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Dan Walters: Pérez jams both feet into mouth

22.05.10

Memo to John Pérez, who became speaker of the state Assembly scarcely a year after being elected to the Legislature: Dude, you aren't nearly as important as you apparently think you are, and before you open your mouth, you should do your homework.

Pérez demonstrated this week that he's not ready for prime time when he got himself into a spitting match with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over the state budget.

Schwarzenegger unveiled this year's version of what the Capitol calls the "May revise" on Friday and ordinarily, legislative leaders quickly react, not wanting the governor to have the media stage to himself. Accordingly, the president pro tem of the Senate, Darrell Steinberg, listened to the governor's presentation and then quickly issued sharp criticism.

Pérez, however, was absent because he was attending a big bucks "golf tournament" in Pebble Beach to raise campaign money from special interest groups. That may have been a little unseemly, but Pérez would have been well-served to take whatever criticism came his way silently.

Instead, he decided to play the victim card. "I don't think the timing was coincidental," Pérez said when asked about his absence. "I think it was proven to be really a good opportunity for the governor to make ugly proposals and dump the trash on a Friday and then try to distract you into talking about where I was instead of what the substance of his proposals are."

It was a hanging curve ball that the governor's flack, Aaron McLear, knocked out of the park, quickly pointing out that state law, not the governor's whim, dictated the May 14 deadline for a budget revision.

Once again, Pérez should have kept his mouth shut, but he continued to insist that he had been dissed, and then compounded his faux pas by offering the ludicrous rationale that raising special interest money – as much as $60,000 per donor – was just serving the public.

"As long as we have a two-thirds requirement and we have a handful of members holding out and blocking us from putting together a budget that meets the expectations and the values of a majority of the people of the state of California, I've got to do everything I can to create the political circumstances for me to have two-thirds Democratic control of the Assembly so we're not hamstrung," he said, "and part of that is raising enough money to do campaigns."

Having jammed both of his feet into his mouth, Pérez should have quit while he was behind, but no, he did it again, insisting that resisting the governor's budget cuts was all about saving the economy because public employees would lose their jobs – a stance that is, if nothing else, illuminating.

The most important contributors to Democratic campaigns are public employee unions and, one presumes, they were heavily represented at Pérez's fundraiser in Pebble Beach last Friday.

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The Buzz: John Doolittle hits screen in new Jack Abramoff documentary

22.05.10

Former Rep. John Doolittle defends the Commonwealth of the Marianas, a former client of jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in the new film.

Former Republican Rep. John Doolittle has landed on the big screen. A clip of Doolittle is included in the new documentary "Casino Jack and the United States of Money," about former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Doolittle is shown helping Abramoff represent a former client, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The commonwealth hired Abramoff, who's now in prison, after critics charged that businesses were turning the island of Saipan into a sweatshop, forcing some young women to work 18-hour days, seven days a week in garment factories and others to toil as sex slaves.

Abramoff brought in Congress members to tour the factories and then announce they saw no abuses. "This thing about the Marianas is absolutely preposterous," Doolittle says in the film. "And we didn't find anything that was like what was being described. And to suggest that I'm for sex slavery and human trafficking is ludicrous."

Doolittle is first mentioned in the film as one of many Washingtonians, including former White House political adviser Karl Rove, who were pulled into Abramoff's lobbying web. Later, Doolittle's signature is shown on a letter Abramoff circulated on behalf of another of his former clients.

Doolittle has not been charged with a crime and has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing. He declined to seek re-election to his 4th Congressional District seat in 2008, after the FBI raided his home in Oakton, Va., as part of its investigation. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

– Rob Hotakainen

MONEY WATCH

California legislators rely largely on donors outside their districts for cash to fuel their campaigns, according to an analysis released Tuesday by Berkeley-based nonprofit MapLight.org. The report finds that out-of-district donors made 79 percent of contributions to lawmakers in the past three years. The top ZIP code? Sacramento, where most interest groups' operations are based. The analysis excluded contributions from lawmakers' personal funds and cash from political parties.

– Torey Van Oot

WORTH REPEATING

"That don't blow up my skirt, either, let me tell you."

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, referring to upcoming "Big Five" budget negotiations with the four legislative leaders. One of the leaders, new Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, objected to the closed-door meetings after he was elected to the post.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

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California auditor's report figures in medical parole issue

22.05.10

A report from California State Auditor Elaine Howle on Tuesday found that specialty health care for prisoners cost the state $734 million in 2007-08, a figure that advocates say bolsters the case for a medical parole system for incapacitated inmates.

The audit also found that just one-half of 1 percent of the prisoners during that fiscal year, or 1,175 inmates, incurred 39 percent of the specialty health care costs. Moreover, the audit found nearly 32 percent of health-related overtime costs, or $136 million, were related to guarding and transporting inmates for care.

Ways to reduce prison health costs could include "a review of the program that allows for the early release of terminally ill or medically incapacitated inmates, and other possible means of altering the ways in which inmates are housed without unduly increasing the risk to the public," the audit said.

The state Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill Monday by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, that would set up a medical parole system specifically for inmates who are in a vegetative or highly incapacitated condition. The measure is awaiting a vote on the Senate floor.

The prison health system has identified 21 inmates whose average annual health care and guard costs total more than $1.97 million each for a total of $41.4 million a year. Leno said the number of inmates who would qualify for medical parole under his bill may be even higher.

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California legislative analyst backs targeted tax increases

22.05.10

Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor answers reporters' questions after criticizing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to balance the budget by eliminating welfare and child-care subsidies.

Disagreeing with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's nonpartisan legislative analyst Tuesday recommended imposing targeted tax increases rather than killing the state's welfare program and child care subsidies.

Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, looking at the governor's new budget proposal, said that eliminating such key elements of the state's safety net in bridging a projected $19.1 billion budget gap would harm the neediest families.

"We think we should do everything we can to preserve the programs – now, that doesn't mean we can't make reductions in them," Taylor said at a Capitol news conference.

Aaron McLear, Schwarzenegger's spokesman, applauded Taylor's finding that the governor's revenue and deficit projections are reasonable, but added, "We disagree with (him) on his call to raise taxes."

Taylor's recommendations strike at the heart of what are expected to be tense budget negotiations over how deeply to cut key programs and whether to raise taxes.

Schwarzenegger, speaking to business leaders Tuesday, trumpeted what is likely to be a recurring theme in the budget fight: Lawmakers spend too much, save too little and expect to be bailed out.

"This is why they always come back for more taxes, more revenue," Schwarzenegger told a crowd of hundreds at the annual Sacramento Host Breakfast.

"Let's not go after business to pay for their mistakes," he added.

Schwarzenegger also touted other elements of his agenda – budget, tort and tax reform, bolstering future rainy-day funds, altering the pension system, and passing initiatives for an $11.1 billion water bond and to create open primaries in which the top two vote-getters compete in the general election, regardless of party.

But California's massive budget deficit, coming on the heels of a multibillion gap last year, is the Capitol's most urgent issue.

Democratic leaders have not pushed for a general tax hike but consistently have said it is unconscionable to decimate the state's safety net without asking businesses to chip in more.

Taylor did not contest Schwarzenegger's projection of a $19.1 billion budget gap, which would include a $1.2 billion reserve. He recommended closing it by cutting programs and raising revenue – but not by hiking state sales, personal income or corporate taxes.

Specifically, Taylor suggested options such as raising alcohol taxes, increasing community college fees, allowing oil drilling on the offshore Tranquillon Ridge, suspending corporate tax breaks, imposing a fee on structures in wildland areas where the state provides fire protection and extending an increase in the vehicle license fee that is set to expire in June 2011.

Taylor recommended the state consider suspending the Proposition 98 school-funding guarantee during the fiscal crisis.

To preserve basic services for the neediest Californians, such as welfare and child care for the poorest of families, Taylor suggested cutting into funds for universities, trial courts and public safety local assistance grants.

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, in a written statement, said that Taylor's report confirms Democrats' contention that the governor's budget proposal is unrealistic and would harm the economy.

"The Legislature faces many difficult and painful choices in closing this deficit, but that difficult task is made nearly impossible when the governor does not propose a serious, sober document that addresses the needs and values of Californians," he said.

Assembly Republican leader Martin Garrick urged Democrats to "get serious about bipartisan negotiations" that do not "start from scratch with a hyper-partisan budget plan that relies on spending and taxes to resolve the budget deficit."

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