Thanks for the info on Ralph Dau. (By the way, it’s “Dau,” not “Rau.”)

I wish I knew more about that decision he made—not the principle behind it, about which I entirely agree with you, but the legality of it. The text of the ruling on the billboard settlement ought to be out there somewhere. If anyone finds it, please do post it

Look, Lloyd Levine’s a good guy. Honestly they’re both good people and competent lawmakers. But I’ve followed Pavley pretty closely because I live in Topanga and our Dem groups tend to get very involved with this sort of thing. For my money, her side of the ledger is stronger. (I’m on a deadline or I’d list more of the legislation she’s sponsored.) But neither is a bad choice.

Lloyd Levine has done more for us locally in SoCal, like getting the funds for the extra ramp at the 405/101 interchange, which has already improved traffic on what’s considered among the handful of WORST interchanges in the country, and he’s working on further transportation issues. He’s just as strong on environmental issues as Pavley, who many feel has put forth onerous measures to drive out business. (Yeah, Woody, when it comes to our California Dems it’s pretty much a matter of who’s done the most good in the process of coming up with expensive environmental measures, and I’d say it’s Levine in this case.)

Celeste: …James Bianco. He is very experienced and would likely make a dandy Superior Court Judge. Write his name down.

Dandy? I went to the Met News site that you linked about him. First observation from looking at the picture: Gay.

Here’s what the article said about Bianco:

The Public Defender’s Office is so fed up with Bianco that as of February, it will no longer stipulate to him presiding over misdemeanor trials.

Word has spread through the Public Defender’s Office that in one instance Bianco, at a sidebar conference, asked a deputy to confer with her client on a matter and, when she proceeded to walk over to the counsel table to do so, he barked out the command never to turn her back to him again.

Dissatisfaction with his performance is also discernible within the District Attorney’s Office. One higher-up in that office comments that Bianco was “one of the worst to run the arraignment court.”

…in confidential questionnaires, and Bianco says that it was recited to him that he had been described as “impatient” and “arrogant.” …Disavowing a temper problem, Bianco immediately adds: “I’ll qualify that. I definitely have good days and bad days….”

Bianco recalls that as the calendar swelled, and he was trying to control it, there developed “some real tension in the court.”

Looking back, the commissioner says that “there were things that I could have done differently that would have worked better.”

(Here’s the worst part.) Bianco was born in New York….

So, this is the guy that Celeste recommends? Good grief.

Now, regarding Pavleysky, here’s a quote from a site that you linked. Fran Pavley: In California, not only is the debate about global warming over, but we also reached a tipping point about a year ago last summer…. Really? Do you know just how stupid that is?

Some choices. Write in your own name.

Certainly the Sierra Club’s an obvious communist front, and the LA City and LA County Firefighters plus all those law enforcement groups are not to be trusted, so I guess I see your point.