Free Republic

Most of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 11th-hour appointments came as no surprise: Friends, allies and administration workers were rewarded – sometimes well rewarded – in a ritual that has become a tradition for outgoing governors. But one appointment stood out. Former state Sen. Carole Migden, a liberal San Francisco Democrat, was named to the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the nation’s first state agency created to protect and regulate the collective bargaining rights of farm workers. The ALRB was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, then in his first term, legislation that was supported by the late United Farm...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his final days as the state's chief executive, selected two of his administration's top lieutenants to oversee California's health benefit exchange, the new marketplace from which the uninsured and small businesses will be able to buy health coverage. Schwarzenegger chose Susan Kennedy, his chief of staff, and Kimberly Belshé, his cabinet secretary for health and human services, to fill the influential posts on what will be a five-member oversight board. Schwarzenegger had until Sunday to make the appointments, and neither selection will need consent from the Legislature - a deal contained in the state law establishing...

Speaker Mop & Glo made headlines for her call to investigate opponents of the Ground Zero mosque, but there was something else about her remarks that should have raised your hackles: “There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded,” she said. “How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we’ve been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we...

It's been four years since StopSusanKennedy.com was born. That was just the start of a ruckus set off when Sacramento's political cognoscenti got wind that the diminutive ex-Cabinet secretary to recalled Democratic Gov. Gray Davis had been hired - as chief of staff for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Kennedy remembers those days well. "I was thinking, 'Can I really do this ... when half of the people in the horseshoe (slang for the governor's office) probably want to slit my throat?' " ... As the headlines from one conservative Web log attest, some things have changed since the former abortion...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his effort to end the partisan bickering that is pushing California to the brink of insolvency, is deploying Susan Kennedy, his cigar-smoking, paintball-playing Democratic chief of staff, to get the job done. The 48-year-old Ms. Kennedy has built a reputation as a pragmatic leader equally inclined to work with -- and lambaste -- lawmakers from both parties. Such a regard would have been unthinkable five years ago, when Republicans viewed her as a stereotypical Democrat -- a former director of the state party and top aide to Gov. Gray Davis who lives...

People who say that nothing's harder to get rid of than a bad penny must never have met Keith Brackpool. The British-born promoter, who has spent the last dozen years pushing a scheme to pump water to Southern California from beneath 35,000 acres his Cadiz Inc. owns in the Mojave Desert, just won't go away. ... In the past his posse has included ex-Gov. Gray Davis and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Now he has added Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last week publicly endorsed the scheme as "a path-breaking, new, sustainable groundwater conservation and storage project." The endorsement was embedded...

SACRAMENTO Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday handed out hefty pay raises to 11 of his closest advisers, including a $32,000 boost to Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy. Kennedy remains the highest paid member of the governor's inner circle, although some of his cabinet secretaries make more. With the latest raise, Kennedy's taxpayer-funded salary will be $175,000 a year. The other 10, including Deputy Chief of Staff Adam Mendelsohn and Daniel Zingale, chief of staff to first lady Maria Shriver, will see their salaries increase 11 percent to $147,900. The pay raises come a week after Schwarzenegger signed a $145.5 billion...

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger portrays himself as a global environmental leader, but that image was tarnished Friday as two former state air pollution officials testified about an administration they said is working to weaken global warming initiatives. Schwarzenegger's top aides have meddled in the day-to-day affairs of the state Air Resources Board, compromising its independence and integrity even as the Republican governor was traveling the world promoting the state's landmark global warming law, according to its former chairman, Robert Sawyer, and past executive director Catherine Witherspoon. "To say it was schizophrenic is to be kind. It was absolutely appalling,"...

The chairman of the California Air Resources Board, Robert F. Sawyer, was fired by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week amid mounting criticism of the agency's leadership on global warming and air pollution policies. Sawyer and the governor's office gave sharply differing accounts of why he was let go after 18 months at the helm of what has long been described as the world's most influential air pollution regulatory agency. "I was fired, I did not resign…. The entire issue is the independence of the board, and that's why I got fired," Sawyer . . . Sawyer said he had declined...

SACRAMENTO — The top aide to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could earn a state salary exceeding $200,000 a year as part of a round of raises the governor is preparing to award his senior deputies. The raises could lift some salaries among the 185 people working in the governor's office to $169,500 in certain cases, with the governor's chief of staff, Susan P. Kennedy, eligible for up to $225,000. Kennedy now collects a state salary of $143,000, and the most senior aides beneath her earn about $134,000. The pay hikes were set in motion last year, when the governor signed a...

SACRAMENTO — Four senior aides to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger were paid nearly a quarter-million dollars in bonuses for political work they performed during the governor's race — money that came from insurers, oil companies, real estate developers and other private interests that contributed to the governor's campaign. Chief of staff Susan Kennedy received a $100,000 bonus as a reward for the time she devoted to Schwarzenegger's reelection bid, the governor's office said Friday. With that bonus, Kennedy has collected $323,500 in campaign and taxpayer money in her year as Schwarzenegger's top aide. Schwarzenegger paid his communications director, Adam Mendelsohn, a...

SACRAMENTO An arbitrator has ruled that state officials miscalculated wages and benefits for corrections employees, a mistake that will cost California taxpayers an estimated $440 million over two years and force cuts to other state departments. The ruling, made public Friday, means the state will pay $200 million for back pay and health benefits to about 30,000 prison guards, probation officers and other correctional employees, retroactive to July 1, 2005. In addition, the employees are due a 3.1 percent pay increase retroactive to the start of the year under a provision that ties their wages to those of other law...

SACRAMENTO — He was booted out of the Capitol three years ago, but when former Gov. Gray Davis returns today to watch the man who replaced him sworn in for a second term, he'll find an eerie resemblance to what he left behind. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has entrusted onetime Davis aides with his administration's success, appointing them to top jobs. He has embraced policies that Davis favored and settled into a similar governing style. The Republican incumbent is even beginning to sound a bit like his Democratic predecessor. --snip-- "If you look at where I come down on issues and...

SAN FRANCISCO — Two former prison chiefs handpicked by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that election-year politics had thwarted their efforts to fix the crisis gripping California's correctional system, prompting them to resign in frustration earlier this year. Testifying in federal court, the two corrections secretaries singled out the prison guards union and a pair of Schwarzenegger's top aides for most of the blame, saying the aides had given the union veto power over candidates for top jobs and a say in other key decisions. One of the aides, Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, said she planned to play a...

SACRAMENTO - Win re-election, clean house. The political ritual allows administrations to purge those who are burned out or blamed for past mistakes - in some cases helping them out the door - while fresh recruits take their places. As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger prepares to launch his second term, however, don't wait for the office goodbye party. It's already happened. In the months leading to Schwarzenegger's victory last week, the governor's office underwent a staffing turnover that is unprecedented in modern California politics. The thinning of Schwarzenegger's ranks after last year's failed special election has been seen anecdotally through a...

With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Mexico on a high-profile trade mission, his chief of staff and a bipartisan delegation of state lawmakers quietly embarked Friday on a 12-day trip to South America to study alternative-energy technologies. Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, and high-ranking members of both the Senate and Assembly were accompanied by representatives of energy companies and others with lobbying interests in Sacramento. The trip will take the delegation to Argentina, Brazil and Chile. That includes a three-day break next weekend at a luxury hotel in Buenos Aires during which no work is...

SACRAMENTO -- The Terminator has rescued himself from political ruin by reinventing his approach to government, thus demonstrating in the most dramatic way possible the value of political independence. Instead of the partisan assault on public employee unions and Democratic legislators (a.k.a. "girlie men") that marked his rhetoric in 2005, Schwarzenegger has negotiated agreements this year on a minimum-wage increase, higher school spending, curbing air pollution and a mega-bond sale designed to meet overdue highway, flood-control and school-construction needs. Democratic leaders of the legislature, who a year ago were ready to cut Schwarzenegger's throat politically, now sing his praises and...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a plug Tuesday to the women in his life — his mother, his mother-in-law, his wife and chief of staff — during a women's conference that was being protested by female union members. The conference was the scene two years ago of the governor's much-publicized clash with members of the California Nurses Association, who were protesting outside. But in a reflection of Schwarzenegger's improved political fortunes, their rally Tuesday outside the Long Beach Convention Center was far smaller than the noisy events unions held during last year's special election. Schwarzenegger kept his remarks brief, speaking for...

SACRAMENTO — In the sanctuary of his Capitol office with an audio recorder rolling, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger describes Republican legislators as the "wild bunch" and, referring to a Latina lawmaker, casually says that "black blood" mixed with "Latino blood" equals "hot" — a fiery personality. The governor is heard on a six-minute recording, obtained by The Times, of a meeting with some members of his inner circle last spring. At the time, Schwarzenegger was struggling to persuade Republican lawmakers to embrace his plan to place billions of dollars in borrowing on the November ballot.It's unclear why the session was taped,...

The watchdog appointed by a federal judge to oversee California prison reforms said Wednesday he wants to force top aides of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to testify under oath in a case that could result in more federal control over the state's deeply troubled corrections system. John Hagar, the special master who reports to U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, wants the judge to let him conduct a full investigation into whether the administration has been backsliding on reforms since the first of the year. At issue is whether Schwarzenegger's top aides have been currying favor with the state's powerful prison...