Post-election surprise

It was widely reported -- including here -- that Carole Migden was bound for a $132,000-a-year sinecure on the state Integrated Waste Management Board after losing her state Senate seat to Mark Leno in the Democratic primary in February.

Well, it turns out the seat is going to another out-of-work senator, Sheila Kuehl, a Southern California Democrat who was unseated by term limits. No word yet on what precipitated a change. Or if there is another appointment in the offing for Migden.

Kuehl, by the bye, has been the primary sponsor of efforts to create a single-payer health care system in California. In a posting at the California Progress Report, a liberal blog, she said she would be passing the torch on single-payer to Leno, who will be sworn into the Senate next week.

Do you think Leno will be any more succesful in passing single-payer than Kuehl has been?

-- Jim Sweeney