by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

On the Democratic side, our big dogfight of a primary is up here in the Bay Area in SD-03. For the Republicans, it's down in Riverside County for SD-37. There Assemblyman John Benoit is duking it out with former Assemblyman Russ Bogh. CapAlert has more on the race.

The campaign has been a consistent flow of barbs between the two of them. But what I thought was most funny was the ongoing accusation from Bogh on Benoit being a "Gray Davis Republican." There's even a website! Now, to any objective political watcher, Benoit has very little to do with Davis. However, he did vote for the Democratic budget a couple of times, so, I guess he's the evil spawn of Davis.

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

The eyes of the nation are upon Pennsylvaia, but there's still a lot going on right here in California.  So, here are a few stories of note:

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I just wrote about Jeff Denham a couple of hours ago, but apparently Shane Goldmacher at CapAlert did a bit more digging on the Senator from the Central Valley. It seems that Mr. Denham loves taking credit for cutting his own salary, but still likes the money. You see but he puts some nice spin on it. He eats the cake from the back of the freezer, and keeps the new one for later.  Want me to break off the metaphors?

Ok, so here's what's up. The general theory of how Denham played these games is that he would, very publicly, refuse a pay raise. Then a month or two later, he would accept an earlier pay raise. Very sly you see. He stays just one pay raise behind the scale. A few thou a year, nothing too big. And he gets the good press for rejecting the pay raises. All very smooth, unless you have some meddling reporter following your acceptance of these pay raises. So, he gets to complain how awful those other legislators are, and how bad the budget is, all at the same time.  

Unfortunately, someone caught him.  Darn that meddling Goldmacher! Anyway, FYI, the Recall committee has now spent over $200K getting the recall going. Looks like it might actually happen.

Mr. Goldmacher even provided a handy timetable, check it over the flip...

2002

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by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

Things are not looking very good for the prospect of health care reform in California at the moment. The bill AB 1x1 is going to come up in the health care committee tomorrow. Sen. Kuehl, the chair of the committee already indicated she would not support it. That meant if only one other Democratic Senator on the committee pulled their support the bill would not be able to advance on a straight vote. CapAlert has the goods.

On the eve of a hearing for landmark health legislation, a spokesman for Sen. Leland Yee said the San Francisco Democrat will oppose the health care measure. The move throws into limbo whether the legislation has the necessary votes to move forward.

“The costs are a big concern for him,” said Adam Keigwin, a spokesman for Yee, regarding the $14 billion health care price tag that coincides with a projected $14.5 billion budget hole.

We have not yet see the report from the Legislative Analyst that Perata requested. This seems to be an early indication that the report was not particularly favorable.

Meanwhile the It's Our Health Care coalition just sent out an email encouraging their members to contact their Senators.