• Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, reports that members of the Schwarzenegger administration met with health advocates last week to say the governor still wanted to pursue health reform.
"Of course, the budget crisis hung over the entire conversation," reports Wright on the Health Access blog.
"It's not just that the budget crisis prevents movement on the heart of health reform--coverage expansions, provider rate increases, guaranteed issue, etc," Wright continued. "It's that the Governor's budget proposals go in the exact opposite direction of the reforms and coverage expansions proposed earlier this year."
• A new Los Angeles Times poll shows the same thing PPIC did last week: Sen. Barack Obama would beat Sen. John McCain in California in November.
The Times poll has Obama winning by 7 points, 47 to 40. Sen. Hillary Clinton leads 43 percent to 40 percent.
• The president of the state's elections clerks says gay marriages will begin June 14. AP
• Here's a new way to take advantage of media consolidation. Senate candidate Wilma Chan sent out a mailer touting her backing from four area newspapers, the Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, Tri-Valley Herald and Alameda Times-Star.
Each editorial was quoted under the respective paper mastheads.
But all four papers, owned by the same company, ran the same editorial, according to Josh Richman at the Tribune's Political Blotter.
• Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat and an openly gay member of Congress, came to California over the weekend to host a fundraiser for Greg Pettis, an openly gay Assembly candidate in the Inland Empire. Riverside Press-Enterprise.
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