Jerry Brown, the coast, LSD, Scott Jones and the death penalty
Good morning. On behalf of The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board, welcome to The Take, your opinion-politics newsletter. Please sign up for it here.
We open with Jerry Brown talking deeply about the environment, but not the Coastal Commission, then move to Sheriff Scott Jones, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the death penalty, and Zika, plus a hometown endorsement in one of the state’s hottest races.
Don’t take LSD
“We live on a thin layer of soil under a narrow layer of atmosphere,” Gov. Jerry Brown tells UCLA’s Jim Newton in a Q&A about environmental issues for the new policy publication Blueprint. Those “ecological certitudes” helped him move as a young man from the certitudes of the seminary into the more godless realm of governance.
The conversation, a smart one, veers into personal stuff, such as why Brown waited so long to get married. Also discussed are former governors, anthropologist Gregory Bateson, St. Paul, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mike Royko, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, German political theorist Carl Schmitt, Tom Hayden and Black Lives Matter.
For all the talk of saving the planet, though, neither Brown nor Newton, a former Los Angeles Times editorial page editor and columnist, utter a peep about the furor over at the California Coastal Commission, unlike LAT columnist Steve Lopez.
“Where in the name of the father, son and holy coast is Gov. Jerry Brown, and why doesn’t he say or do something?” Lopez asked in a column the other day.
Not a bad question, given that Brown’s appointees this year dumped the commission’s environmentalist executive director, Charles Lester. Salty-tongued commissioner and Del Norte County Supervisor Martha McClure posed another tough question to Lopez as he pressed McClure about her campaign donation unpleasantness.
“Did you take LSD today?” McClure demanded. Even with reading glasses, we read no response. McClure’s isn’t the only inquiring mind. Well, Steve? – Shawn Hubler @ShawnHubler
Our take
Editorial: As Sheriff Scott Jones runs for Congress, taxpayers are paying the price for his and his predecessors’ troubling management style.
Editorial: Not to mistake ham-handed hijinks for actual harm, but Kevin McCarthy persuaded Jeff Denham and other congressional Republicans to vote against anti-discrimination amendment after they voted for it.
Dan Walters: Proposed California laws would threaten rights of the politically incorrect.
Bill Whalen: Top-two primary hinders Republicans Duf Sundheim and Tom Del Becarro in their bid for U.S. Senate seat.
Joe Mathews: Why California keeps failing to grade its schools.
Their take
The Sun in San Bernardino endorses Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown, a mod-Dem with business and oil backing over an enviro-backed Dem, Eloise Reyes, in the costly primary fight in San Bernardino.
The Orange County Register sees business leaving California and urges a re-embrace of economic freedom.
Zika worries editorial writers, especially in Florida where there are 110 confirmed cases. The Miami Herald’s plea. The Orlando Sentinel plea. The Bradenton Herald’s plea. The Hartford Courant’s plea. Our take-away: Congress must act. Now.
The Chicago Tribune suggests ways for Republican candidates to answer how they’re voting for president. Hide.
Stephen L. Miller writes in The National Review that Donald Trump’s social media posts give us insight into the sort of president he’d be, from his anti-vax musings to his hoped-for friendship with Vladimir Putin. Presidential.
Take a number: 593,000
Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, Sheriff Scott Jones and others submitted 593,000 signatures to qualify an initiative for the November ballot to supposedly speed up the death penalty in California.
There were 28 executions in 2015, all in Southern states. That’s the lowest number in 25 years. The number of people sentenced to death in 2015 fell to 49, 25 of whom were in Southern states. That’s the lowest number by far since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, the Death Penalty Information system reports. The Tampa Bay Times urged the Florida Supreme Court to reduce death sentences to life in prison. Florida has 396 people on death row, second to California’s almost 750.
Our take-away: History is going in the exact opposite direction of where Schubert and Jones are headed.
Syndicates’ take
Charles Krauthammer: Who will Bernie Sanders’ supporters get behind, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?
Eugene Robinson: Bernie Sanders is playing with fire, and the nation is at stake.
Trudy Rubin: We deserve to know whether Saudi officials aided 9/11 terrorists.
Gail Collins: Hillary Clinton should stand alone – without Bill Clinton.
This story was originally published May 20, 2016 at 5:31 AM with the headline "Jerry Brown, the coast, LSD, Scott Jones and the death penalty."