Recently Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg talked about pulling the massive $14++ billion water bond off of the November ballot, and pushing it to a future election. His concern is that its presence on the November ballot could endanger the passage of the Governor’s proposal to increase income and sales taxes. I have written a lot about the “porkulus” so-called water bond that was the subject of a bi-partisan lard-fest in late 2009. In this article in the San Jose Mercury News, former Assemblyman Chuck DeVore suggests that the bond should be cut in half — and that most of the remaining borrowing would be repaid by those using the water. That would be a great idea. Short of that, if you can believe it or not, I’m with the Sierra Club’s Jim Metropulos: “If the legislature won’t repeal it, I want to see an up or down vote in November.”
The campaign of Presidential aspirant Mitt Romney released their statewide campaign leadership. Honorary State Chairs are former Governors George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson. Seven Statewide Chairs were named — Rep. Mary Bono Mack, Carly Fiorina, Rep. Darrell Issa, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Buck McKeon, and State Sen. Tony Strickland. Standing out for his infamy on a list of Romney CA Campaign Co-Chairs is Rep. Jerry Lewis. Dubbed the minority maker in Congress, Lewis’ legacy as he leaves Congress this year is one of profligate spending on egregious earmarks. The practice earned him the title “Minority Maker” from the editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal. Many good picks by the former Massachusetts Governor for his California Team — the Lewis pick was atrocious.
The purpose of a ballot title is to let voters know what someone does for a living — now. It is not appropriate to list a former occupation on the ballot, whether you were the former President if the United States, or a former NASA astronaut. It is also pretty sketchy for someone who currently serves in our (unfortunately) full-time legislature to have a ballot title that does not include their being a legislator.
Most FlashReport readers have probably never heard of my home town of Rancho Santa Margarita. Nestled in the inland foothills of South Orange County, we are a quiet bedroom community. There is an effort underway here to put a ballot measure before our city’s voters to prohibit our part-time city council members from collecting gold-plated healthcare benefits (or cash-in-lieu). The measure would also impose strict term limits as well. I have seen recent polling on these issues — if the measure gets onto the ballot, it will be overwhelmingly passed by the voters. I fully support it.
I read with interest today a story in Politico which detailed that Mitt Romney’s expansion of the beachfront home he purchased on San Diego County. I was fascinated to read that there are going to be elevators at the home… for the family cars. This is happening.
I was sifting around on the Secretary of State’s Cal-Access website earlier (it actually was working) and decided to see how State Senator Bob Dutton, who is running for Congress in the newly created 31st District in San Bernardino County, was spending the hundreds of thousands of dollars he has spread out across an officeholder account, a State Assembly campaign account, and a San Bernardino County Supervisor campaign account. Dutton is prohibited from using these funds in his race for Congress. That said, I got an education today on campaign filing requirements. When I went to look up the reports, I saw that Dutton had not filed reports for any of these accounts since last week’s cutoff. I reached out to Dutton who referred me to his professional treasurer, longtime FR friend Betty Presley. I found out that if you do not appear on the ballot this year as a state or local candidate, and have not contributed from one of your candidate controlled committees to a candidate who is running for state or local office this year, you do not have to file a report until the reporting period ending on June 30th. Guess we’ll find out after the fact if Dutton got “creative” with any of those funds.
As a lover of chocolate, I happily consumed this story on California Watch.