California Insider

The California League of Conservation Voters just released its 2006 legislative scorecard, and the governor scored a 50 percent. That's lower than the 58 percent he scored on the league's rating sheet for his first two years in office.

John Doolittle's campaign debts include $39,595 in fundraising fees owed to Sierra Dominion Finanial Services, the company his wife owns and operates out of their Virginia home. That means that if Doolittle wins and empties his campaign account in the process, he will be raising on the order of $40,000 that will go directly from donors to his family's bank account to retire that debt. Instead of getting their usual 15 percent commission on campaign contributions, the Doolittles will be getting 100 percent of that new money flowing in. Actually, they will be getting 115 percent, because Julie will have to raise $46,000 in order to retire John's debt to her company and pay herself another 15 percent on the money she is raising to retire the debt. Amazing.

If he loses, I wonder if Julie's company will forgive the debt, or will Doolittle's friends still be willing to give him that kind of dough?

The Times doesn't like 1C, the housing measure.

The LA City Council is thinking about extending its minimum wage regulation, originally applied only to city contractors, to airport hotels as well. The LA Times opposes the idea, and is starting to tire of the council's attempts to micromanage the local economy:

That so few members of the council abide by basic principles of economics is a disturbing indicator of the degree of control that organized labor exerts over city government. Repeat after us: Killing jobs does not benefit workers.

The San Jose paper says the oil tax measure is bad on principle and policy.

The Sacramento Bee gets real on liquified natural gas:

There are no easy solutions here, only very hard choices with very real tradeoffs. Natural gas is a bedrock of the state's energy policy for reasons that make great sense. This requires access to the gas that the state needs. That requires one LNG terminal, most likely, for now. It's easier to be against an LNG terminal than for a real alternative.