A few choice tidbits from today’s rollout of a proposed ballot measure to hike the state’s cigarette tax by a dollar per pack to fund cancer research, for which I didn’t have room in the article I wrote for tomorrow’s editions…

Don Perata, who said he conceived of the measure while still in the state Senate and well before being diagnosed with and treated for prostate cancer earlier this year, said he’s not sure he wants to become the “face” of this campaign, a task better left to allies such as the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association. “Whatever I am, I’m still a politician. If you’re an old Catholic, it’s kind of like original sin.”

Nor will he serve on the “Californians for a Cure” campaign committee’s steering board, which will be made up of representatives from the health advocacy groups. “None of these people have vested self interests, none of these people are going to make a dime.”

Perata noted own cancer treatment seems to have been successful. “Some might question my mental health, but my physical condition is really good.”

And, from the nascent measure’s likely opponents…

From Bill Phelps, spokesman for Altria, the parent company of tobacco giant Phillip Morris USA:

“It’s important to remember that the Legislature just passed a budget a few months ago that includes more than $12 billion in tax increases, and this latest idea would raise taxes by almost a billion dollars. Given the state of the economy, we don’t think this is the time to be raising taxes again.”

From California Taxpayers’ Association communications director David Kline:

“We have not yet taken a position, but I anticipate that the California Taxpayers’ Association will oppose the measure based on our view that Californians already have been hit with major tax increases this year, and another tax increase would hurt the economy. With unemployment over 12 percent in California, we need to be looking for ways to improve the economy, not hold it back. Also, the tobacco tax is a declining revenue source, and we have historically opposed initiatives that base ongoing spending on declining revenue sources, because this is a recipe for more budget problems in the future.”

From Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal:

“We have opposed tobacco tax hikes in the past and will almost certainly oppose this one as well.”

S.K. Seymour LLC, the partnership that runs Oakstersdam University and its related “cannabusinesses,” last Tuesday gave $10,000 to Hope 2010, a ballot measure committee (formerly known as Leadership California) controlled by former state Senate President Pro Tem and 2010 Oakland mayoral candidate Don Perata. Perata in September publicly endorsed the “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010,” the marijuana legalization ballot measure co-proposed by S.K. Seymour LLC partner and Oaksterdam University President Richard Lee. Hope 2010 is supporting the California Cancer Research Act, a proposed ballot measure that would raise the state’s tobacco tax to fund grants and loans for reaearch; to create, staff and equip California’s research facilities; and to boost efforts to reduce tobacco use. The measure is now awaiting preparation of its title and summary by the state Attorney General’s office; it looks like the campaign has a Web site being built but not yet ready for public viewing.

In other news, Palo Alto physicist Charles T. Munger Jr., son of Warren Buffett’s billionaire investor partner, last week put another $701,260 into his “Voters First Act for Congress” ballot measure, bringing his total so far to $1,003,030. The measure would remove authority for setting California’s 53 Congressional district boundaries from the state Legislature, and would give that authority instead to the same Citizens Redistricting Commission that will soon be setting state Legislative boundaries (as required by last year’s successful Proposition 11).

Pacific Gas & Electric on Friday put another $500,000 into its somewhat euphemistically named “Californians to Protect Our Right to Vote” committee, pushing a ballot measure which would require local governments to obtain the approval of two-thirds of their voters (rather than just a simple majority) before providing electricity to new customers or expanding such service to new territories if any public funds or bonds are involved, or before providing electricity through a community choice program if any public funds or bonds are involved. Critics say PG&E is playing on populist themes in order to block local governments from abandoning the utility giant in favor of power contracts with smaller, greener energy producers – a movement that’s been gaining steam in recent years. The proponents have until Dec. 21 to gather the 694,354 signatures needed to place this on the ballot next year. This contribution brings PG&E’s stake as the committee’s sole donor to $3.5 million so far.

And Livermore optometrist Scott Kamena on Friday put $23,000 into his own Kamena for Assembly 2008 committee, which had indicated in its mid-year report having $60,749.39 in outstanding debts. Kamena ran in the June 2008 Republican primary for the 15th Assembly District, coming in fourth behind nominee Abram Wilson and candidates Robert Rao and Judy Lloyd.

State Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg is trying to land a one-two punch on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s three-day-a-month furloughs of state employees.

Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Ken Jacobs, chairman of the University of California Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, will hold a news conference tomorrow at the State Capitol to release a study on “The High Cost of Furloughs,” which shows the governor’s three-day-a-month furlough program saves less than anticipated, offset by less revenue and higher costs in future years, while dragging down the Sacramento region’s already struggling economy.

Earlier today, Steinberg rolled out a different study from the nonpartisan state Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes which found furlough savings aren’t being realized for at least a third of the roughly 100,000 state employees paid from the general fund with round-the-clock jobs; the furlough policy is just pushing labor costs to future years while adding more costs.

“This report is further confirmation that the administration’s furlough program was poorly thought out and will not deliver long-term savings for the general fund,” Steinberg said of this study. “In round-the-clock operations like prisons and state developmental centers, the furlough program is not reducing hours over the long-term, it is simply deferring paychecks.”

“Furloughs in Round-the-Clock Operations: Savings are Illusory,” analyzed payroll data from the State Controller’s Office and interviews with top prison, developmental services and mental health officials. Among the findings Steinberg is touting:

In round-the-clock institutions, employees in positions that must be filled day and night generally aren’t taking off three days per month; while absorbing the 14 percent reduction in pay, they’re working the “furlough” days and banking time to be taken off later on. In the prisons, which employ 70 percent of all state workers paid by the general fund, officials say the long-term cost of furloughs is greater than the savings; corrections officials say they were told by the administration that short-term payroll savings are more important than future liabilities. Correctional workers banked 1.5 million furlough hours between February and August this year; most are correctional officers, and at $34.91 an hour, that’s a future liability of at least $52 million.

When correctional officers do take time off, they generally use furlough days instead of vacation days, so from February through August, the number of unused vacation days accrued by correctional officers jumped 500 percent – a potential boondoggle for future prison staffing, and costlier because many workers will be at a higher pay rate when they finally do use their vacation time.

Furloughs fail to save the $108 million projected by the administration in the prison healthcare system, according to the court-appointed receivership now that system; the costs of paying overtime and hiring private workers to fill in for furloughed workers will exceed any savings. In fact, the court-appointed receiver says furloughs are projected to increase costs within the prison health care system by $37 million to $47 million this year.

Similar bankings of furlough and vacation time are happening in California’s dozen mental hospitals and developmental centers, creating the same kinds of future liabilities.

As the governor wielded his pen last night, state lawmakers from Alameda County saw victories on issues such as human trafficking, medical insurance recission and traffic congestion as well as defeats on issues such as ballot measure petition reform, trade agreements and electronic cigarettes.

Follow me after the jump for details on some of the winners and losers…
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(UPDATE @ 11 A.M. MONDAY 10/12: I’ve updated this post throughout to denote which bills the governor signed and which bills he vetoed.)

Lisa and I worked up a story about East Bay lawmakers’ bills being held ransom as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger threatens a blanket veto this weekend unless Legislative leaders cut a deal on the state’s water problems. As print space is limited, I thought I’d post some of the lawmakers’ comments in fuller form here.

Assembly Majority Leader and state Attorney General candidate Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, said Friday that if the governor follows through on his veto threat, he’ll unveil a bill Monday explicitly banning exactly this type of legislative and executive “extortion” in the future. Torrico had asked state Attorney General Jerry Brown to probe whether the blanket veto threat already violates the California Constitution’s and Penal Code’s ban on such quid pro quos, but Brown said Friday he’ll not do so.

“This is a new low for the governor, but it really is in keeping with the tenor and tone in Sacramento of negotiation through ransom notes,” Torrico said.

Torrico cited Legislative Republicans’ successful moves in recent years to exact policy wins such as tax breaks for the horse-racing industry and a ballot measure that would create an open-primary electoral system, in return for their votes on the state budget.

He’s concerned about three bills he authored: AB 1049, (VETOED) adding the state Safely Surrendered Baby Fund to the state income tax return form’s voluntary contributions section; AB 1270, (VETOED) making it easier for victimss to receive compensation from the Victim’s Compensation and Government Claims Board in a timely manner by requiring the board to have written procedures and time frames in place as suggested by a state audit report; and AB 665, (SIGNED) to ensure that federal incentive payments given to California for increasing the number of youth adopted out of foster care will be distributed to counties to fund activities to improve legal permanency outcomes for foster youth ages nine or older.

Staffers for state Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, said she’s concerned about two bills she has waiting on the governor’s desk.

SB 83 (SIGNED) would let county transportation planning agencies put measures on their counties’ ballots to impose fees of up to $10 per vehicle to raise money for local projects to ease traffic congestion. The Senate passed this on a 23-17 vote, the Assembly on a 46-31 vote.

And Hancock’s SB 279 (VETOED) would let cities and counties create local financing authorities to help property owners pay up front for solar-energy systems, energy efficiency improvements and water conservation measures; initial funding would come from a bond fund to be repaid over time through an assessment on the tax bills of the participating property owners. The Senate passed this 25-8, the Assembly 58-19.

State Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, noted she has 14 bills awaiting the governor’s action – more than any other Senator – dealing with issues such as lengthening the notice given to the state and requiring public hearings before a hospital emergency room can be shut down (SB 196, VETOED); halting sales of electronic cigarettes, currently unregulated and sometimes marketed to children (SB 400, VETOED); updating the list of public school facilities that need to be seismically retrofitted (SB 305, VETOED); and reducing fraud by barring petition signature gatherers from being paid per signature (SB 34, VETOED).

“Every member of the legislature works long and hard to craft meaningful legislation. The bills would not be on the Governor’s desk if they did not have merit,” she said. “These bills are not just pieces of paper. Each one will have an impact on Californian’s lives.”

Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley, said she believes the governor will review every bill on its own merit

“These are vital issues to the people of California and I am sure that he will give careful consideration to each of these bills,” she said, noting she has 13 bills on the govenror’s desk. “My top priorities include AB 1386, (SIGNED) which will resolve a 40-year old dispute over a Caltrans project in my district and address local transportation and housing needs.”

She’s also concerned about AB 73, (SIGNED) without which Alameda County will risk losing its groundbreaking violence prevention program, Hayashi said. “Lastly, AB 108 (SIGNED) is critically important, because we need to protect consumers from having their health insurance policies rescinded, especially at the very moment they need costly treatment and life-saving services”

State Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley; Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley; and various water and law enforcement officials are scheduled to cut the ribbon tomorrow morning on a new drop-off station for unwanted medicines.

The station – in the lobby of the Elihu Harris State Office Building at 1515 Clay St. in Oakland – aims to collect unwanted over-the-counter and prescription pharmaceuticals to prevent them from being flushed down toilets, washed down sinks or sent to landfills, from which they can end up polluting local watersheds and the Bay.

Studies have found at least trace amounts of various drugs in surface water across the nation, and scientists fear this contributes both to increased bacterial resistance to antibiotics as well as to interference with normal growth and reproduction in aquatic wildlife such as fish and frogs.

Tomorrow’s event is part of California’s No Drugs Down the Drain week; last year, the week’s observance led to collection of about 30,000 pounds of unwanted medicines across the state.

The Sacramento Bee has this absolutely fantastic database of every gift given to state elected officials, their relatives and their staffs from January 2008 through June 2009. It seems that during this recession, they’ve accepted about 12,000 gifts – everything from meals at swank restaurants to clothes to tickets for concerts and sports events – worth about $833,000.

A few highlights to consider:

AT&T by far gave the most in gifts, worth a total of $42,785, including more than $3,000 to lawmakers here in Alameda County, mostly in event tickets. For example, the telecommunications giant gave staffers and relatives of then-State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, Bruce Springsteen tickets worth $242, while Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, and his relatives received almost $500 in Neil Diamond tickets.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger loves the free booze – $1,575 worth. Torrico and Attorney General Jerry Brown are the top tipplers among our locals, but $173 and $165, respectively, hardly seem like a lot given California’s costly Cabernets.

Gee, how did so many recipients manage to receive gifts worth exactly the maximum allowed by law?

Go find some highlights of your own – it’s fun!

Accepting such gifts isn’t illegal – the fact that they’re in this database means the officials reported the gifts as required by state law. But as the officials insist the gifts have no bearing on their policy decisions, consider: Why would the givers bestow all these gifts if they didn’t think they were getting something – be it goodwill, better access or a specific vote (the latter of which would be illegal) – in return?

For the time being, we’re left to ponder unknowables. Who knew Torrico was such a Neil Diamond fan? Why’d then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez run around giving so many of his fellow Democrats $79 Patagonia vests to wear? And what’s the top playlist on the iPod that Perata received from Los Angeles billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad?

Naturally, I have some ideas on that last one:

More Don Perata iPod suggestions welcome in the comments section…

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, this afternoon announced that Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley, and Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, will be among the 10 members of her chamber (eight Democrats and two Republicans) serving on the Joint Select Committee on Reform.

Bass and state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, are forming the panel with the goals of making the Legislature more transparent and effective and making state government more efficient and customer friendly. Steinberg announced his appointments last week, including state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, as co-chairman and state Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, as a member.

Hill issued a statement saying he’s “eager to answer the call of our constituents for a more efficient and transparent government. I’m confident this group will lead the way to a more productive government with thorough analysis of potential reforms.”

Bass said her appointees “are ready to hit the ground running on reforms. I look forward to the Committee’s recommendations as they work throughout the coming weeks to produce a roadmap to help California work better.”

According to last week’s news release announcing the committee’s formation, the panel will be tasked with:

- Giving Californians more value for their tax dollars by making government more efficient and accountable.

- Prioritizing key issues, so government makes the tough decisions and only turns to the voters when absolutely necessary.

- Cutting through the gridlock caused by outmoded rules and undue partisanship.

- Making government more transparent and accessible from around the state.

- Diminishing the influence of special interests.

- Making government more customer-friendly.

- Creating a process that encourages decisions that reflect long-term thinking, not short-term band-aids.

The Public Policy Institute of California found in July that only 17 percent of California adults, 14 percent of registered voters and 10 percent of likely voters it had surveyed approved of the way the state Legislature is handling it’s job, and I’m willing to bet the last two months haven’t brought any significant improvement. Re-instilling faith in our state lawmakers won’t be easy or quick; here’s hoping these and other appointees are up to the task, and that the task itself isn’t inherently impossible.

State Senator Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, and a dozen other Northern California state lawmakers wrote to state Attorney General Jerry Brown today, asking that he investigate the business practices of Sutter Health – the latest salvo in the battle to keep San Leandro Hospital and its emergency room open.

The letter asks the Attorney General to investigate whether Sutter Health has a pattern of using assets and profits of county, district and private safety net hospitals to its own benefit and to the detriment of the surrounding community.

Corbett hosted a town hall meeting last night in San Leandro; she says more than 300 people were there to show support for keeping the hospital and ER open, and some raised questions about Sutter Health’s activities at hospitals in San Francisco and Marin County as well.

“It’s clear that there is a strong community will to support the hospital and emergency room. Residents want to know why Sutter is not listening to them,” Corbett said in her news release. “I am asking the Attorney General to investigate their practices and protect the health and welfare of our citizens. I am grateful so many of my colleagues have joined in my request; it shows that many members of the legislature are concerned about Sutter’s actions in communities throughout the state.”

Besides Corbett, those signing the letter included state Senators Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley; Mark Leno, D-San Francisco; Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa; and Leland Yee, D-San Francisco; as well as Assemblymembers Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco; Jim Beall Jr., D-San Jose; Wesley Chesbro, D-Arcata; Joe Coto, D-San Jose; Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa; Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley; Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael; and Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley.

California’s Fair Political Practices Commission issued a news release Tuesday saying state lawmakers so far had held more than 250 political fundraisers in Sacramento during 2009, according to information the FPPC culled from items listed in the Daily Bread section of the Capitol Morning Report.

“If a deep-pocket interest provided the maximum solicited contribution to every one of these fundraisers, they would have spent as much as $1,014,270 to attend the events,” FPPC Chairman Ross Johnson said in the release. “And this list does not include any district fundraising events or golf tournaments held by incumbent legislators.”

Most of the events were for 2010 elections but a significant number were for 2012 or 2014 races, he noted. “This trend of seeing contributions made for elections years in the future allows incumbent officeholders to enjoy a tremendous advantage by continually maintaining sizeable war chests — scaring off potential opponents.”

But the spreadsheet accompanying the release didn’t have the incumbents’ names, just the type of accounts for which they were raising money, and the event’s type, date and maximum solicited contribution. So I filed a Public Records Act request for an unredacted spreadsheet including the incumbents’ names, and I received it today.

It shows that, of all the lawmakers in the Bay Area, Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Alameda, seems to have kept up the most aggressive fundraising schedule since Jan. 1, all for his 2010 Assembly re-election campaign. He held a Jan. 27 reception asking up to $3,900 a head; a Feb. 26 breakfast asking up to $1,900 a head; a March 16 breakfast asking up to $3,900 a head; an April 24 Pebble Beach golf fundraiser asking up to $3,900 a head; and a June 17th reception asking up to $3,900 a head.

Actually, I think the FPPC might’ve missed a few; I see Swanson held a May 5 luncheon asking $1,000 a head. And perhaps his most ambitious event is yet to come: his annual, two-day “East Coast/West Coast Golf Challenge,” scheduled for Sept. 4-5 at the Paiute Golf Resort in Las Vegas for up to $3,900 a head. Swanson is expecting as many as 70 participants from Washington, D.C. and all over California.

Swanson’s midyear campaign finance report shows he started 2009 with $8,657.79 in his campaign account, and raised $267,594.57 and spent $113,448.32 in the year’s first six months, leaving him with $164,809.49 cash on hand and $19,056.61 in unpaid debts as of June 30.

Swanson in November was re-elected to his 16th Assembly District seat with 87.9 percent of the vote, and 65.5 percent of his district’s registered voters are Democrats compared to 8.3 percent who are Republicans. It’s not as if he’s likely to face a strong challenge in 2010.

He readily acknowledged that when we spoke this afternoon: Although no incumbent should ever take anything for granted, he said, much of the money he spends so much time raising isn’t actually used for his re-election campaign.

“With the state cutbacks, they allow us to use our campaign accounts … to supplement our office budget for supplies and other kinds of things,” he said. “We also use it to contribute to community based organizations – like, for instance, I gave $1,500 to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce event that they did this year to help with their scholarships and community activities.”

Swanson also said he said he wants a big war chest on hand to combat ballot measures he finds objectionable. Next year will see a measure that would create an open-primary election system that Swanson said “challenges the core of democracy,” and there’s talk of measures that would cut the Legislature back to part-time and deny benefits to elected office holders; he’ll spend against all of ‘em, he said.

Of course, that’s not all he spends it on. I dinged him last November for 2007-08 cycle spending that included 128 “meetings and appearances” tabs at East Bay and Sacramento restaurants totaling $7,956.26. A glance at his spending in the first half of this year, though, seems to show less of that sort of thing.

See all the Bay Area lawmakers’ 2009 Sacramento fundraisers as listed by the FPPC, after the jump…
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