California Faultline

In November 2006, voters in the City of Los Angeles voted overwhelmingly for Proposition R, the “Ethics Reform Bill,” which claimed to reform how lobbyists worked in City Hall. But for those in the know, the controversy at the time was that the “Ethics Reform Bill” extended City Council term limits from the two four year terms to three.

The most egregious example of the deceptive nature of this bill were the mailers pulled the wool over constituents eyes, reading: “Prop R will LIMIT councilmembers to three terms in office (twelve years total), so that no one can serve for life.” Thus deliberately misleading the uninformed to believe that term limits were longer, when in fact the opposite was true.

Now, eighteen months later, Ken Draper at LA City Watch brings an update to how the Ethics Reform has worked out… or not. He makes the case that lobbyists are still working City Council as usual, and that now, because of the way Prop R was presented, is costing L.A. taxpayers millions in legal fees.

…tenacious David Hernandez continues trek through the court maze. He’s trying to get Prop R set aside on the grounds that it violates the states one issue per initiative law. He has worked his way up to the appellate level. Hernandez is due to file his final brief in the next couple of weeks.

And the city continues to defend itself, courtesy of LA’s taxpayers. Of course, the City Attorney could be spending our money on other business had the Council been straight with the voters in the first place and simply submitted an initiative to extend term limits.

A decision that may have helped them promote and pass Prop R, but to this day remains a stain on their credibility.

Last week, the L.A. City Council passed what will likely be another symbolic local measure, this time asking the Federal government to respect California’s “compassionate” medical marijuana laws, “and to return all assets seized from medical marijuana dispensaries to the states from which they were confiscated.”

The resolution still needs to be approved by the Mayor, but I have to wonder if the Council should have waited nine more months before trying to get a sitting President to even look at this. Who do you think would be more likely to consider, Bush or a possible Clinton or Obama Presidency?

Full press release follows…
(more…)

In addition to his duties as L.A. City Council President, Eric Garcetti is has also been campaigning for Barack Obama for almost a year. He told me, “I signed on April 29th of last year. The reason I remember the date it was the 15th anniversay of the LA riots. He gave a great speech at the AME church and then we rode around in his car for a half hour and talked through his campaign and what role I might play.”

As one of Obama’s five California chairpeople, Garcetti is advising the Presidential candidate on national, policy, and Latino issues. Garcetti is also one of California’s 65 Democratic super-delegates, making his vote at this summer’s Democratic convention an influential one in determining the whether Obama or Clinton will win the party nomination.

In the following interview, I talked with Garcetti about how he became a super-delegate, why he’s supporting Obama, and his own political aspirations… (photo by a35mmlife, used under Creative Commons)

How did you become a superdelegate?

I was already a superdelegate before (the state primary). So I’ve been going to those national meetings, and as such was an automatic superdelegate. It had nothing to do with who is running.

I am vice chair (and will become the chair later this year) of the Democratic Municipal Officials, representing all of the locally elected Democratic officials in the country. Its the local equivalent of the Democratic Governor’s Association. We’re the largest group of elected Democrats of any association in the country, and we get 3 superdelegates as part of the party rules: our chair, our vice chair, and then one DNC rep.

Have you received any called from the Clinton campaign to change your support?

I have not since I became formally affiliated. There a lot of people who I know are affiliated (with Obama) but still get phone calls, but I haven’t gotten any. I’ve made some calls to other superdelegates for sure.

I did sit down and had a great meeting with Senator Clinton about a month before meeting with Senator Obama. We sat down in her Senate office for about a half hour last March and had a very good conversation. But I’ve known him longer and had an ongoing relationship with him. (more…)

NATIONAL

Last weekend a group of progressive Democrats issued a symbolic “no endorsement” for congressman Howard Berman and Henry Waxman for not being more aggressive against “the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and efforts to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney” and votes on the Iraq war. Both incumbents are running unopposed in the June 3rd primaries. [Daily News]

STATEWIDE

A new bill introduced by state Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello would allow drug companies to purchase access to medical records so they could remind patients to refill prescriptions. [Long Beach Press-Telegram]

California Attorney General Jerry Brown is going after H&R Block for allegedly duping customers into believing they’re receiving instand refunds instead of what are actually high interest, short term loans. [KNBC]

The State of California is denying $100/day reimbursment to a Buena Park man wrongly convicted of a carjacking and sentenced to ten months in state prison because he had plead guilty in lieu of a potentially stiffer sentence. [LA Times]

LOS ANGELES

Kathryn Nack, who was Mayor of Pasadena from 1987 to 1995, passed away. [Pasadena Star-News]

On Wednesday at 4pm, ANSWER LA is coordinating a protest outside of the Military Recruiting Station at 7080 Hollywood Blvd. [LA Indymedia]

LA Times blogger Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a Q&A with Barack Obama.

A federal public integrity unit of the U.S. Attorney’s office has been disbanded in Los Angeles, possibly due to their investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis’ ties to lobbyists. [LA Observed]

Mayor Villaraigosa encouraged the L.A. City Council to approve the increases in the  DWP’s water rates by 6.2% and electricty by 8.5% to make improvements on the crumbling infrastructure. [KNBC]