes. Ryan Lillis in the Sacramento Bee -- 6/4/12 Longtime Hinkley residents haven't looked back after moving from the community plagued with contaminated water -- Now living in unincorporated San Bernardino County, near Apple Valley, the Kearneys weeks ago downsized and left behind their dream house - custom-built for them in 1995 - which had turned into a nightmare. Jim Steinberg in the San Bernardino Sun -- 6/4/12
Matier & Ross: 28 BART escalators out of service -- How's this for hitting the skids - a record 28 BART escalators were out of service this last week. And "what makes matters worse is no one is working on them," said rider Rodney Anderson. Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross in the San Francisco Chronicle -- 6/4/12
Obama grants pardon to fifth-grader for skipping class -- Of all of the legitimate excuses for not attending class, seeing the president speak is high on the list. But getting an excuse note from the president himself is in a league of its own. Morgan Little in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/4/12
Obama and Romney shun confrontation on religion -- Neither campaign sees an upside, and polls show it's a low priority with voters, especially compared with the economy. Mitchell Landsberg in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/4/12 California a rich state for Obama and Romney -- Californians have already contributed $60 million to President Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney, and there's plenty more fundraising to come. Seema Mehta and Melanie Mason in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/4/12 |
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