In an Op Ed in Monday’s LA Times, Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstin of CalBuzz, analyze the two declared candidates for California governor, Republican eBay diva, Meg Whitman, and Insurance Commissioner, Steve Poizner —and the undeclared candidate, the once and maybe-would-be governor, Jerry Brown.

I can at least answer one question that Roberts and Trounstin pose:

Q: When will Jerry formally announce?

A: This Tuesday. (Call it an informed bet.)

UPDATE: Like I said.

For me the other question to be answered is this: now that Jerry’s spent the last two years madly courting every law enforcement organization, agency and union in California, how progressive will he have the nerve to be on criminal justice issues in a state that desperately needs wise criminal justice management and reform?

On an unrelated topic, Marc Cooper’s ongoing commentary on the Chilean earthquake has been excellent.

As most of you know, on Thursday morning the US Supreme Court blasted aside a century old ban on corporate elections spending with its 5/4 decision in the case known as Citizens United.

Here’s how the LA Times explains it:

Until now, corporations and unions have been barred from spending their own treasury funds on broadcast ads or billboards that urge the election or defeat of a federal candidate. This restriction dates back to 1907, when President Theodore Roosevelt called on Congress to forbid corporations, railroads and national banks from using their money in federal election campaigns. After World War II, Congress extended this ban to labor unions.

Now all that has been handily wiped away.

If you want to know a bit more about the broad strokes of the case, listen to NPR’s Nina Totenberg.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times also has a fairly cogent description:

Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

The 5-to-4 decision was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said that allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt democracy.

The ruling represented a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections were conducted.

Ironically, this comes right at the time when ordinary Americans have been growing increasingly alarmed and enraged by the way that big money interests influence lawmaking, both on Republican and Democratic sides of the aisle. However, after Thursday’s decision, those big money interests will be able to go upstream of the pesky and time consuming lobbying process in order to focus directly on buying electing the lawmakers whom they believe will view their agendas from the most felicitous possible perspective.

The Citizen’s United decision is being presented as a free speech issue. Yet, it was not really speech that was being protected on Thursday. It was the ability to use unlimited corporate money to slam or promote a candidate. Had it been so inclined, the court could have narrowcast its ruling to address the principle that was the supposed center of this case, which was the right to show, shortly before an election, an attack dog documentary on Hilary Clinton.

But the five Supremes who voted to give Citizens United its victory, went much further than a decision that would have merely viewed the documentary as protected. Instead the court gave its blessing to the corporate right to spend an unrestrained amount of cash in promoting and buying time for said documentary— or election ads or whatever form of electioneering a corporation thinks will most benefit its candidate of choice. Cynically, the court shrouded all this suddenly unfettered corporate elections spending under the cloak of the First Amendment.

In his written dissent, an impassioned Justice Stevens, vehemently objected to the Constitutional slight of hand that would magically transform a Lehman Brothers or a Pfizer into a…well….person. Here’s how Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick puts it in her article on the ruling,The Pinocchio Project: Watching as the Supreme Court turns a corporation into a real live boy:

Stevens hammers, more than once this morning from the bench on the principle that corporations “are not human beings” and “corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires.” He insists that “they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.”

But you can plainly see the weariness in Stevens eyes and hear it in his voice today as he is forced to contend with a legal fiction that has come to life today, a sort of constitutional Frankenstein moment when corporate speech becomes even more compelling than the “voices of the real people” who will be drowned out. Even former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist once warned that treating corporate spending as the First Amendment equivalent of individual free speech is “to confuse metaphor with reality.” Today that metaphor won a very real victory at the Supreme Court. And as a consequence some very real corporations are feeling very, very good.

The rest of us, I am sad to say, should feel very, very worried.

Look: I’m trying to forgo commenting on issues that are purely national news, but this sums the events of Tuesday up so well (inhaler-necessitating wheezes and all) that I cannot possibly avoid posting it.

Also, the above clip demonstrates once again why an entire generation looks to Jon Stewart as their primary news source—as opposed to the purported actual news sources.

UPDATE:

FROM THE OH, REALLY? SEZ YOU! FILE

Once again proving my contention that the world of city politics is just like high school, but with higher stakes, according to the LA Times, District Attorney Steve Cooley said today that he is going to prosecute marijuana dispensaries no matter what the city council decides. (See earlier post a couple of paragraphs below.)

The district attorney said his office was already prosecuting some dispensaries, and he promised to step up efforts next month. Cooley said he decided to weigh in today because he was irritated that the council had ignored the advice of the city attorney, Carmen Trutanich.

“What the City Council is doing is beyond meaningless and irrelevant,” he said.

Alrighty then. That certainly settles that. Rough translation: Screw you, City Council.

******

Then later, Councilman Ed Reyes made his own statement in response to Cooley’s statement. It should be said that Reyes is, at the moment, sounding like the voice of sanity.

Here are some LA Times clips from the Reyes volley in this escalating ping-pong match:

Councilman Ed Reyes, who has overseen the development of the city’s ordinance, said he did not think Cooley’s comments would cause the council to rethink whether to allow sales. “This is not about Cooley versus Reyes, or Cooley versus the council. This is about the quality of life. We all have better things to do than to do this legal jousting,” he said.

[SNIP]

Once the council acts on the issue, Reyes said, “We expect the city attorney to vigorous defend our medical marijuana ordinance.”

Um, about that last thingy, Ed. Lots of luck.

KILLER OF FLOR MEDRANO WAS A SPOUSAL ABUSER WHO HAD BEEN DEPORTED TWICE

On Monday, officials released the name of the 23-year-old man, Daniel Carlon, who stabbed 30-year-old single mother, Flor Medrano, in her mid-city apartment before two LAPD officers were able to stop him. Carlon, it seemed, had a past of abusing women, and had been deported to his home country of Mexico twice in the past two years. But each time he returned.

Baxter Holmes and Andrew Blankstein report in the LA Times:

Alrighty then.

Carlon had also pleaded guilty to charges of domestic violence in two previous cases, both of which involved another woman, according to Michele Daly, a family violence prosecutor with the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office, which had jurisdiction.

The first incident occurred in March 2005. According to Daly, who quoted from a police report, Carlon threatened violence against the victim if she reported the abuse to authorities. “If you call the police department, we’re both going to die. I’ll kill you if you call the cops,” Carlon told the victim

After pleading guilty to felony spousal abuse, Carlon was sentenced to 180 days in jail and was ordered to complete a 52-week domestic violence program. When he was released in the fall of 2005, he began stalking the same woman again, Daly said.

The woman filed a report in November stating that Carlon was harassing her over the phone and knocking on her window, which he broke. The woman also hid from him, Daly said. He was sent to prison in February 2006 for two years after he again pleaded guilty to felony spousal abuse.

There’s more here.

CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEES TO CITY ATTORNEY: “SMOKE ON THIS, BUDDY!”

After what has been described as a raucous four hour meeting, two separate committees from within the city council voted to reject the recommendation from city Attorney Carmen Trutanich, to label all retail sales of marijuana as illegal and criminal.

The city attorney and DA Steve Cooley recently reinterpreted the medical marijuana statute much more narrowly than most other legal professionals who have commented on the law.

The LA Times, has this:

After the members of the planning committee and Public Safety Committee voted, David Berger, a special assistant to City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, said it is up to the council to decide whether to accept the office’s legal advice. “Our duty is to advise them on what the law allows for and not to go on a whim,” he said. “They decided to go a different way.”

Councilman Ed Reyes, who has overseen most of the council’s consideration of the issue, expressed exasperation with the city attorney’s office. “I think they are very, very narrow in that they’re taking their prosecutorial perspective,” he said.

The long-delayed measure could be taken up by the full council as soon as Wednesday. “We need something on the books now. There is no reason why we should delay,” Reyes said

And John Guenther of Neon Tommy had this.

Councilman Ed Reyes, who has been driving the creation of dispensary legislation for the past two years, released some pent up frustration with the city attorney’s office.

“For two years, we have reached points of disagreement,” Reyes said. “We have a hearing here on Monday. And again it’s the same posturing that I’ve been enduring for the past two years in office and I find that very disconcerting.”

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY OFFERS NEW RIGOROUSLY EXCLUSIVE COLLEGE DEGREE—TO INCARCERATED FELONS.

The New York Times reports:

Though community colleges and others, like Boston University, have long had inmate programs, the two-month-old Wesleyan program is one of a few in the country where the selection process is highly rigorous, where academic potential is the primary criterion and where past criminal conduct, however heinous, is not considered in admission.

Some 120 inmates applied at Cheshire for 19 spots in the program. The process required them to submit essays, some of which can be read here, on weighty matters like Frantz Fanon’s view that language helped “support the weight of a civilization” or Sigmund Freud’s thoughts on happiness.

Many states—California among them—dropped most of their college programs after the Clinton administration did away with Pell grants, that once upon a time used to help to help pay for the state programs. In California, the few educational programs remaining have been first on the chopping block due to the budget crisis.

But Wesleyan, it seems, is committed to making this program work. The New York Times has more about the prisoner/students, their admissions essays and their course work.

Photo by Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times

Okay, Gavin Newsom has dropped out of the race for California Governor, for “family” reasons (AKA bad polling numbers).

Meg Whitman is a rich witch [It's Halloween and that's a technical term.] who believes she can buy an election, can’t remember when she last voted and won’t show up for debates. (In terms of her chances to win the 2010 race: Ebay, shmEbay. Snowball meet hell.)

Thus far, the rest of the Republican field—Tom Campbell and Steve Poizner—ain’t strong enough to stand up to the once-and-would-be-future Gov: Jerry Brown who, even though he’s an old guy, he still has enough energy to lite several medium-sized cities and is running an excellent pre-campaign campaign, what with all his high profile nabbings of mortgage fraudsters and other nasty types.

But, then also yesterday there was the kerfuffle bannered on the front page of the SF Chronicle, about how Jerry’s press guy illegally taped a conversation with a reporter and now, as it turns out, a lot of conversations with reporters.

Quite a scoop—except that painting the taping as illegal is quite a stretch.

Federal law says that if one side knows about the taping, the other side doesn’t have to know. However, yes, California law requires that both sides must know, but only if the conversation is a “confidential communication.”

California penal code defines “confidential communication” as:

….any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive or administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.

An on-the-record interview for the purposes of later publication does not snugly fit within the covers of confidential.

On the other hand, if you are working for the state’s top cop and you do this stuff without mentioning it to those whom you are recording, and then defend yourself by saying, “you guys do it so we get to,” you look like an idiot.

A little while ago, Jerry wisely suspended the staffer, Scott Gerber.

Which brings us to…….Antonio.

I heard late on Friday afternoon that after the twinned news announcements of Gavin’s bow out, and Jerry’s guy’s Nixonian moment, there was chatter among high level staff in the Villaraigosa’s office about what a “great governor” the mayor would make.

One assumes that this is merely wishful thinking, and that Antonio and his people are not (gulp) actually contemplating such a move.

It is just wishful thinking, right Mr. Mayor?

WILL THE SENATE FINALLY PASS A FEDERAL SHIELD LAW?

This week the Senate Judiciary committee will turn its focus on the long-debated but never passed shield law for journalists. It will be the first bill taken up and marked up by the committee, which is significant, reported the Washington Times, as it generally suggests the committee is favoring the bill.

Writing for the Washington Post, Walter Pincus has the most complete run down on the issue —including all the lobbying that has been going on for the bill, which Barack Obama vocally supported during his campaign.

And if the bill does get out of committee, where will bloggers fall in this whole shield deal?

Drawing by Patrick Finney

In Sunday’s LA Times, pediatric doc Alex Blum writes about the case that still haunts him, and what it suggests for the debate over health care reform.

Here’s how it opens:

Along with every other pediatrician I know, I have seen far too often the unconscionable consequences of children not having healthcare coverage. One case still haunts me.

In the middle of one night during my training at a county hospital outside of Los Angeles, a 12-year-old boy arrived at the emergency room. He was having a seizure. From a brain scan, we made the terrible diagnosis: He had suffered a massive stroke. At best, he would be severely disabled for the rest of his life.

SUPREMES SAY CALIFORNIA CANNOT DELAY JUDGE-DEMANDED PRISON POPULATION REDUCTION

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme court said it would not extend California’s Sept. 18 deadline for coming up with a plan that will reduce the state’s inmate population by 40,000 inmates over a period of two years.

The SF Chronicle has the story.

In a brief order Friday, the justices refused to extend a Sept. 18 deadline for telling a special three-judge panel how California will reduce its inmate population by roughly 25 percent over two years.

The order does not represent a decision on the merits of the state’s appeal. Instead, it is a procedural ruling that nonetheless forces the state to comply with the panel’s directive to present a plan for lowering the number of inmates while the appeal goes forward.

It is difficult not to see some irony in the fact that, after weeks and weeks of squabbling and grandstanding, the state legislature couldn’t manage to pass its plan to reduce California’s prison population by 27,000 (through sentencing and parole reform combined with alternative sentencing for certain inmates).

Instead, on Friday, lawmakers passed a wimpy piece of legislation that reduced the lock-up population by only 16,000 inmates.

Yet, now it looks increasingly likely that a panel of federal judges will force a prison population reduction of 49,000—nearly twice the number that was in the bill the legislators wouldn’t pass..

This oughta be interesting to watch.

SCOTUSBLOG has more on the Supremes’ decision.

SCOTUS, THE HILLARY MOVIE AND THE 1ST AMENDMENT

Last Wednesday the Supreme Court heard arguments about what has now become known as the “Hillary, the Movie” case.

According to the experts who are quarreling about the issue, the case could either:

1. Trash the campaign finance laws that, since 1907, have been restricting corporate contributions.

OR

2. Endanger the First Amendment.

The New York Times got a panel of legal scholars and law professors together to give their opinions on the damned-whichever-way-they-rule situation.

Then on Sunday, columnist George Will wrote an opinion column on the dilemma for the WaPo.

Here’s how it starts:

Last March, during the Supreme Court argument concerning the Federal Election Commission’s banning of a political movie, several justices were aghast. Suddenly and belatedly they saw the abyss that could swallow the First Amendment….

Both are worth reading.

Just at midnight, Sec. of State Debra Bowen tweeted that 76.1% of the votes were in and counted.

It’s more than over.

1A-1E have dropped like stones, spontaneously combusted upon impact, and burned to cinder.

1F, which limits pay raises for legislators and statewide officeholders in deficit years, is sailing through on a tail wind.

Works for me.

YES, THESE ARE ACTUAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Okay, well, they are reasonably recommend-ish anyway, Or at the very least, a set of luke warm suggestions.

Ready? Here goes:

YES ON 1A & 1C, NO ON THE REST.

Let me qualify that.

I think you should strongly consider voting YES on 1A. When I say “strongly consider,” I mean that I would not simply reject 1A in frustration without careful thought, just because the past year’s irresponsible behavior on the part of most of the state’s lawmakers makes you feel understandably angry, bitter and vindictive.

Read some of the links I’ve got listed in the post below-–like, say, read the recommendations by the San Diego City Beat, by the LA Times, by the SEIU, plus the statement by the UC Regents, and what Sheila Kuehl says.

That’ll give you a broad Pro/Con spread that will allow you to make an informed decision one way or the other.

Look, I’m not entirely convinced that 1A won’t cause trouble down the line, but I think it’s okay, and it is a short term tourniquet, which is the point, right now.

Bottom line: this is a hesitant recommendation for a YES vote on 1A. (The alternative is a No vote, and that doesn’t seem so great either. )

My only other YES is on 1C, the Lottery Modernization Act. In fact, this is the single measure that I can support with less of a sinking heart. As Sheila Keuhl put it:

Of the six billion current dollars estimated to come from all the propositions combined (not counting increased tax revenue three and four years out), more than five billion is estimated to come from the sale of the lottery receipts. Although I do not support increased encouragement for gambling, this income could be the least damaging.

If “least damaging” is the best we can hope for, which sadly I suspect it is, I say let’s go for it.

However you vote, at least show up. No excuses.

Okay, very late tonight I may, or may not, have actual recommendations on those six pesky ballot measures we’re voting up or down tomorrow, Tuesday, May 19. (The primary issue holding up my endorsements is that I’m looking for the right coin to flip.)

But until then here’s where you can go to find who says you ought to vote for or against what.

In summary, the big progressive sites—places like Calitics and The Courage Campaign—say no on all of ‘em. Feh! A pox on everybody.

But then so does the we-don’t-need-no-stinking government-we-can-pave-our-own-roads Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Ditto the California Republican Party, so things are confusing.

The CA SIEU says no on 1A with extreme prejudice. But yes on 1C, the so-called Lottery Modernization Act. And, YES on 1B, (even though they acknowledge its a somewhat empty gesture without 1A.)

Meanwhile, The LA Times, and the Sac’to Bee say: Yes, No, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes. (In other words, No on 1-B, Yes on the rest.)

The SF Chron says Yes to all six.

The San Jose Mercury News said Yes to the first 3— then the Merc’s editorial board decided it was REALLY exhausted from all that deciding so took a nap. (When they woke up later they said it’s okay if you vote yes on the other three.)

And just to make sure you’re entirely befuddled, San Diego City Beat said Yes to 1-A and 1-F, No to the rest.

The California Federation of Teachers said YES only to B, which leads one to believe that they didn’t bother to read the freaking things, as you can’t have B without A passing. (NOTE to CFT: Reading comprehension is your friend.) Either that or the board of directors is collectively off its meds.

But the California Teachers Association says YES to all.

University of California Regents says YES to 1-A, and they sound all heartrendingly pleady as they make the case.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the members of the California State Legislature say we absolutely have to pass every one of the six… OR WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

Former State Senator Sheila Kuehl says that there’s a case to be made pro and con for the first three (Sheila is a surpassingly diplomatic woman), but the only one of the three she, personally, would be tempted to vote for… is 1-C.

As for the second three, she says No, No and No—but in greater and more anecdotal detail.

So there you have it. Good luck to us all. We will assuredly need it.

(Now where is that $#@&^$%#$ coin!)

*******************************************************************************************************************
PS: Yes, I am suddenly into taking silly photos of the cat. It’s either that or my kid, and the cat has a more flexible schedule.

Okay, he gave it. It was pretty good. Antonio can be quite moving when he puts in the effort. The man does, after all, have skills. And, since he is planning to run for Governor, he did put in the effort.

The LA Times has a nice rundown on the main part of the speech, which had to do with what the city was going to do to help itself and its residents survive this economy. (You can find the speech in full after the jump.)

Apart from the economy et al, there was one other significant section of the speech. And that was the last big section, the stuff about education.

Antonio praised charter schools in a big way—in particular Green Dot and its takeover of Locke High School—which, now that it is eight months into its first school year, can be tentatively labeled a real and very heartening success, even though it is still early days.

AV also praised the new Alliance charter that has opened up to rave reviews on the Cal State LA campus.

Rather than fight the charters, Villaraigosa made clear that the district must actively partner with them—thus giving a loud message to the union leadership (We’re talking to you, Mr. Duffy) that they need to get over their charter aversion and start making some deals.

None of this was new. Antonio was just swaying to the popular music of the moment, educationally speaking, and telling us to sing along.

But he assuredly set the right tone. Charters are the reform leaders right now. Anybody paying attention knows that. But the mayor saying so gave it a nice official stamp.
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