It wasn't the first time Gov. Jerry Brown has addressed the potentially harmful impact of California's high-speed rail project on his November ballot initiative to raise taxes.
But it was perhaps his most direct response yet.
"First of all, I don't really believe in the Field Poll," Brown said Wednesday in San Francisco when asked about a recent survey.
"And I'll tell you one reason I don't: High-speed rail is more popular than I am right now," he added. "So if I believe that, I might pack my bags and head back to the monastery."
The nonpartisan Field Poll found that a fifth of likely voters who support his ballot measure say they would be less likely to support it if the state appropriated money for the $68 billion high-speed rail project.
Brown signed legislation Wednesday authorizing initial construction.
"A poll here and a poll there," he said. "I got 10 polls in my back pocket that tell me everything I want to know and don't want to know, so don't worry about the Field Poll."
Brown described controversy about the rail project as a conflict between "doers" and "fearful men."
"We are in a culture of immediate gratification – me, now, easy," he said. "This is about us, long and difficult."
– David Siders
BILL WATCH
Gov. Jerry Brown this week signed legislation aimed at curbing the unlicensed practice of medicine in medical spas providing laser hair removal and other procedures. Assembly Bill 1548, by Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina Carter, D-Rialto, toughens penalties for violating the ban on corporate practice of medicine through what the bill's sponsors call sham "rent-a-doc" business schemes.
– Micaela Massimino
WORTH REPEATING
"The End of the Ballot Theory, if it plays out, would upset the best laid plans of political activists."
JOEL FOX, on his Fox & Hounds Daily blog, writing that redistricting-related Proposition 40 – a referendum that requires a "yes" vote to keep the status quo – will test whether ballot position matters. It's at the bottom of the November lineup.
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