| We would be remiss not to note the importance of the date. We should never forget.
Now to the links:
• Arnold has officially lost at least one battle on the question of furloughs. The State Compensation Insurance Fund ruling disallowing the furloughs went final today.
• Former Asm. Jerome Horton won confirmation to Judy Chu's former Board of Equalization seat today. Horton was always a moderate in the Assembly, and lost the primary to Chu in 2006. He would have to run for re-election in 2010 if he desires to keep the job. One would hope that there is no incumbency advantage for an appointment by this lame duck governor.
• One very bright spot in the big PPIC survey is that the concept of a part-time legislature, which would be a dream for special interests, has almost no support, with only 23% in favor.
• Well, the Spanky Duvall story is definitely keeping the Sacramento types entertained. Dan Walters loves it while traditional journalists just like writing about the sordid details. And, on the other side, there were a couple stories using the affair as a basis to discuss the perils of lobbying. Outside the Capitol, Zachary Roth has a tick-tock on TPM Muckraker about who leaked the story to the media, which looks more and more like Jeff Miller, the OC Yacht Partier sitting next to him in the committee room. Would be fun to see Jon Fleischman pop up in the comments and explain himself out of this.
• This state audit of the corrections system has lots of juicy tidbits, including the factor of overcrowding on overtime spending (almost 1 in 3 of all prison guards earned more than the top pay rate for someone two ranks above them because of all the overtime) and eventual pension payouts (costing the state up to $1 billion in the future). And this:
Nearly 25 percent of the inmate population is incarcerated under the three strikes law. We estimated that the increase in sentence length due to the three strikes law will cost the State an additional $19.2 billion over the duration of the incarceration of this population.
The entire report is here.
• Well, here's one point for transparency advocates: the FPPC began posting warning letters online. Previously, you had to go request the letters from the commission. This simply makes access easier.
• The San Diego Sheriff's Department deployed "military-type crowd control" devices at town hall meetings held by Reps. Darrell Issa and Susan Davis last month. The Long-Range Acoustic Devices, deployed but not needed, are "primarily used in Iraq to control insurgents and can cause serious and lasting harm to humans." Great.
• Jon Fleischman has announced he's withdrawing his proposed CRP bylaw which would have closed the GOP primary to Decline-to-State voters. Good news for the Whitman/Fiorina wing, less so for folks like Chuck Devore. |
