Senate poster boys

If you're a California state senator and you get yourself indicted, you're going to be asked to leave that august body. But if you're a state senator and you get yourself convicted of crimes, well, how about an indefinite leave of absence at full pay?


Ron Calderon

That's what happened this week in Sacramento.
Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, faces 24 criminal charges in a federal indictment accusing him of taking nearly $100,000 in bribes in exchange for efforts to influence legislation. The 56-year-old Montebello Democrat faces a maximum sentence of 396 years if convicted.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg last fall properly stripped Calderon of his committee assignments after an affidavit outlining the government's case was leaked to the press. This week Steinberg said Calderon should resign.


Rod Wright

Then there's Sen. Rod Wright, a Baldwin Hills Democrat. This week Steinberg said Wright would take an indefinite leave while he irons out his legal problems. Those problems include being convicted Jan. 29 by a Los Angeles County jury of eight counts of voter fraud and perjury stemming from charges he lied about where he lived when he ran for the state Senate six years ago.
While on leave, Wright will keep drawing his $95,291-a-year salary although at least he won't be getting his tax-free $163-a-day living expenses other senators draw.
Apparently, there is nothing in the state constitution allowing the Senate to deny a member's pay. Calderon and Wright would seem to be the perfect poster boys for a campaign to fix that little oversight.
Oddly, Steinberg did not call for Wright to step down, which he said had nothing to do with maintaining his party's super-majority in the Legislature. And in making that claim, Steinberg didn't wink, nod or grin.

Veterans caught in the crossfire

If the nation's veterans feel like they're caught in a partisan crossfire, they're right.
The Senate on Thursday derailed legislation providing $21 billion for medical, education and job-training benefits for veterans.



Unfinished buildings at the Veterans Administration Clinic in French Camp, CA

"I personally ... have a hard time understanding how anyone could vote for tax breaks for billionaires, for millionaires, for large corporations and then say we don't have the resources to protect our veterans," said Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chief author of the Democratic legislation.
Indeed.
Only two Republicans crossed the aisle in the clear majority 56-41 Senate vote, but because of the upper chamber's arcane rules 60 votes were needed.
Republican bristled because the bill's costs would be paid for with savings expected from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, many of those same Republicans had no trouble increasing  the nation's debt to prosecute those wars.
Republicans also unsuccessfully tried to amend the bill by slicing its size and adding penalties against Iran for its nuclear program. The White House reasonably opposes new penalties while international negotiations with Iran proceed. Making the added penalties proposal even sillier is the fact that 59 senators of both parties have sponsored separate legislation to punish Iran if the ongoing talks fail.

The veterans legislation addressed everything from making more of them eligible for in-state college tuition to providing fertility or adoption services for some wounded troops left unable to conceive. The Veterans Administration would have been given more tools to address the backlog of 390,000 benefit claims awaiting action for more than 125 days. The bill also would have bolstered programs for veterans who suffered sexual abuse, and would have increased dental care and provided more alternative medicine, such as yoga for stress.

Benefits for some spouses of deceased veterans would have improved, and aid to relatives caring for a wounded veteran would have been expanded to include those who served before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Caring for this nation's veterans is a cost of war. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be over or nearly over, but for tens of thousands of the men and women who served there, their battles continue. This nation has an obligation to help them in that fight.

Barging into town?

Google, which knows more about us than we know about it, isn't saying where it will berth a mysterious barge now tied to a Treasure Island dock in San Francisco Bay.
This week the technology news and product review website, CNET.com, reported rumors that the barge could be coming to Stockton. CNET hung its information on a Richmond city councilman and the chief executive of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. CNET said the two had heard rumors.
Normally you'd hope there was something more substantial than rumors behind news stories, but given Google has been so closed-mouthed about the barge -- only suggesting it could be some sort of showcase for new technology, whatever that means -- and that, well, since it's Google, news organizations pounced. Many called Stockton officials who claimed not to have about the barge coming to town until reporters started asking questions.
Barge construction became an issue earlier this month when the Conservation and Development Commission said Treasure Island officials lacked the proper project permits. Without the permits, fines could be imposed, and without a doubt, there is no rumor here: Google could afford to pay them.
Stockton and Port of Stockton officials seem open to having the barge pull into town, but for now if they want to know more about it, they're stuck doing what the rest of us have to do -- Google it.

Get the facts before the public

The deaths of Daniel Lee Humphreys and Donald Haynes merge in a curious way.
Humphreys died in 2008 after he was chased on his motorcycle by the California Highway Patrol along Interstate 5 in San Joaquin County. Haynes died Feb. 9 in an officer-involved shooting in south Stockton involving Stockton police.
Other than the fact that the deaths of both men involved law enforcement officers in some way, the cases do not overlap except for this: both involve information being withheld.
Dr. Bennet Omalu said it was not until about two years after his autopsy of Humphreys' body that he learned the man had been tased 31 times in the space of 7 minutes and 30 seconds. He initially had been told Humphreys had only been shocked twice. The new information caused Omalu to change the cause of Humphreys' death from mild traumatic brain injury caused by the motorcycle crash to "repeated conducted electrical excitation."
Haynes, being sought in the beating of his wife, died when shot by police who said he confronted them with a bayonet on Airport Way after his car was stopped. This week former Stockton Councilman Ralph Lee White summoned reporters to say he has video showing police shot Haynes as he raised his hands. He was shot again and struck with a baton once he was on the ground, according to White. But sadly, White, who likened police to Klansmen, refused to release the video.
In both cases there is an obligation to make the information, whether generated by police or the public, available to investigators and the public. Nobody is served when there is a suspicion of law enforcement overreach.
If the CHP failed to disclose relevant information, as Dr. Omalu alleges, officers only added to the angst some citizens feel about law enforcement. If White actually has evidence relevant to Haynes death, withholding it does the same thing.
Good, effective law enforcement requires citizen participation and trust. As the Humphreys and Haynes cases stand today, both ingredients have been undermined.
  

Lifers who aren't

California Gov. Jerry Brown says the release of nearly 1,400 lifers from state prison over the last three years has nothing to do with federal court demands that the state reduce its prison population. The releases, the governor's office claims, reflect the new legal landscape and have nothing to do with trying to get the inmate numbers down.
Still, Brown's approval of the release of 82 percent of those lifers -- mostly murderers recommended for release by the state parole board -- is stirring controversy, especially among victims' rights advocates.
These convicts are not people coming off death row or those sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, which seems a more reasonable and certainly less costly alternative to California's broken capital punishment system. Those being released were sentenced with the condition that they might some day be freed. Some day for most comes after serving an average of 27 years.
The fear is that once you've killed you'll kill again, however that fear doesn't seem to square with the facts. A 2013 recidivism study by the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation found that paroled lifers "have a markedly lower return to prison recidivism rate than non‐lifer parolees (13.3 vs. 65.1 percent, respectively)." In a Stanford University study tracing 860 murderers paroled between 1990 and 2010, only five committed new crimes and none were convicted of murder.
All things being equal, we'd probably be better off paroling murderers than robbers and burglars. But then when it comes to murder, all things are not equal. The average 27 years a lifer spends in prison is a long time, but for the friends and families of victims, 27 years will never be long enough.



 

A solution in search of a problem

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was put in a tough spot by the conservative win of her Republican Party. State lawmakers -- and most of the Legislature is Republican --  who sent her a bill Monday that would grant business owners the right to invoke religion to refuse service to gays and others.


Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer

Backers said the bill was an attempt to protect religious freedom, although there was nothing in the record to indicate religion in Arizona is under assault. Opponents said the bill would codify open season not just on gays but other minorities.
Brewer was urged to veto the bill, not only because it is morally reprehensible on its face, but because of fears it would hurt business. It always comes down to money. An executive of Apple Inc., which plans to build a big manufacturing plant in Mesa, urged a veto as did the chairman and CEO of American Airlines. Oh, and then there's the Super Bowl to be held in Arizona next year and calls for the NFL to reconsider its location.
On Wednesday, in a moment of clear common sense, Brewer announced she had vetoed the bill.
"I sincerely believe that Senate Bill 1062 has the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve," Brewer said. The governor said she had "not heard one example in Arizona where a business owner's religious liberty has been violated."
Arizona, of course, is where lawmakers passed a controversial immigration bill in 2010 giving local police the ability to stop people they suspected of being in the country illegally. That triggered widespread boycotts.


Way to go, Gary

San Joaquin County District Attorney-wannabe Gary Hinkey tried the politician's favorite ploy when he was asked a question he didn't want. He answered a question he did want. Bad move.
The Lodi defense attorney was asked about a pending hit-and-run case. His response was to point out that his potential opponent, Deputy District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar, failed the bar exam eight times before passing it.
That's information the public is entitled to know, but that wasn't the question. Not willing to leave bad enough alone, Hinkey also referred to Verber Salazar as a "coffee go-getter" because she was a clerk before she was a prosecutor.
Hinkey referred to himself as "a high-ranking graduate of Pepperdine University" who passed the bar on the first try. "She is better at one thing," he said of Verber Salazar, "and that's she's better looking."
While the public as a right to know about Verber Salazar's trouble with the bar exam -- some, including the 13-year county prosecutor, call that perseverance -- the public also has a right to know about what seems to be Hinkey's rather cavalier attitude toward sexual equality. 

Water, water somewhere

It was kind of President Obama to stop by the Valley the other day to feign concern about the California drought (not that real concern isn't justified). He even said he'll sprinkle a few federal millions on the parched earth. Later he jetted off for meetings with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and a few rounds of golf on some of the Coachella Valley’s 124 golf courses, which seem no worse the wear despite the drought.
It made a nice photo op, but Obama's concern didn't extend to weighing in on the state's north-south water fight. "I'm not going to wade into this," he said. I want to get out alive on Valentine's Day." These days the most prominent feature of that fight is Gov. Jerry Brown's desire to bore twin tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Those tunnels have the potential of cutting off the biggest source of water for the largest of all fresh water estuaries in the West.
Say what you will, Obama is a canny enough pol to recognize a landmine when he sees one. That trip-wire avoidance extended to his underlings. Asked specifically about the twin tunnel proposal, USCA Secretary Tom Vilsack and John Holdren, assistant to the president for science and technology, both made the impossible-to-believe claim that they were not familiar with the tunnel proposal.

Don't eat the snow

The curious inch-high headline in Sunday's Stockton Record, "Mellow Yellow," conjures images other than those springing from Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan's 1966 song by the same name ... especially since it appeared under the photo of a bison rooting in the Yellowstone snow. You don't have to think of every innuendo as a copy editor, but it helps.