Two Central Valley congressmen from opposite sides of the aisle agreed on something and got it done.

Stop the presses!

Both Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Stockton, and Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, issued statements today praising a bill that President Obama signed into law Tuesday to grease the wheels for a solar-energy project in Tracy.

Tracy wanted to buy 200 acres of government land on Schulte Road as the site of a solar electricity-generation project, but Congress had conveyed the land to the city with the condition that most of it be used for recreational or educational purposes – a provision that held up the solar project for years. McNerney’s bill waived any remaining restrictions on the land’s use once it’s bought by the city.

“The City of Tracy will now be able to build a solar energy project that will create nearly 200 local jobs,” McNerney said today. “I welcomed this opportunity to reach across the aisle to pass this commonsense bill, especially in the current climate in Washington. I have been fighting for the City of Tracy on this issue from the beginning, and I am proud that we were able to come together to pass this bill.”

Denham noted the bill, which he cosponsored, passed unanimously through the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and, Emergency Management, which he chairs.

“Investing in this type of job creation project is key to the Valley’s economic recovery. It’s not a Republican issue, it’s not a Democrat issue – it’s an American jobs issue,” Denham said. “Today’s accomplishment is the result of a collaborative effort by a bipartisan group of members who worked hard to see this bill become law. I’m proud to have worked with my colleagues in the House and Senate from both sides of the aisle to put people back to work. I’ll keep fighting for jobs in the Valley as the solar project continues to advance.”

In fact, it was actually the Senate version of the bill – introduced by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and cosponsored by Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. – which made it to the president’s desk. Boxer last week said she’s pleased that Tracy officials “will now be able to move forward with their plan to develop land that has been vacant and unused. This is a wonderful economic opportunity that will bring needed jobs to the area.”

PAQ Inc. — the Stockton company operating Food 4 Less, Rancho San Miguel and other supermarkets throughout the Central Valley — is helping state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, retire almost half his remaining debt from fighting off last year’s abortive, Don Perata-conceived recall campaign.

Though Denham – now raising funds for his 2010 campaign for lieutenant governor – handily defeated last June’s recall effort with 75 percent of voters in his 12th State Senate District voting “no,” campaign finance reports show the Friends of Jeff Denham Against the Recall committee finished 2008 with $308,110 in the bank and $433,050 in outstanding debts. The only major contribution the anti-recall committee had received in 2009 was $5,000 from the Gun Owners of California Campaign Committee last month – until Tuesday, when PAQ laid down a cool $50,000. The company also had given $15,000 last August.

I know this’ll seem like piling on in light of the story I had in today’s editions, but I seem to recall blogging here several times before that Don Perata’s aborted attempt to recall state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, would go down in history as having accomplished nothing save lining his Perata’s favorite political consultants’ pockets and giving Denham more street cred with California conservatives should he ever run for statewide office.

And, look here: Denham today officially announced his candidacy for Lieutenant Governor. From his news release:

“The status quo has failed. In order for California to be economically competitive in the 21st Century, and for our state government to operate efficiently and effectively, change is not an option, it is a requirement.

“As a Senator, I’ve fought to make key changes to the budget process so we can limit future budget stalemates. I’ve been a strong supporter of our schools and a staunch defender of funding for K-12 and higher education. I’ve consistently opposed tax increases as burdensome to California’s businesses and unfair to taxpayers when there is still so much wasteful spending by state government. And I’ve always sided with law enforcement and crime victims over criminal offenders.

“My priorities, my experience and my record are a perfect fit for the responsibilities of the Lt. Governor’s office.”

Ah, but wait for it… Scroll down to the release’s “background” section and you find:

In 2008, then-Senate President Pro-Tem Don Perata organized and funded a recall campaign against Denham for opposing passage of the unbalanced state budget. Denham won a stunning 76% of the vote and statewide attention for both his principled leadership against state deficit spending and his defeat of the Legislature’s most powerful member.

Now, Denham might well have run for lieutenant governor in 2010 no matter what — he seems like an ambitious guy. But Don Perata’s ill-conceived recall gave him statewide name recognition of the best kind: The David-who-defeated-Goliath kind, the martyr-who-lived-to-tell-the-tale kind, the kind that sometimes tips the scales in contested primaries.

Don Perata might’ve wanted to oust Denham, but he might end up being the best thing that ever happened to Denham’s political career.

I received this news release a short while ago from state Sen. Jeff Denham, a few hours after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed raising the state sales tax by 1.5 cent; levying a new tax on services; levying a new tax on producers extracting oil in California; and increasing alcohol excise taxes by five cents a drink in order to raise $4.7 billion in new revenue to help backfill the $11.2 billion hole in this year’s state budget:

Sacramento – Senator Jeff Denham (R-Merced) today issued the following statement in response to proposals to solve the State’s projected $11 – $13 billion budget deficit with tax hikes:

“So, let me get this straight – big-spending politicians want hard-working Californians to bail them out? Forget about it!”

Denham overwhelmingly beat back a recall effort earlier this year that Senate Democrat Leader Don Perata launched because last year Denham refused to vote for a tax hike.

Denham again refused to vote for this year’s unbalanced budget and will continue to vote against any tax hike.

With a ham-handed, abortive attempt to boost Democrats’ state Senate majority (which failed miserably), Don Perata gave Jeff Denham the gift of near-martyrdom, and Denham now seems determined to play it to the hilt for the two years he has left in the Senate; if he hadn’t been intransigent before, he certainly is today.

But I guess that’ll be incoming Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg‘s problem, as Perata is halfway out the door.

Plenty of big-ticket political contributions flowed to California causes and committees while I was basking on the shores of Clear Lake last week. Here’s a rundown from the past seven days, limited to contributions of $25,000 or more for the sake of brevity, and in no particular order:

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association‘s Truth in American Government Fund on Friday laid a cool $250,000 on Leadership California, a committee controlled by state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland. Leadership California is the organ through which Perata has fought for causes such as 2006′s infrastructure-bond ballot measures; Senate Democrats’ 2007 healthcare reform platform; and this year’s failed effort to recall state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced.

Big money was moving for and against Proposition 8, the proposed state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Big-time contributions supporting the measure in the past week included $1 million from the New Haven, Conn.-based Knights of Columbus; $250,000 from Holland, Mich. retiree and conservative philanthropist Elsa Prince; $125,000 from Pacific Shores Masonry of Corona; $100,000 from North American Health Care Inc. director Donald G. Laws of Laguna Beach; and $25,000 each from South Coast Health Care Management administrator Alan H. Anderson of Laguna Beach and Robert N. Packer of Lafayette. Big contributions against Proposition 8 in the past week included $150,000 from the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign; $40,000 from Eureka Information Services Group principal David Ring of Healdsburg; $30,000 from the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights‘ Social Justice Fund; and $25,000 each from Los Angeles attorney Christopher Caldwell, Santa Rosa attorney Elizabeth Cabraser, Farallon Capital Managment managing member Richard B. Fried of San Francisco, and San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co.

Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Children’s Hospital Central California in Madera last Wednesday each ponied up $695,625 in support of Proposition 3, the Children’s Hospital Bond Act, which would authorize almost $1 billion in bonds to be repaid from state’s General Fund to fund the construction, expansion, remodeling, renovation, furnishing and equipping of children’s hospitals.

The past week’s contributions to Proposition 11, the legislative redistricting reform measure, included $100,000 each from Pleasanton-based Safeway Inc. and Manhattan Beach retiree William Bloomfield Jr., and $25,000 from the American Council of Engineering Companies California‘s Issues Fund.

And Palo Alto homemaker Catherine H. Johnson last Thursday gave $45,000 to the campaign against Proposition 4, the proposed state constitutional amendment which would require doctors to inform the parent or guardian of a minor 48 hours before providing an abortion to that minor.

…and other post-election political money tidbits.

State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, this week reported that the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians donated $25,000 to the legal defense fund he set up in response to a federal corruption probe launched against him in 2004. Not a moment too soon; as of May 17, the once-vigorous fund was down to $273. The East Bay Express’s Robert Gammon reported in December that federal prosecutors were snooping around for reporters’ notes, and the Chronicle’s Matier & Ross reported in April that prosecutors were asking for more time in which to wrap up the case.

Lest you ever wonder how important a party endorsement is in a primary, consider that from May 7 through this past Tuesday’s election, the California Democratic Party put almost $153,000 into helping Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley — whom the party endorsed at its convention in March — defeat former Assembly Majority Leader Wilma Chan of Alameda in the primary to Perata in the 9th State Senate District. Hancock defeated Chan by 12 percentage points Tuesday.

Berkeley City Councilman Kriss Worthington put a final $20,000 into his own campaign for the 14th Assembly District on May 29, just a few days before the election; that’s on top of $7,200 he’d contributed to his campaign and $22,000 he’d loaned it earlier. He finished a distant third Tuesday, behind winner Nancy Skinner and second-place finisher Tony Thurmond. Skinner had contributed $3,600 to her own campaign and loaned it about $30,700.

The Perata-organized (and later, Perata-abandoned) effort to recall state Sen. Jeff Denham soaked up $550,000 from the California State Council of Service Employees; more than $488,000 from the Democratic State Central Committee of California; $300,000 from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; and $110,000 from the Perata-controlled Leadership California committee (see it all here) before going down in flames Tuesday with just 24 percent of the vote. About $1.06 million of that went to Palisades Media Group for television and radio ad buys; the next biggest expenditures were about $78,000 to the firm of Sacramento political consultant and longtime Perata associate Sandi Polka (as well as $9,000 to Chris Lehman and more than $7,300 to Paul Hefner, both Polka associates); about $87,500 to Emeryville-based Pacific Print Resources, which produces campaign mailers; about $36,600 to CBS Outdoor, presumably for billboards; and about $26,600 to the firm of Shawnda Westly, another Sacramento campaign consultant.

I’m watching the five counties that comprise state Senator Jeff Denham‘s district, and it appears the effort to recall him — an effort concieved, bankrolled and then abandoned by Oakland’s own state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata — is going down to defeat in a landslide.

My latest numbers are 38,536 voting no, 11,813 voting yes — that’s a 77 percent to 23 percent defeat. And early though those returns may be, that’s a good old-fashioned butt whupping.

Denham just issued a victory statement:

The idea of recalling a legislator because he voted against a budget that was $4 billion out-of-balance is ludicrous. Don Perata’s dream of gaining a 2/3 majority to raise our taxes has thankfully been crushed. The voters have spoken and they do not want their taxes raised on a massive scale to cover the mistakes of the politicians in Sacramento.

I haven’t heard anything from Perata yet, but I’ll update this post if I do.

Read Denham’s complete statement, after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

So state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, pulled the plug late Wednesday on his effort to have state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, recalled from office. From our story:

The abrupt move came, he said, after deciding that a recall of the Merced Republican would directly affect his ability to negotiate a budget with Republicans, who have assailed him for pursuing the recall.

He said he told Sen. Dave Cogdill, R-Fresno, that “I did not believe this kind of politics cast against the huge problems we’re having in the state made a lot of sense.

“You get to the point where you just have to say you gotta see what matters most,” Perata said.

“And I don’t want to go through what we went through last year. The state can’t afford it. You know how things are at the end of a campaign. They get uglier and uglier, tenser and tenser, and it made no sense.”

To recap: Perata couldn’t see what mattered most until Wednesday, when he realized pursuing the recall made no sense.

So what took him so long?

In trying to recall Denham — a move Perata essentially acknowledged was as much (if not more) about pushing Senate Democrats closer to the two-thirds majority needed to pass budget bills as it was about Denham’s voting record — Perata embraced the very tactics of which he and many other Democrats complained so stridently during the 2003 gubernatorial recall.

Also, even as he abandoned any pretense to owning the moral high ground (as if there’s any in politics, anyway), Perata also has made a martyr of Denham — a martyr who gets to stick around and make the most of his martyrdom. Denham’s supporters say he’s a moderate, Perata and his supporters say Denham campaigned as a moderate but legislated as an arch-conservative. Whatever Denham is, he’s also now the guy who can truthfully say he faced down a recall threat from someone supposed to be California’s most powerful Democrat; that’s a line you’ll surely hear in campaign ads if Denham ever seeks statewide office.

If you don’t buy that, fine. For another view — a staunchly liberal Democratic view — of how Perata made a train-wreck out of this, check Calitics, where a recall supporter reams Perata for wussing out on a noble cause:

“A real Senate leader would have broadened the race into a referendum on state Republicans and would have done very well. You either do something like this full-speed or you never start it in the first place. This half-step just furthers the narrative of Democratic weakness.

[snip]

“(Y)ou now let everyone off the hook because you’ve proven you can be bullied by a Republican hissy fit and tut-tuts from the conventional wisdom crowd in the media. No Republican will EVER take a Democratic threat seriously in the near future, crippling the leadership of Darrell Steinberg. And all the leverage on getting legislation passed in the Senate just ended.

“Great friggin’ job, Don. If you want to just go ahead and quit now and let any stray cat from Berkeley finish out your term, that’d be just fine with me.”

Wow, there’s just no love for Perata on this one. Methinks the Pro Tem isn’t covering himself in glory in his final months at the Legislature’s helm; read Perata’s statement as e-mailed to reporters, after the jump, and judge for yourself… Read the rest of this entry »

The Merced Sun Star reports today that Merced County Registrar of Voters M. Stephen Jones will ask county and state prosecutors to probe possible election-law violations — by the Don Perata-backed campaign to recall state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced:

Jones, Merced County’s top elections official, said his staff noticed some of the same problems several weeks ago and that he will file a complaint by early next week with both the county district attorney and the state attorney general.

Specifically, his staff discovered that some of the signature-gatherers had used hotel addresses when they registered to vote in Merced County. His office called the hotels and verified that the signature-gatherers didn’t live there, Jones said. “It appears that people who stated they were residents of Merced are actually residents of Florida, and that’s a problem,” he said. “We think it warrants the attention of law enforcement.”

These issues were raised by Denham’s supporters months ago — before Secretary of State Debra Bowen had certified more than 60,000 petition signatures calling for Denham’s recall, and before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had scheduled the recall election to coincide with the June 3 statewide primary — and were repeated at a news conference yesterday in Merced.

So the Denham defense campaign wants the public talking about election law violations, while the Dump Denham campaign wants people talking about Denham’s role in stonewalling the state budget last summer. But it’s very clear that Perata has pushed the recall in large part because replacing the Republican Denham with a Democrat would give Senate Democrats the two-thirds majority they need to override gubernatorial vetoes. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in Denham’s district, so Perata saw him as the most vulnerable way to tip the balance.

I just left a message for Dump Denham spokesman Paul Hefner, and I’ll post his comments as soon as I get ‘em.

The Sun-Star also reported this:

The Sacramento-based company that hired and paid the signature gatherers, Discovery Petition Management Company, did nothing wrong, its owner, Eileen Ray, insisted in an interview.

She said her employees don’t mislead voters. Ray acknowledged that her company used some nonlocal signature-gatherers for the job, for which Discovery was paid at least $246,000. But she argued that’s not illegal.

She cited a recent appellate court ruling that deemed some parts of the California Election Code unconstitutional, specifically codes that require signature-gatherers circulating citywide veto referendum petitions to be residents of the city in which they are circulating the petitions. “Our attorneys basically told us the ruling meant we don’t have to worry about using people from the area anymore,” Ray said.

(Denham spokesman Kevin) Spillane said that ruling doesn’t apply to state Senate recalls. “Our attorneys have looked at that, and if that’s their only defense, they could be in a lot of trouble.”

Supporters of state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, today claimed the campaign to recall him from office — backed by state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland — broke state election law by using petition signature-gatherers who live outside Denham’s 12th State Senate District. In a Merced news conference this morning, they asked prosecutors and voter registrars in Denham’s district to investigate.

Perhaps this should’ve happened before the more than 60,000 signatures calling for Denham’s recall were certified last month by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, or at least before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger formally set the recall election to coincide with the June 3 state primary?

Perata has pushed the recall in large part because Denham was among Senate Republicans who stonewalled the state budget for about a month last summer. But the policy rationale clearly takes a back seat to the political ramifications: Replacing the Republican Denham with a Democrat would give Senate Democrats the two-thirds majority they need to override gubernatorial vetoes. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in Denham’s district, so Perata saw him as the most vulnerable way to tip the balance.

Denhams’ supporters’ news release today notes California Election Code section 11045 requires that “(o)nly registered voters of the electoral jurisdiction of the officer sought to be recalled are qualified to circulate or sign a recall petition for that officer.” Yet, they claim, a review of campaign finance forms filed by the two committees behind the recall show at least 24 of the 56 individuals who were paid to gather for signature gathering live elsewhere; $79,885, or 64 percent of the itemized payments reported thus far to signature gatherers, have been made to individuals living outside Denham’s district.

They also claim their review of the other 32 individuals listed as paid signature gatherers found two registered to vote at the same non-existent address in Atwater, and two more registered at different hotels in the district. They cite California Election Code section 2021(b), which states, “A person does not gain a domicile in any precinct into which he or she comes for temporary purposes merely, without the intention of making that precinct his or her home.”

“Throughout the recall campaign there have been numerous reports of suspicious conduct by paid signature gatherers who not only misrepresented Jeff Denham’s record, but lied about the very petitions they asked voters to sign,” anti-recall campaign spokesman Kevin Spillane said in a release. “It has been reported back to us that some voters were being told the recall forms were actually a petition for widening Highway 99. Also — in several cases, the signature gatherers admitted to voters that they lived at locations outside the 12th District — in violation of California election law.”

It’s “clear that California election law has been systematically violated by Senator Don Perata’s political operation,” Spillane claimed. “Under California law, our campaign is not allowed access to the petitions and other relevant records. We have taken our research as far as we can. Now we respectfully request that local authorities do their jobs and pursue this matter.”

Dump Denham campaign spokesman Paul Hefner said this is a load of tripe, just as it was when Denham supporters first complained about it several months ago.

“We abided by the rules, that’s why the recall was certified,” he said. “The simple fact of the matter is, Jeff Denham wants this to be about anything other than his record… and that the voters of his district are desperate to get rid of him.”

Denham’s anti-recall campaign has posted to its Web site, via YouTube, several surreptitious recordings of an operative talking to petition signature-gatherers. But Hefner said those’ve been up there for months, aren’t so scandalous, and mean only that “Denham’s got a lot of explaining to do for why he feels the need to go out and do surveillance on his own constituents.”

What did I learn listening to these recordings?

Really, this seems to me like an indictment of California’s overall petition signature-gathering process — having uninformed people who’re paid like paperboys serve as gatekeepers to our democracy is a recipe for disaster no matter what the issue. But then again, I hate the ballot-measure process anyway; I think we should elect our representatives to legislate for us, and if we’re not happy with ‘em, we shouldn’t re-elect ‘em.

Listen to the recordings yourself, after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »