Capitol Alert

Still smarting from an 18 percent slice to their paychecks last December, California's constitutional officers and legislators may take another salary-and-benefits hit next month.

The state's Citizens Compensation Commission is scheduled to meet April 22 in Burbank to consider a proposal to cut compensation for California's top elected officials by 10 percent.

"That's been proposed to us by other people, so it's on the agenda," said commission president Charles Murray.

The commission, which was created by voters in 1990, voted last year to cut legislative pay by $20,917 annually and salaries of other constitutional officers by at least $28,624. Commissioners reasoned that in light of the state's ongoing budget woes, everyone should share the pain of making do with less.

Except for five leaders, who make slightly more, lawmakers now make $95,921, while constitutional officers' pay ranges from $173,987 for the governor to $130,490 for members of the Board of Equalization. Legislators also get about $142 a day in tax-free expense money when the Legislature is in session, plus a car allowance and gas card.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger defended the state's greenhouse gas reduction law today, dismissing a Legislative Analyst's conclusion that determined the measure would cost the state jobs in the near term.

"I travel up and down the state, unlike others that only have theoretical opinions," the governor said during a brief sidewalk news conference after giving a speech at a downtown Sacramento hotel. "I see first hand ... that all kinds of (green industry) places want to expand, all we have to do is give them the incentives, the tax incentives and the job creation packages. I know that AB 32 will create jobs."

On Monday, the nonpartisan analyst released a 10-page letter that concluded the 2006 measure, which seeks to reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, would have negative short-term effects and uncertain long-term effects on the jobs market.

The law is the target of a proposed initiative, primarily financed by two Texas-based oil companies. The measure would delay AB 32 from being fully implemented until the state's unemployment rate drops below 5.5 percent for four straight quarters.

Schwarzenegger, who was and is an ardent champion of the law, said it wouldn't work unless "we show consistency." The Republican governor likened it to environmental regulations promulgated by President Jimmy Carter that he said were undone by Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, because oil prices dropped and made green technology less economically desirable.

"We can't change these things every five minutes when the economy goes up and down," Schwarzenegger said. "I'm absolutely convinced that AB 32 will create more jobs than kill jobs, and this is why I insist we keep it in place."

The candidate fields have been set for the upcoming April 13 special elections to fill the seats vacated by Republican Sen. John Benoit (SD 37) and Democratic Assemblyman Paul Krekorian (AD 43).

Alert readers will recall that Benoit resigned his Senate seat to take an appointment to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, and Krekorian left the lower house after he was elected to the Los Angeles City Council.

Below is a list of the candidates and their respective ballot designations, as released yesterday by the Secretary of State. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote in April, the top vote-getter from each party advances to a run-off election that has been consolidated with the June 8 statewide primary.

SD 37 candidates:
• Justin Blake (Democratic) - School Board Member
• Arthur Bravo Guerrero (Democratic) - Educator/Businessman
• Anna Nevenic (Democratic) - Registered Nurse/Author
• Russ Bogh (Republican) - Businessman
• Bill Emmerson (Republican) - Assemblymember/Educator
• David W. Peters (Republican) - No Ballot Designation
• Matt Monica (American Independent) - School Board Member

AD 43 candidates:
• Mike Gatto (Democratic) - Educator/Attorney
• Chahe Keuroghelian (Democratic) - Small Business Owner
• Nayiri Nahabedian (Democratic) - Boardmember, Glendale Unified School District
• Sunder Ramani (Republican) - Small Business Owner

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner made more progress today scoring the support of his party's conservative wing by winning the endorsement of U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, according to a news release from the Poizner campaign.

Rohrabacher is a staunch critic of illegal immigration and a prominent skeptic of human-caused climate change. Poizner won the endorsement last week of another noteworthy California conservative, U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, and also of the conservative California Republican Assembly at its convention in Buena Park.

Both Poizner and rival Meg Whitman spoke to the CRA convention.

His GOP colleagues in the state Senate don't seem publicly bothered, but since Sen. Roy Ashburn admitted Monday that he was gay he's catching flak from one of the state's most ardent arch-conservative activists.

Randy Thommason, president of SaveCalifornia.com, is calling on the Bakersfield senator to resign, declaring in a press release that: "His lying, cheating ways have boiled over and the public's trust has been shattered."

Sen. Dave Cox, the Fair Oaks Republican, said, "Everybody has an opinion. There's no one in our caucus asking for him to resign."

Thommason also lashed out at Ashburn for breaking the law -- the senator was arrested on a DUI last week and apologized -- and for voting in the Senate last year for a tax increase as part of a way to fill a budget deficit.

Ashburn was divorced in 2003, but Thommason criticized him anyway for straying from marriage and said that "no one is truly gay."

"He vowed to be faithful to his wife, then broke his vows when he chose homosexuality over his marriage," Thommason said. "Now that he has openly identified with the 'LGBT' lifestyle, Ashburn is dramatically out of step with his constituents, has lost their trust, and is in danger of voting against their conservative family values."

Ashburn said in a radio interview Monday he has consistently voted against gay-rights measures while in the Legislature for 14 years because he believes that's what constituents wanted.

Cox said he thinks sexual orientation is a "private matter," and that it's an open question how Ashburn will choose to vote in the future on measures that have to do with sexual orientation.

"He's very good at the legislative process," Cox said of Ashburn. Until Ashburn is termed out later this year, Cox said, "he can still be an effective legislator for his district."

Former Assembly Speaker and U.S. House hopeful Karen Bass has chipped another $30,000 into an effort to eliminate the Citizens Redistricting Commission established under Proposition 11.

Bass, who cut the contribution check from her Strengthening California Through Leadership ballot issues account, previously gave $20,000 to the Financial Accountability in Redistricting Act, which would give the responsibility of redrawing state legislative and Board of Equalization district lines back to the Legislature.

The campaign also reported a $50,000 donation from an account run by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and $5,000 from Democratic Rep. Laura Richardson's campaign coffers.

More than a dozen current House Democrats have reported giving more than $140,000 to the effort last month.

Members' moves to bankroll the measure to repeal the commission come as one of the major donors for Proposition 11 pours his own cash into a measure that would expand the citizen panel's responsibilities to include redrawing congressional districts.

Also from the campaign cash file:

• The California Teachers Association funnelled another $500,000 into a measure it is sponsoring that would repeal corporate tax benefits approved in last year's budget deal. This latest contribution brings the CTA's total investment in the proposed initiative to more than $1.2 million.

• The campaign committee for a proposed initiatve to ban the Legislature from borrowing cash from local transit and government funds to balance the budget reported $195,000 from the League of California Cities.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to name Board of Equalization member Bill Leonard as secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency, spokesman Aaron McLear said.

Leonard replaces Fred Aguiar, who left to become a deputy chief of staff to the governor.

He takes charge of an agency that has seen its share of trouble in recent months, including a report in The Bee that Department of General Services officials spent $5.5 million on new vehicles that it left sitting idle for months.

After 36 years in elected office as a member of the minority party, including 24 in the Legislature and nearly eight on the board, Leonard said he is looking forward to an administrative job.

The fiscal conservative, one of the original "Prop. 13 babies" elected in 1978, said the position will give him a chance to crack down on spending in the bureaucracy, especially in recessionary times. "People are hurting," he said, "and (wasteful government spending) just galls me."

Leonard will resign his post on the Board of Equalization to take the $175,000-a-year job.

But Leonard isn't the only one getting a plum promotion with the appointment.

The California Republican Assembly, the 75-year-old GOP "grassroots" group that was once referred to by Ronald Reagan as "the conscience of the Republican Party," got together at Knott's Berry Farm's hotel over the weekend.

The group (presumably between excursions to Camp Snoopy or rides on "Montezooma's Revenge") gave its formal blessings to various GOP candidates in the June primary race, including Steve Poizner for governor and Chuck DeVore for the U.S. Senate.

Endorsements from the CRA, which is generally regarded as representing the most conservative elements of the party, were once highly prized by Reep candidates because they promised the help of thousands of activists walking precincts and slapping up posters. Nowadays, the endorsements are more valuable in establishing a candidate's rock-ribbed conservatism among GOP voters.

The endorsements aren't easy to get, taking a two-thirds vote of the delegates. You can find a list of the endorsees here.

Just like the late comedian, sometimes it seems the Golden State just can't get no respect.

Take this weekend. Here's the National Public Radio quiz show, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," going on and on about the "new law" in California that prohibits residents from cussing for a week.

"It's a law?" asks one incredulous panelist.

Yup, assures the host, passed by the Assembly and everything.

Uh, actually it was just a non-binding resolution that asked Californians to tone it down, language-wise. In fact, the state Senate said *&%$& no, we're not even taking it up because of the *^#%* budget mess."

But the facts didn't deter a long "that's goofy California" riff.

It's enough to make you want to mutter an expletive.

By Rob Hotakainen in Washington

Former business star Carly Fiorina formally filed today as a Republican candidate for U.S. senator, putting her name on the June primary ballot.

She'll oppose Assemblyman Chuck DeVore and former Rep. Tom Campbell.