RECALL FOLLIES/From OC Register
Recalling Gov. Bustamante
[the Editors] 7/22/03 | The effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis keeps barreling along. Certification of the recall by Secretary of State Kevin Shelley could come as soon as Wednesday. | Three major developments have occurred in recent days: First, the recall signatures still are being challenged in court by Taxpayers Against the Governor's Recall, the high-taxing governor's committee. Last Friday, a Los Angeles Superior Court denied the committee's request for a restraining order to halt the election. Yesterday, the committee appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal. | If the certification proceeds, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante will call the election within 60 to 80 days. The election could some as early as Sept. 30. | It's unlikely any court will halt the will of the people for long, so we should prepare to ride the wild surf of California's first-ever recall vote on a governor. | Second, Gov. Davis finally is showing leadership. Too bad it isn't as governor, but on the campaign trail, where he always has been a master. [more at OC Register]

RECALL FOLLIES/From SF Chronicle
Fall Recall Appears To Be Certain
Circus of scenarios hits a critical point
[Robert Salladay, Carla Marinucci] 7/22/03 | The recall campaign against Gov. Gray Davis is producing a dizzying carnival of legal and political scenarios that will reach a critical point this week as a special election on whether to oust the Democratic governor appears certain to be declared for this fall. | Democrats face the difficult task of holding rogue members of their own party from running on a recall ballot. At the same time, third-party candidates, independents and Republicans could be forced to make rapid-fire decisions this week on leaping into a quick and inevitably nasty campaign. | Under a quirk in California election law, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante could give these replacement candidates only a few days, perhaps just 24 hours, to file their paperwork for governor. Recall supporters warned Davis challengers Monday to be prepared to move quickly or be left flat-footed. [more at SF Chronicle]

RECALL FOLLIES/From Town Hall
Inside The Numbers: California
[Matt Towery] 7/22/03 | If ever there were an example of how quickly political fortunes can change, it's that of beleaguered California Gov. Gray Davis. The most recent polling numbers suggest a majority of the Golden State's residents want him out of office in a recall election. But for that to happen, Republicans may have to turn to a true "Terminator" as the state's alternate choice. | Davis, whose haughty demeanor and slick style have finally caught up with him, appears to be the poster boy for politicians who care only about one thing -- themselves. Prior to his re-election last year, Davis looked to posturing for a future run for the White House. He even spoke once in front of a blue oval sign designed to resemble the one that hangs in the White House pressroom. Subliminal, but silly. | Well, that version of California dreaming is out the window. Today, with an approval rating in the 20 percentiles, Davis faces an out-of-control state budget even as he claims he had prior knowledge of the state's huge deficits that he didn't disclose. | The recall petition, launched by Bay Area Congressman Darrell Issa, likely will be certified by the California secretary of state this week. This despite endless lawsuits and challenges by Davis allies. Conservatives outside California might wonder how a Democratic incumbent governor in a left-leaning state could be sinking so fast. At least in part the answer is a massive defection of moderate Democrats away from Davis. As two traditional Democratic voters -- a successful Oakland businesswoman and her husband -- put it, "We're just tired of him putting politics ahead of dealing with the problems." Surprisingly, both said, "We don't vote Republican, but if Arnold Schwarzenegger runs, we're for him all the way." [more at Town Hall]

FABULOUS BUDGET/ From Sacramento Bee
California Doesn't Need Nevada-Style Court Ruling
[Daniel Weintraub] 7/22/03 | Three of California's top Democratic officeholders are poised this week to ask the Supreme Court to set aside the constitutional provisions requiring a two-thirds majority for the Legislature to pass a budget and raise taxes. The Democrats seem to see the maneuver as a simple, common-sense legal request that will rise or fall on its merits. I see it as undermining the rule of law. | State schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell was the first to jump on the idea, inspired by a Supreme Court ruling next door in Nevada. The Carson City court described the Silver State's two-thirds requirement for tax increases as a mere "procedural" impediment and ordered the Legislature to ignore it while fulfilling another constitutional imperative, funding the schools. | Gov. Gray Davis says he thinks O'Connell is on to something and says he will join him if Republicans in the Legislature fail to support a budget by early this week. Treasurer Phil Angelides, meanwhile, says he will ask his lawyers to file a brief supporting O'Connell's petition. | The crazy thing is that California doesn't even need such a ruling to take care of its schools. Our constitution already allows the Legislature to pass the education budget by simple majority vote through two different avenues, including the declaration of an emergency by the governor. The reason the Democrats haven't done this is that passing the school budget by itself would leave the Legislature fighting over programs such as health and welfare assistance to the poor, which the public cares less about than the schools. The Democrats are holding the schools hostage, in other words, as leverage to get what they want on other matters. [more at Sacramento Bee]

FABULOUS BUDGET/ From Sacramento Bee
Supermajority Votes Undemocratic?
It depends on the issue
[Dan Walters] 7/22/03 | A coalition of political interest groups, led by public employee unions, is promoting a ballot measure that would, if enacted by voters, abolish the two-thirds vote for state budgets and the taxes to finance them, effectively eliminating the power of minority Republicans to affect state spending decisions. | The measure would lower the threshold from two-thirds to 55 percent. With the Democratic margins in both legislative houses frozen above that percentage, Democrats would be free to do whatever they wished on spending and tax matters. | It is, proponents of the change argue, inherently undemocratic to allow a legislative minority to dictate fiscal policy for the state, noting that California is one of just a handful of states requiring supermajority votes on budgetary matters. | The argument may be valid, but it is more than a bit ironic that the same political interests that want to eliminate supermajority votes on budgets in California are very supportive of the Democratic filibusters on President Bush's judicial appointments in the U.S. Senate. It takes a supermajority vote of 60 senators to break a filibuster (ending otherwise unlimited debate), so on highly controversial matters of any kind, 60 votes become the threshold in the Senate. | What's undemocratic in Sacramento, those on the political left seem to be saying, is quite appropriate in Washington. And with a vote in the state Assembly on Monday, they seem to be saying that undemocratic supermajority vote requirements should become a legal mandate in local government, at least when it pertains to police and fire labor contracts. [more at Sacramento Bee]

CAMPAIGNEERING/From OC Register
Will 'Radical Centrist' Ascend In S.F.?
Supervisor who objects to panhandler blight looks likely to be next mayor
[Doug Gamble] 7/22/03 | Visitors to San Francisco who have had their enjoyment of the city's charms ruined by aggressive panhandling will be heartened to know the next mayor could be the first in the city's history to tackle the blight in a meaningful way. A plan authored by Supervisor Gavin Newsom - a son and grandson of San Francisco politicians and front-runner in this year's mayoralty race - makes so much sense and could prove so beneficial that left-wingers are, of course, doing all they can to stop it. | Named "Care Not Cash," Newsom's initiative would cut city welfare payments to the homeless from as much as $410 a month to $59, but provide food, shelter and other essential services paid for with the estimated $13.9 million a year savings in welfare cash handouts. Most local governments in California have scrapped direct cash payments to the homeless, but San Francisco's is the most generous, attracting down-and-outers who often use the money for booze and drugs rather than shelter and food. | Newsom's vision made it onto the ballot as a proposition in last November's elections and was approved by 60 percent of the voters fed up with the repugnance and harassment associated with people living outdoors. But horrified, so-called homeless advocates challenged the election results in court in an effort to maintain the liberal status quo, and a judge threw out key components of "Care Not Cash" in May, ruling that only supervisors can set welfare policy. [more at OC Register]

DC-CA/From SF Chronicle
Outspoken Stark No Stranger To Bombast
At 71, no plans to retire despite rumblings
[Mark Simon] 7/22/03 | Since he burst onto the Bay Area political scene more than 30 years ago as a wealthy banker with surprisingly liberal, anti-war opinions, Rep. Pete Stark has made a habit of ruffling the carefully arranged feathers of congressional colleagues. | But while the Fremont Democrat's bipartisan tongue-lashings occasionally have attracted national attention -- such as last Friday when he called a Republican congressman a "fruitcake" and invited him to step outside -- he has been re-elected overwhelmingly every two years since 1972. In the past three elections, he has received more than 70 percent of the vote in his district, which stretches from Alameda south to Fremont. | Still, as Stark approaches his 72nd birthday and his 17th term in Congress, there are rumblings that it might be time for the veteran congressman to retire. [more at SF Chronicle]

WEST BANK OF THE SEINE/ From SF Chronicle
How To Change Capitol's Culture
[the Editors] 7/22/03 | Abuse of democracy is a daily scandal that is hidden in plain sight in Sacramento.
The practices that seem so outrageous to outsiders -- the nonvoting, the after-the-fact switched votes, the scheduling of fund-raisers to coincide with deadlines on legislation -- hardly raise an eyebrow within the Capitol. It's just the way business is conducted in the California Legislature. | But tactics to avoid accountability are becoming disturbingly commonplace in Sacramento, as detailed on Monday's editorial page. More and more major bills, especially on consumer issues, are failing because legislators simply fail to vote. It's a way for politicians to play both sides of an issue: They can help kill a bill, often pleasing a campaign contributor, without having to answer for a "no" vote. | There is only one way to change the culture in the Capitol -- change the rules. [more at SF Chronicle]

HOLLYWOOD RIGHT/From Weekly Standard
Miller's Crossing . . .
. . . to the right side of the political street.
[Eric Pfeiffer] 7/22/03 | Dennis Miller insists he's not an across-the-board conservative, which may technically be true. Still, there's no doubt America's most sophisticated and most political comedian has been coming out of the conservative closet in a very big way. He hung out with President Bush and campaigned for him earlier this month on a weekend fundraising trip through California. And, on late night talk shows, Miller has applauded President Bush's leadership and cheered the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Moreover, Miller has lately been pounding the Democratic leadership, the abortion lobby, the French, and big-time lefties like Norman Mailer and Michael Moore. And recently Miller took the final, defining step to becoming a big-time public conservative, by signing up for a regular gig at Fox. | In his first return to weekly television since ending his Emmy award-winning HBO series "Dennis Miller Live" last year, Miller has agreed to provide commentary Friday nights on the "Hannity & Colmes" show. In a recent phone interview from Los Angeles, Miller told me why he got back into television. "There are things that irk me," he said. "I wanted to have a place where I could express my opinions." | The day after his inaugural Fox commentary, Miller traveled with President Bush aboard Air Force One on their way to a reelection fundraiser. "He's a fine man and I'm proud he's my president. I enjoyed spending the day with him." And Miller left little doubt that he'd make time for the president over the next 16 months: "I'd love to. I want this man to be president again. It's a dangerous world, and I can't have guys who are soft on that fact. There are no 'al Kindas.'" [more at Weekly Standard]

CLASHING CULTURE/ From National Review
A Switch for Rock
Switchfoot asks some big questions.
[Mark Joseph] 7/22/03 | Columbia Records' most recent signing — San Diego, California-based rockers Switchfoot — recently made their major-label debut with The Beautiful Letdown, a record far more troubling than anything that Eminem, Missy Elliott, or Insane Clown Posse could possibly offer up. For while these artists are busy regaling pop culture with silly little songs about drug-taking, meaningless sex, and spouse-murder, Switchfoot has filled an entire record with profoundly disturbing and troubling questions. | With a sound that mixes pop with the hard-rock stylings of King's X, with shades of Depeche Mode and The Police, Switchfoot relentlessly challenges nearly everything that suburban America treasures. The American dream has survived the assaults of Eminem, Korn, and Marilyn Manson — but can it survive Switchfoot? | "Maybe we've been living with our eyes half open, maybe we're bent and broken," the band's sonic assault begins. "We were meant to live for so much more, have we lost ourselves?" | Signed to the independent label Re:think in 1997, Switchfoot's first album The Legend of Chin went largely unheard in mainstream rock circles, but the band enjoyed a resurgence of sorts when the producers of the 2002 hit movie A Walk To Remember used several of the band's songs in their soundtrack. | Rock's potential to inspire social change and personal transformation is quietly being recognized by a most unlikely cast of characters — serious Christians who are marching into mainstream rock and making innovative and sometimes disturbing music that seems miles away from the comfortable, safe, and nice American brand of Christianity that inspired pundit Franky Schaeffer to refer to its adherents as "Evan-jellyfish." [more at National Review]

WEST BANK OF THE SEINE/ From Front Page
"Kill the President" Prof Won't Be Fired
[Robert Digitale] 7/22/03 | Saying he was "ashamed and embarrassed," Santa Rosa Junior College President Robert Agrella Wednesday called an instructor's "kill the president" class assignment ridiculous but said the teacher cannot be dismissed for it. | Without naming him, Agrella in a prepared statement said that part-time political science instructor Michael Ballou had shown "unprofessional behavior" by jeopardizing students and using "the classroom lectern as a bully pulpit to espouse personal political leanings." | Ballou, an instructor at the college since 1990, had assigned summer session students to compose an e-mail message using the words "kill the president." The assignment drew attention after a student actually sent the message to Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, which resulted in a visit to the college instructor last week by Secret Service agents. Another student told his parents, who called the FBI. [more at Front Page]

RECALL FOLLIES/From American Spectator
Comeback Kuddos
[The Prowler] 7/21/03 | You'd think that with a fairly weak -- and clearly divided -- state Republican Party as his main adversary, California Gov. Gray Davis wouldn't yet be in panic mode. But apparently something is triggering his fear factor. | State Democratic Party staffers say Davis has spoken to former President Bill Clinton, and that the two will appear together in a series of appearances within the next month or so in southern and northern California. "Probably a couple in L.A., and something in San Francisco and Sacramento," says a party staffer. "Inasmuch as Clinton is an identifiable national leader, it can't hurt Davis any more than he's already hurt himself. | Clinton, though, is not the most popular politician in the state, as he might have been five or six years ago. While statewide polls have fluctuated over the past year, many have shown on occasion that President Bush would have a shot at actually winning the state's popular vote at any given time. This is a marked change from the Clinton-Gore era, when Republicans were growing as extinct as the California golden condor. | Apparently, though, Clinton can still bring in some cash with his appearances, and lack of fundraising prowess appears to be a Davis concern. While he can still generate funds, there is concern among his advisors that as the recall vote draws near, wishy-washy Hollywood types won't pay out to Davis the way they used to. | Clinton's appearance may also be the result of an attempt by Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe to take some semblance of a leadership position in the recall imbroglio. McAuliffe, who is mounting a huge anti-Bush media campaign, has been criticized by other DNC types for not paying attention to the nitty-gritty political needs of the party around the country. [more at American Spectator]

RECALL FOLLIES/From LA Daily News
Capitol Road Paved With No Intentions?
Dems loyal enough to Davis to let state go?
[Chris Weinkopf] 7/21/03 | There's a popular myth, duly repeated in most news accounts, about the effort to recall California Gov. Gray Davis: The state's most prominent Democrats have "ruled themselves out" as potential gubernatorial replacements should the effort succeed. | That's not what the politicians themselves say. | While elected Democrats are all on record as opposing recall, they've been more circumspect about their ambitions. Politicians are a self-seeking group; few, if any, would pass up the opportunity to become governor just so Davis can hang on to the job. | True to form, the state's top Democrats are keeping their options open. Just look at their no-run statements -- and note the rampant use of that favorite political weasel word, "intend." | Attorney General Bill Lockyer says, "I do not intend to submit my name as a candidate." | "I intend to remain a United States senator," swears Sen. Dianne Feinstein, "I do not intend to run for governor." | Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante shares the same intentions: "I do not intend to put my name on that ballot." | Ditto for Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi: "I have no intention of running should the recall qualify." | "I do not intend" must be the most carefully parsed phrasing since "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." It's a nondenial denial. The conveyed meaning -- I won't run for governor -- is undermined by the literal one, namely, I don't plan to run for governor. | Plans, of course, can change at a moment's notice. [more at LA Daily News]

RECALL FOLLIES/From Newsweek
State of Siege
[Howard Fineman and Karen Breslau] 7/21/03 | By the standards of normal politics, Ted Costa of Sacramento would be considered a loser, a Young Republican who never made it to The Show. | In 1980, Costa supported George H.W. Bush, only to see him steamrollered by Ronald Reagan in the race for the GOP nomination. In 1994 the state's Republican governor, Pete Wilson, urged Costa to run for Congress--and then supported his opponent in the primary. (Costa lost by 1,500 votes.) When George W. Bush became president, Costa wrote him a letter offering his services--and never got a reply. These days, at 62, Costa is a member of the San Juan Water District board of directors and runs a group called People's Advocate out of a shabby industrial park on the edge of town, far from the august capitol and the lushly manicured park that surrounds it. | But this is California, where nothing is normal anymore, and where Ted Costa is a kingmaker--or, rather, a king unmaker. Cranky but professional, a populist who consumes doughnuts and legal briefs, he runs the organization that put Proposition 13, a measure to limit property taxes, on the state ballot in 1978. It was a watershed event in the history of antigovernment revolt, and now Costa is striving to engineer another one. Last spring he launched a recall petition against California's Democratic governor, Gray Davis. Now it appears that the drive (funded in large measure by a multimillionaire Republican congressman) has succeeded. Davis could be ousted this fall in a special election and replaced by any number of characters, among them the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Recall is a fire extinguisher," says Costa, "and we've got a fire." [more at Newsweek]

RECALL FOLLIES/From Sacramento Bee
Davis Again Needs Help From Liberals He Once Shunned
[Dan Walters] 7/21/03 | Gray Davis was a centrist triangulator during the first three years of his governorship, interposing himself as the decisive factor between business and professional groups and an increasingly liberal Legislature. | Davis collected millions of dollars in campaign funds from business executives and tilted their way on issues large and small, from modifying environmental regulations issued by state agencies to vetoing expensive worker benefit bills backed by labor unions and granting corporate tax breaks. | Liberals often fumed, but lacked leverage on Davis -- at least until his passive response to the state's energy crisis in 2001 sent his public approval ratings into a downward spiral. As Davis' popularity tanked, he knew that when he ran for re-election in 2002, he would need active support from the Democratic Party factions he had held at arm's length, such as labor unions, environmentalists, consumer advocates and gay rights activists. But that support, he found, carried a price: doing what he had been unwilling to do in the previous three years. [more at Sacramento Bee]

FABULOUS BUDGET/ From OC Register
O'Connell's Assault On Taxpayers
[the Editors] 7/21/03 | In California under Gov. Gray Davis, apparently no attempt to raise taxes is going untried. | As we warned in an editorial last Thursday, California could go through the nightmare Nevada is experiencing in which its governor, Republican Kenny Guinn, sued to overturn his state's two-thirds requirement for the Legislature to pass a tax increase. The Nevada Supreme Court sided with him, but Republican legislators are suing in federal court to stop the tax increase. | Later that Thursday, California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced he also would sue to overturn California's own two-thirds requirement to pass a budget. Lowering the threshold to pass a budget could mean that Republicans essentially would be powerless to stop Democrat-supported spending and tax increases. | As in Nevada, Mr. O'Connell's excuse is that the state Constitution also requires adequate education spending. | He is being backed by Gov. Davis and state Treasurer Phil Angelides. "As an elected official entrusted with overseeing the state educational system, I cannot stand by and remain silent," Mr. O'Connell said. "Without a budget this month, schools will miss a $629 million payment. This is money that is owed to the schools and money the schools need to run their daily operations." | But things are different in California, Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association, told us. | He quoted a clause in the California Constitution which reads that the two-thirds budget requirement applies to everything "except appropriations for the public schools." So, today the Legislature could pass the education portion of the budget - but not other spending or tax increases - with just a majority vote. [more at OC Register]

FABULOUS BUDGET/ From LA Daily News
Constitutional Abuse
[the Editors] 7/21/03 | Top state Democrats want the courts to do their job for them
It's now the position of Gov. Gray Davis, Superintendent for Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and Treasurer Phil Angelides that the government of California can't govern. | If that's how they really feel, then they ought to resign. | And if not, then they ought to scrap O'Connell's outrageous plan, backed by Davis and Angelides, to ask the courts to suspend California's constitutional requirement of a two-thirds legislative majority for passing state budgets. | The three Democrats should remember that they have sworn to uphold the constitution, not subvert it. | Sure, doing away with the super-majority requirement might help Democrats pass the budget -- and tax hikes -- of their dreams, but that's precisely why the requirement exists at all, to protect a vulnerable public from greedy politicians. [more at LA Daily News]

FABULOUS BUDGET/ From SD Union Tribune
Recall Rampage
Move to unseat Davis stalls budget progress
[the Editors] 7/21/03 | It has been seven months since Gov. Gray Davis called a special session of the Legislature to resolve the state's $38 billion budget crisis. Nothing much of consequence has gotten done. So why should we take seriously his most recent challenge that legislative leaders focus their sole attention on that crisis beginning today? | Davis issued his challenge during a press conference last week, while assuring that his attention is solely on getting a deal done. But the governor's assurance rings hollow in light of the recall campaign that threatens to remove him from office. | The prospect of being the first California governor to be recalled is haunting enough for the most confident of individuals. Davis doesn't exude – let alone inspire – confidence. To the contrary, he is famously known as a fence-sitter; one who seldom makes a move without carefully calculating the political consequences. [more at SD Union Tribune]

WEST BANK OF THE SEINE/ From SF Chronicle
Lost Legislators
Beyond the budget, they're AWOL on many major issues
[the Editors] 7/21/03 | The California Legislature keeps walking off the job.
It's not just the budget. Elected "representatives" in the Democrat- controlled Assembly, in particular, are almost making an art form out of avoiding tough issues. | The "outbreak of spinelessness" we described in a June 25, 2002 editorial has grown into an epidemic. Absurdly large numbers of Assembly members are simply not voting on issues of significance to Californians -- a practice known in the Capitol as "taking a walk" or "staying off" a bill. | Do you think regulation of energy is a matter of importance to a state that will be paying for decades for a 1996 deregulation scheme that resulted in blackouts and shameless price gouging? A bill to re-regulate electricity recently died in an Assembly committee when 11 of the 14 members failed to vote. | Do you care about all that e-mail spam in your in-box or those dinner-hour calls from telemarketers who have inside information about you from your bank? Bills designed to limit those annoying invasions were killed this year by rampant nonvoting in the Assembly. | Do you think it's fair for an insurance company to refuse to renew your homeowners policy without cause, or to jack up your premiums on the basis of your credit score? Legislation attempting to deal with each of those issues also sank from Assembly nonvoting. [more at SF Chronicle]

WEST BANK OF THE SEINE/ From LA Daily News
Pandora's Big-Box
[the Editors] 7/21/03 | A "living wage" for mega-stores could be financially disastrous for L.A.What's worse for the social and financial health of a city: Big-box stores or big-shot politicians? | Big-shot politicians, of course. | Big-box stores have been known to generate more traffic and drive small retailers out of business even as they create many new jobs and increase sales tax revenue for local government. | Big-shot politicians have been known to enact laws and impose taxes even as they produce nothing but blight and unemployment. | At least there's an upside to big-box stores. | Los Angeles is a city so over-taxed and over-regulated that it repels commerce. Major corporations have long been driven outside the city limits, and entrepreneurs know that if they want to open up shop, their best bet is to go to Burbank, Calabasas or any other of L.A.'s more business-friendly neighbors. | And if City Councilman Eric Garcetti gets his way, it's only going to get worse. [more at LA Daily News]

WEST BANK OF THE SEINE/ From National Review
Kobe Agonistes
And now, it's all theater.
[Jack Dunphy] 7/21/03 | Oh where, oh where to turn during these languid days of summer. The players in the Robert Blake, Scott Peterson, and Martha Stewart dramas, all the people who held us rapt through the cooler months, have faded from our awareness as they have from the front pages, shuffling as they are through all those seemingly interminable pre-trial delays. The pennant races have yet to heat up, the networks are in reruns, and God only knows when The Sopranos will return. There's scarcely reason even to look for the remote. | But suddenly, live, from Eagle, Colorado, it's The Kobe Bryant Show. | And what a ratings bonanza it will be, with its titillating elements of celebrity, illicit sex, and, even more alluring, the euphoric prospect of seeing the high and mighty brought low and desperate. Oh, how the fans love Kobe, but oh, how their living rooms will fall silent, how all those fans will lean in from the sofas, their handfuls of chips and pretzels halting between bag and mouth as The Star takes that long Walk of Shame from the curb to the courthouse door. [more at National Review]

RECALL FOLLIES/From Sacramento Bee
How Recall Works
And why Democrats' strategy is suicidal
[the Editors] 7/20/03 | Apparently, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee doesn't understand how recall elections work in California. | DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe made that clear last week when he pledged that no Democrat will offer herself (or, yes, himself) up as an alternative to Davis on the recall ballot. | "So if you're a California voter and you want to vote to recall Gray Davis, you are not going to have an option but a bunch of right-wing conservatives on the ballot," McAuliffe said. | McAuliffe and others who favor keeping Democrats off the ballot have got hold of the wrong end of this argument. It is not just voters who want to recall Davis who need an alternative. All voters do. To see why, consider the following scenario. | Let's say you're a voter (no matter what your party affiliation) who is opposed to the recall for whatever reason. Let's say, too, that on Election Day the polls show that the recall has a good chance of passing. So you go into the voting booth and vote against the recall with the knowledge that Davis may well be out as governor when the votes are counted. [more at Sacramento Bee]

WEST BANK OF THE SEINE/ From OC Register
Eliminating Choice
[the Editors] 7/20/03 | Gov. Gray Davis has spent his political career saying he favors "choice" on abortion. But he just signed into law SB 932, by Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, that removes choice in the matter. | The new law eliminates the choice religious and other non-profit groups had of prohibiting abortions on property the groups lease or sell. If women have a right to control their own bodies, as Gov. Davis and other pro-choice politicians maintain, then why can't churches have the right to control their own property? | Specifically, the bill prohibits the state attorney general from appproving the sale or lease of a health facility owned by a nonprofit corporation to another orgranization if the seller "restricts the type or level of medical services that may be provided at the facility." Supporters of the bill have expressed concern about Catholic hospitals enforcing their anti-abortion standards when they sell or lease facilities. | This violates the First Amendment right to freedom of religious belief of churches that own property. If a church strongly opposes abortion, why should it be forced to lease its property to an abortion clinic? [more at OC Register]

MISEDUCATION/From Sacramento Bee
Why The Exit Exam Got Held Back Instead Of Failing Kids
[Daniel Weintraub] 7/20/03 | The California Board of Education's recent decision to delay the impact of the state's new high school exit exam was a disappointing but necessary tactical retreat that should ultimately advance the long-term goal of accountability in the public schools. | If the ed board hadn't backed off, the legal dogs would have sued the state on behalf of thousands of students in the class of 2004 who would have been denied diplomas after failing the test. Their argument: These kids never got a fair opportunity to learn the material on which they were tested. Unfortunately, they are probably right. | The standards upon which the test is based were adopted in the late 1990s and weren't implemented by many schools for a year or two after that. By then, most of next year's seniors were already well on their way to graduation. These students were denied a quality education. It would add insult to their educational injury to now also deny them a diploma. So we will give them their certificate, even if it lacks real value. [more at Sacramento Bee]

FABULOUS BUDGET/ From SF Chronicle
A Simple Tax Solution
[Joel Fox] 7/19/03 | A plan championed by a renowned California economist, Arthur Laffer, seems to accomplish the goals of making light the tax burden, growing the economy, and adequately funding government. Laffer proposed wiping out all taxes in California except two: "sin" taxes levied on products such as cigarettes and alcohol, and a flat tax. No income tax, sales tax, business tax or even property tax would exist. | A flat tax would be placed on income and a flat value-added-tax levied on business. The latter would work like this: Each product on the way to consumers has some value-added from raw material to finished product. | Each business along the way would be taxed on the product's increased value. | Creating a simple tax with few deductions streamlines bookkeeping and allows business to be more productive. Greater production means more money for the government treasury. | A flat tax on income would mean lower rates for most people. That would encourage big moneymakers to work harder and stay in California. Some call it the "Tiger Woods Effect" when big-time producers such as Woods move their prime residence to states that collect little or no income tax. Woods, a California native, set up residence in Florida after hitting the big time. He's not alone. Many high-paid Northern California executives move their prime residences to Nevada. | Laffer argued that "by having the largest possible tax base combined with the lowest possible tax rate, people are provided the least opportunity to avoid paying taxes and the lowest incentive to do so." He thought that a relatively low flat rate of 6 percent on income and business would bring in the same amount of revenue now produced by all California taxes. [more at SF Chronicle]

WEST BANK OF THE SEINE/ From SD Union Tribune
Left-Leaning Professors Overpopulate Campuses
[Joseph Perkins] 7/19/03 | Michael Ballou couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. All he did was assign his political science students at Santa Rosa Junior College to write an e-mail and at the bottom include the words: "kill the president, kill the president." | One of the professor's students sent his e-mail to the office of Napa Valley congressman Mike Thompson, which passed it on to the U.S. Capitol Police, which passed it on to the Secret Service. | The Secret Service paid Ballou a recent visit. He insisted that his e-mail assignment was misconstrued. | It wasn't that he was suggesting to his students that President Bush deserved to be killed, he claimed. He simply wanted his students to experience "the wave of fear and paranoia" many Americans have because of their government. | Although we cannot be sure of this professor's politics, the preponderance of concern about "fear and paranoia" in America today comes from the left. Today, our nation's college campuses are overpopulated with liberal professors. It simply does not occur to them that most Americans do not share their contempt for their country, their hatefulness toward the nation's commander in chief. [more at SD Union Tribune]

WEST BANK OF THE SEINE/ From LA Times
An Airport Solution That Might Really Fly
Developing Palmdale with a rail link to LAX is a 'win-win' plan.
[Sheldon C. Plotkin] 7/19/03 | Most major urban centers throughout the world have one giant international airport outside the city center connected to the region by good ground transportation. Where does Los Angeles come off thinking that because it is so spread out it can satisfactorily get away with regional airports indefinitely and simply expand Los Angeles International? | Mayor James Hahn is offering a $9-billion plan to renovate LAX to accommodate a projected doubling of demand over the next 20 years. What happens 20 years after that when a further increase in population and demand for airport facilities is projected? In fact, there is no long-term plan, and there are no area population predictions beyond 40 years. | Criticisms of the mayor's proposal have surfaced on the local and federal levels. Everyone agrees that LAX needs modernizing; they just can't agree on how. | One solution would be to pattern Los Angeles airport facilities after those of other urban centers. Obviously, there must be some innovative thinking to take into account the large area and lack of significant mass transit system here. | Establishment of an international airport in Palmdale on the 70,000 acres local politicians say they have already set aside for the purpose would be a start. [more at LA Times]

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