SENATE REPUBLICAN CAUCUS
James L. Brulte, Chairman
DAILY BRIEFING
MONDAY
May 1, 2000
GEORGE SKELTON COLUMN
Lessons From the Past for a Very Visible Man
The first thing you notice after walking into the Assembly's biggest hearing room is a large portrait. It's a mid-'60s likeness of the late, legendary Speaker Jesse Unruh. Last week, "Big Daddy's" spiritual presence seemed particularly fitting at the Quackenbush quizzing.
Unruh never looked better nor has his wisdom been more sage. The intimidating pol's portrait hangs alone on the high wall behind committee members, his face grinning down at witnesses. On this day, the witness was Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush, neck-deep in scandal.
One could construct a coffee table, perhaps even a dinette, out of the studies and reports on the financial crisis of California's local governments that have been produced during the last decade.
Thousands of printed pages and hundreds of thousands of words have been generated by legislative committees, blue-ribbon commissions, academics, consortia of local government officials and private think tanks. They are so numerous, in fact, that later ones quote heavily from earlier ones,
With Jose Medina quietly eased out of the directorship of the huge and hugely troubled state Department of Transportation, Gov. Gray Davis faced just one remaining problem child among his appointees: Veterans Affairs Secretary Tomas Alvarado.
And now Alvarado, a one-time Wilson administration official, may suffer the same fate. Alvarado faced a mid-May deadline for state Senate confirmation and his approval was, legislative sources say, problematic at best.
Hoping to lure more low-income Californians into the state's sprawling park system, Gov. Gray Davis today will cut in half the fees visitors pay to use it. The new fees, to be announced this morning in Tapia State Park near Malibu, will be reduced from as much as $6 for day use to as little
as $2--the lowest in almost two decades. "We created the park system for all Californians," Davis said in an interview. "We are blessed with a wonderful economy that provides us the resources to return California parks to the people, and I feel an obligation to do it."
Nearly five years after both the University of California and state voters approved measures that banned race and gender preferences, the contentious issue of affirmative action is once again bubbling to the surface -- both on campuses and nationwide.
Proponents of affirmative action hope to persuade UC regents to bring back the policy, though it would mostly be a symbolic gesture aimed at persuading more minority students to apply and attend. But opponents of race and gender preferences -- including UC Regent Ward Connerly -- are
Texas Gov. George W. Bush came to the East Bay -- to the Contra Costa Times -- for the first California newspaper editorial board interview of his presidential campaign.
In a nearly hour-long meeting, Bush discussed his chances of winning in California in November and pledged to campaign hard here despite Vice President Al Gore's lead in the polls. A transcript of the interview follows. The answer to the first question is reprinted in full. Other
After a decade-long struggle to weave dozens of former military bases into California communities, pollution left behind by the armed forces has complicated and stalled ambitious plans to convert the 12 most heavily contaminated bases into industrial parks, museums, airports,
housing and other civilian uses. These facilities, representing 41% of the state's closed bases, are plagued by some of the worst pollution in America. Although at least $1.6 billion has been spent on environmental problems at the sites, records and interviews show that none have been
California Could Experience Blackouts During Summer
A heat wave could leave Californians in the dark this summer, federal and state officials say. ``If it's very hot for four or five days in a row, there's a reasonable possibility we could have blackouts,'' said Rich Glick, who is electricity adviser to U.S. Energy Secretary Bill
Richardson. Unlike portions of the East and Midwest, California did not suffer widespread power outages last summer. But the state is facing a short-term power shortage. Four new power plants are under construction, nine others are in the permit-obtaining stage and dozens more are being
The scene has played out time and again in California during the 2000 presidential campaign: Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee, swings through the state and -- virtually without fail -- makes at least one high-profile stop in a Latino setting.
His objective: To stop the hemorrhage of Latino votes from the GOP, a fact of life since the divisive fight in 1994 over Proposition 187, the measure championed by then-Gov. Pete Wilson -- a Republican -- that sought to restrict public services to illegal immigrants.
Delegates to the Green Party met this weekend at the University of California-Berkeley for their state convention and, gosh, were they polite. And everyone was sensitive to the feelings of one another, too.
When a debate Sunday afternoon about the structure of the political party's youth committees got a little testy -- with many people voicing ``concerns'' over it -- a woman stood, noted the bad ``vibes,'' and urged everyone to get along.
In a frantic effort to pass a new health inspection and get out from under federal sanctions, the state veterans home in Barstow overspent its budget and now is in danger of running out of money, according to documents obtained by the Bee.
Both the Barstow home and its sister facility in Yountville have been ordered "to take every possible action" to cut costs or face the prospect of running out of money before the fiscal year ends June 30, according to an internal Department of Veterans Affairs memo.
Fat in the Schools: Food and Fitness Neglect Costs Children and the State
State Sen. Martha Escutia got in the face of her colleagues on the Senate Education Committee the other day, and with good reason. "If we were to be given a grade based on the health of children in our districts," Escutia said, "we would not like the grades we would get."
The occasion for the scolding was a hearing on Escutia's ambitious and important bill, SB 1320, which seeks to pull California public schools back from increasingly negligent food and fitness habits. Too many schools are serving up fat- and sodium-laden fast foods and shirking
Gov. Davis was right when he declared that ``racial profiling is abhorrent and cannot be tolerated.'' But his failure to put any teeth in a bill to stop the odious practice made for a Capitol sideshow that will be remembered mostly for its political theatrics.
Using the considerable weight of his office, Davis forced state lawmakers to drop a bill that would have required law enforcement to record the race of the motorists in routine traffic stops as a way to end racial profiling -- the practice by police officers who stop drivers solely
Binding Arbitration Legislation for Police and Firefighters Goes Too Far
In 1998, Sunnyvale voters appropriately said no to a plan that would have required their city to enter into binding arbitration whenever labor negotiations with public safety officers reached an impasse.
Now a proposal to give police officers and firefighters across California this advantage is on the table in Sacramento -- where it stands a good chance of approval. But state legislators and Gov. Gray Davis would be wise to follow Sunnyvale's example. Law enforcement and firefighter