April 2009 Archives

The SEIU has organized a huge swath of state employees, but here's one group that's got no need for a union to protect its pay: California's Legislature.

The state compensation commission, created by the voters in 1990, sets the pay for legislators, the governor and other state elected officials. It met Wednesday in Sacramento and, given the state's budget crisis, debated a proposal to cut salaries by 10 percent. Legislators, for the uninitiated, are paid $116,000 a year (plus car plus gas plus about $35,000 in tax-free payments for living expenses). Salaries for statewide officials range up to about $212,000 for the governor.

Now, back to those pay cuts.

Well, it turns out, their pay can't be cut.

Proposition 6, passed by voters in 1972, says the pay of state elected officials can't be cut during the course of their term. I'll try to dig up some history on that one later. Hard to imagine anyone not holding office had a great concern about that issue.

As a result, the best the commission could do is cut the salaries for anyone taking office after the 2010 election. For senators in odd-numbered districts (such as Mark Leno, who represents much of Sonoma County), that means a reprieve until 2012 - and several chances to persuade the commission to change its mind.

Alas, the commission couldn't even do that.

It tried. The vote was 3-1 in favor. But the commission is supposed to have seven members and its rules require a majority of the commission (as opposed to a majority of those present and voting). According to John Myers of KQED radio, the commission's lone dissenter was Bill Feyling, the executive director of the carpenters union, who favors a 5 percent pay cut instead of 10 percent.

So, to summarize, everyone seems to think that state elected officials have earned a pay cut, or at least should share in the pain of state employees in the layoff and furlough lines. And yet there will be no pay cuts at all.

Perhaps legislators were feeling guilty about this today when they voted down a bill to freeze raises and overtime for state employees making more than $150,000 a year.

-- Jim Sweeney

We've editorialized about the six-figure, part-time jobs that seem to be reserved for state lawmakers after term limits or between sinecures in Sacramento. Most recently it was ex-state Sen. Carole Migden landing on the state Solid Waste Management Board.

But we've got a new poster child.

It's Patty Berg, the Eureka Democrat who represented the North Coast in the state Assembly for six years (and was succeeded in December by Wesley Chesbro, a two-time ex-member of the waste board). The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday that Berg has been hired by Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles. Berg's six-month contract started Feb. 1 and pays $64,000 plus expenses.

Her first job was to train two newly elected legislators who were taking over committees that Berg had chaired. Now she's evaluating training for all legislators and their staffs, according to the Chronicle.

There was a time (before term limits) when the only chair that freshman legislators saw was the one that sat on (quietly, listening and learning). But given the state's budget situation, there's no way that Berg's contract can be justified.

-- Jim Sweeney

A baby shaker?

In case you missed it, there was an item in today's news digest about Apple halting sales of an iPhone application called "Baby shaker." You can read it here, or settle for my summary: Apparently by purchasing this application, you can have a crying baby on your telephone's video screen, and it takes a "vigorous shake" to calm the baby down.

I'll admit up front, I don't have an iPhone. I don't covet one, and I don't really understand the allure. But I'm not quite a Luddite, either. I carry a cellphone, and I use it frequently ... to make telephone calls. No camera. No Internet. My next text message will be my first. Don't hold your breath waiting for it.

But can somebody tell me why you would possibly want to take time from your day to pretend to shake a crying baby on a telephone video screen? And pay for the privilege to do so?

This isn't the first time I've wondered about iPhones (and their owners). I played cards the other night and several people at the table had iPhones. One demonstrated for us some of the applications that have been created (and sold) for the phone to make flatulent sounds. I think he said there were more than 100 such sounds available for purchase.

I said then - and the story about the baby shaking application affirms my belief - that it's no wonder our economy has gone to hell if creative people spend their time programming telephones to fart.

-- Jim Sweeney  

It's amazing how the downturn in the economy has resulted in a turnaround in so many of those issues we were debating just months ago.

For example, remember the worries about military recruitment? Pentagon officials recently noted that 2008 was a "banner" year, with all forces meeting or exceeding their recruitment goals for the first time since 2004. (Let's also acknowledge the success of the surge in cutting the rates of casualties in Iraq as well.)

Also, consider that changes in the debate over illegal immigration. A recent Pew study found that illegal  immigration has dropped off dramatically in California. In fact, the state's portion of the nation's undocumented migrants has declined from 42 percent in 1990 to 22 percent today.

So what about affordable housing? Does Sonoma County still have an issue?

Economist Steve Cochrane, managing director of Moody's Economy.com, noted earlier this year that, according to his analysis, Sonoma County has reached the ``sweet spot'' of affordability. This means that salaries and housing prices have started to align.

A 40 percent drop in housing costs - twice the national average - will have that effect.

But if that's so, why are Santa Rosa city officials still investing so much time and energy in debating how to toughen the city's laws for building affordable housing? (Click here to see Staff Writer Mike McCoy's story Monday)

To discuss this issue, I invite you to take part in our latest Helium.com-PD debate. This week's question is: "Does the recent sharp decline in real estate prices mean Sonoma County's affordable housing crisis is over" Click here for more information.

- Paul Gullixson

When a federal appeals court on Friday threw out the Bush administration's plan to open more of the Alaska coast to oil drilling, I wondered how soon the decision would be blamed on weak-kneed liberal judges.

But this was the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, one of the most conservative federal appellate courts.

And, lo and behold, two of the three judges who ruled that the drilling plan didn't comply with environmental laws have impeccable conservative credentials. The opinion was written by Chief Judge David Sentelle, a protégé of former Sen. Jesse Helms who played a role in the Whitewater investigation of President Bill Clinton. Another was Douglas Ginsburg, who was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan. Ginsburg withdrew in an uproar after he, unlike Clinton, admitted inhaling.

Our editorials have long been critical of offshore oil drilling, and we still believe there is ample reason to prohibit it off the California coast. But recognizing the public support demonstrated for offshore oil during last year's campaign, we have more recently encouraged a thorough, orderly look at the U.S. coast line, the potential resources and the risks and benefits of oil development.

Bush's rush plan prior to the election clearly didn't meet those standards, as even a conservative court has found. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who held a hearing on oil Thursday in San Francisco, has promised a serious study of the issue. Let's hope he follows through in a more defensible manner.

-- Jim Sweeney

My colleague Chris Smith had an item in his column last July about Alex Shoumatoff, a journalist who was caught sneaking into the Bohemian Grove, site of the annual gathering of the powers that be.

Shoumatoff is hardly the first person to slip in for a peek at the corporate and government chieftains who congregate for each summer to, ahem, pee on trees. And, depending on whom you believe, to dictate the future of the world. But unlike past trespassers who brought us lurid tales of human sacrifice on the river bank, Shoumatoff took on the ongoing (though not especially well known) battle over logging the grove. His account of that fight, and his brief visit to the grove and subsequent arrest, is in the May edition of Vanity Fair and online at vanityfair.com. It's a good read.

The Bohemian Club, meanwhile, recently submitted a new timber harvest plan to the state Department of Forestry. Given the political firepower on both sides of this dispute, this fight could rival Headwaters and spotted owls.

-- Jim Sweeney

Like a pitcher with a wicked curve, Dianne Feinstein has made a career of crossing up fellow Democrats. TV footage of Democrats showering Feinstein with boos became a staple of her campaign ads after she used the 1990 state party convention to announce her support for the death penalty. Feinstein took on another liberal shibboleth last week, though she chose a lot less prominent forum.

In a statement issued late Friday afternoon - a time favored by politicians for burying bad or uncomfortable news - Feinstein announced her opposition to organized labor's top priority in the current Congress, the Employee Free Choice Act. The announcement marks a reversal of course for Feinstein, a co-sponsor of last year's version of the bill.

The best known provision would make it easier for employees to organize by granting certification if a majority of workers signed union cards, doing away with a separate election. The bill also would stiffen penalties for firing union organizers and require arbitration if an employer and a newly formed union can't settle on a contract within four months. Killing the bill is as big a priority for employers as passing it is for labor.

Sonoma County unions are planning a forum featuring Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma; state Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa; Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael; Supervisors Shirlee Zane and Efren Carrillo and Santa Rosa Councilman Gary Wysocky. The forum is set for 10 a.m. April 18 at Santa Rosa Junior College's Newman Auditorium. But with high-profile sponsors such as Feinstein defecting, it may be time to plan a wake instead of a pep rally.

-- Jim Sweeney