the irish lass

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Recall-itis

One of the many reasons why I'm so enthusiastic about Arnold's campaign is the progressive/reform factor. If only legislative districts were drawn with common sense boundaries, politicians had to tell us who they took money from and electeds couldn't take money from special interests at the exact same moment they were voting on legislation that effected those special interests, we'd have a good shot at good government. We don't need to prevent people from expressing their point of view (by speaking or by giving money to represent their speech) we just need to bring that speech out of the cloakroom into the sunlight.

No elected or candidate has had the personal power/charisma to get the ordinary people to listen to these arguments. Only Arnold, with his common sense approach combined with his star power, can get the public to understand the importance of these poindexter type issues.

Daniel Weintraub, the California Insider explains it:

Schwarzenegger's political reform plan
While the court battle and the debate over debates rages on, Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to burnish his policy credentials. His latest is a wide-ranging and detailed plan to clean up Sacramento with measures on open records, campaign fundraising, and redistricting. The plan would:

--Make access to public records a right of the people under the state constitution, covering both the legislative and executive branch and, like a model sunshine law in Florida, make public the appointments schedule of the governor and every other state official, drafts of state documents and internal e-mails.

--Ban political fundraising between the time the governor proposes a budget in January and signs one later in the year. Lately that’s been anytime between July and September. But Schwarzenegger aides said he also plans to overhaul the budget process in a way that would shorten the deliberation time-frame to between January and early May.

--Require immediate disclosure on the Internet of all campaign contributions and make willful violations of campaign finance laws a felony punishable by one year in prison.

--Take the job of drawing district lines out of the hands of the Legislature and give it to a three-person panel of retired judges chosen by lottery under the direction of the state Judicial Council.

Schwarzenegger also said he would not sign any bill that did not receive a full hearing by a policy committee in the Legislature prior to passage, a limitation aimed at ending the practice of “gut-and-amends” through which lawmakers strip bills of all their contents at the last minute and replace them with entirely new provisions that are passed without public scrutiny.

“There is no such thing,” Schwarzenegger said at a Sacramento press conference, “as democracy in the dark.”

If the past is any indication, most of these measures would have trouble getting through the state Legislature. But Schwarzengger has said before that he would be willing to go over the heads of lawmakers and take issues directly to the people on the ballot. Presumably he would be willing to do that with these proposals as well.

Posted by dweintraub at 04:33 PM

Recall-itis

Yesterday I got another blog mention, this time from the Condor. Here's what he said:

"How Well Did Arnold Do on Ophrah?

To find out, you should check the The Irish Lass blog, run by Julie Gallaher. She said that if she were writing for men, "I'd say Arnold's performance on the show was a grand slam, a hole in one, a touchdown and a three-pointer combined. But we're talking about the women's vote. It was a creme brulee/tiramasou/chocolate decadence with a glass of Villa Toscano Barbera."

The Irish Lass is a devote Arnold partisan and longtime Republican activist. Her blog does have a different perspective and can be fun to read. Here's her take on Arnold's speech to the Republicans during the weekend: "I didn't mention how great Arnold's speech was at the convention. I had a fabulous seat, front and center and he was marvelous. The speech was powerful, substantive, funny, inspirational ... everything one could have wanted. (And he looked very handsome)."


How fun is that? And I got an e-mail from Mickey Kaus! I love this blogging ;^D

Last night I worked the phone banks at Arnold's campaign headquarters. We were calling volunterrs (obviously friendlies) but I've never worked a volunteer list where people thanked you for calling them, picked up when they heard you on their answering machines, etc. The peeps are highly enthusiastic!



Do you think this means Arnold will be living in the neighborhood?

KING: How about Sacramento? Are you looking forward to Sacramento? Not your kind of town, is it?

SCHWARZENEGGER: No, absolutely. You know, it's a funny thing, people sometimes come up to me and says, can you imagine you, Arnold, going form Hollywood to Sacramento? I say, you know something, I love Sacramento. I think that the whole, the huge, beautiful parks that they have there, the trees, that the buildings, the historic buildings and all this stuff, it's a beautiful quaint little town.