links for 2009-02-17

The first GOP leadership challenge resulting from the budget negotiations came and went Saturday night as Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, moved unsuccessfully to unseat Assembly GOP leader Mike Villines.

In a closed-door Republican caucus before the marathon floor session, DeVore made a motion to remove Villines as GOP leader (known as "vacating the chair" in Capitol-speak). None of the other 28 Republican Assembly members seconded the motion.

"The discussion was a credit to the caucus. Nobody raised their voice, everything was logical, people made their case and I lost," said DeVore, who is plotting a 2010 run for U.S. Senate.

With budget negotiations still hung up in the Senate, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to send 20,000 layoff warnings to state workers Tuesday morning.

Schwarzenegger will instruct his Department of Personnel Administration to give agencies lists of people affected — those with the least seniority among the approximately 100,000 state workers employed at General Fund units.

"In the absence of a budget, the governor has the responsibility to realize savings any way he can," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear.

Bargaining units represented by Service Employees International Union Local 1000 will be protected from layoffs under terms of a tentative agreement reached early Saturday. The layoff warning notices will specify that SEIU members will receive special protection, according to state Department of Personnel Administration spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley. Other General Fund employees whose bargaining units lack contracts will be at risk, however.

Sen. Abel Maldonado has become a popular guy around the Capitol as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders on Monday continued to court him as the potential 27th Senate vote for the state budget. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg met with Maldonado once this afternoon to discuss his interest in providing the final vote.

The Santa Maria Republican told reporters Monday outside his office that his list of demands includes four things. He wants an open primary system similar to those used by local governments in which the top two vote-getters regardless of party run in the general election. The system is said to favor moderate candidates, such as himself, rather than encourage primary hopefuls to woo voters at their party's extremes. He acknowledged he plans to run for statewide office, but sold the open primary as more of a "good government reform."

California's $40 billion-plus budget fix stalled in the state Senate early Sunday morning, as both houses of the Legislature were locked down until sunrise.

Here's a tick-tock on the highlights — many on video — of the night's events.

Karl Rove, post-White House, turns out to be a game, early technological adapter, and has a lively Twitter account.

He's also been posting candid snapshots to TwitPic, Twitter's photo site, and getting a remarkable stream of abuse in the comments section for himself and his subjects, in this case Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes.
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Standard treatment from the NUTROOTS.

In a new Rasmussen poll, 38 percent of respondents said "the government should require all radio stations to offer equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary," a nine percent drop from August. Forty-seven percent oppose such government requirements, and 15 percent are unsure.
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If the Dems and Obama try to ram this through it will be a rallying point for a GOP resergence in 2010.

Abel Maldonado, a moderate Republican lawmaker known for his quiet demeanor, took his seat in the chamber of the California Senate late Saturday, threatening to oppose the tax increases pushed by Democrats to solve the state's $40 billion budget deficit.

But hours later, after a colleague suddenly backed out of the tax vote, Maldonado, who represents a gerrymandered district stretching from Saratoga to Santa Maria, was unexpectedly thrust into the uncomfortable position of being the state's best hope at keeping cash-starved California from falling over a fiscal cliff.
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Maldo knows if he flips to the Dems and Arnold his career as a Republican is over.

From Sacramento — The math seems pretty simple. But apparently it's too rigorous for many Republican politicians.

To avoid raising taxes and still balance the books in Sacramento, you'd have to virtually shut down state government.
Some politicians are in denial. Some are demagoguing. Some are just ducking. Scared.

The scared are rather pathetic. Here are elected officeholders who represent 475,000 people in an average Assembly district — 950,000 in a Senate district — and they cower before conservative bloggers, radio talk entertainers and activists of a declining party.
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Well, the GOP Pols so far do not cater to a LEFT-Wing loon like you Skelton. You are the on who is pathetic, sir.

Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps held meetings last week with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the "Fairness Doctrine" without actually calling it such.

Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. "It's all about diversity in media," says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings.

Here we go folks.

The Fairness Doctrine is going to make a comeback under the Obama administration. It just won’t be via Congress and it won’t be called the “Fairness Doctrine.” It’ll come via the FCC, involve restrictions on media ownership and content, and it’ll apply to the internet too.
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There will be some real Constitutional issues here on free speech.