Capitol Alert

Steve Glazer, a top unpaid adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown, cleared a key hurdle today for winning confirmation to the California State University Board of Trustees.

The Senate Rules Committee approved Glazer's appointment by a bipartisan vote of 5-0 at a confirmation hearing this afternoon, signaling smooth sailing for the Brown appointee as he heads to a vote of the full Senate.

Glazer's confirmation hearing had been delayed last week amid questions about support from Senate Republicans, whose votes are needed to hit the two-thirds threshold for approving CSU trustees.

Another Brown appointee to the board, former chairman Herbert Carter, failed to win approval after Republicans signaled they would not support him in a floor vote. But unlike Carter, Glazer had not made a controversial vote for a generous campus president pay package on the same day the board moved to increase tuition.

Glazer told members of the committee today that while he believes the board should do what it can to attract top-tier talent for open posts, "we need everyone in the system to make sacrifices" during a time of budget constraints.

"We have to live within our financial means," he said. "We have to set the right example."

Glazer, who is helping run Brown's tax measure campaign, was appointed to the board by the Democratic governor last year. He faces a May 3 confirmation deadline.

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Senate delays confirmation hearing for Steve Glazer

After the state's fiscal analyst criticized California high-speed rail for facing "highly speculative" financial prospects, California High-Speed Rail Authority Chairman Dan Richard defended the $68 billion program this morning by suggesting major transportation projects often lack funding certainty.

Richard urged Assembly members to approve $2.6 billion in state bond funds along with $3.3 billion in federal money to start construction in the Central Valley by the end of the year. He testified in the first of a double-header of legislative budget hearings slated for today.

The project chief, who once served as a Bay Area Rapid Transit board member, said BART and other transportation programs commonly pursued construction without knowing where every dollar would come from.

Opposed by powerful business and finance groups, key mortgage reform bills sponsored by Attorney General Kamala Harris are headed for a joint legislative conference committee.

The six-member conference committee will consist of two Democrats and one Republican from each house, according to multiple legislative aides who had been notified of the plan.

The maneuver would be a way to discuss amendments and move the legislation, considered lynchpins of Harris' mortgage reform plan, to the Assembly and Senate floors without a vote by finance committees.

The television show about nothing has become something of an argument for an Assembly bill to change California's beverage container recycling program.

A reader passed along the Appropriations Committee analysis for Assembly Bill 1933, noting that "Seinfield" antagonist Newman makes a cameo in the three-page bill report:

As the author notes, a 1996 episode television's Seinfeld featured the efforts of supporting character, Newman, to smuggle a mail truck loaded with beverage cans out of New York, which did not offer a beverage container redemption, and into Michigan, where the cans could be turned in for a five-cent redemption value.

Calrecycle does not know how much beverage container material is imported into the state in attempts to fraudulently receive CRV for the material, a la Newman. However, the department has evidence to suspect the practice happens large scale.

The bill's author -- Democratic Assemblyman and apparent Seinfield fan Richard Gordon of Menlo Park -- is likely hoping his legislation enjoys a better outcome than Newman's scheme.

The reoccurring nemesis to the fictional Jerry Seinfield lost both the bottles and his seat in the truck by the end of the two-part episode.

For the record, the episode's math actually involved a 10-cent redemption in Michigan. New York's deposit was then and still is a nickel. Watch a clip from the episode at this link.

PHOTO CREDIT: Actors Jerry Seinfeld, left, as "Seinfeld" and Wayne Knight as "Newman," file photo, 1998.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, in addition to his limited duties at the Capitol, will become a cable talk show host next month.

"The Gavin Newsom Show," a weekly, hour-long program, will feature the former San Francisco mayor interviewing "notables from Silicon Valley, Hollywood and beyond," Current TV announced today.

"We've got Gavin: New show in May," the San Francisco-based network announced on its website. "The California lieutenant governor and former mayor of San Francisco brings his trail-blazing perspective to Current TV with a new weekly, hour-long show."

The announcement follows the network's recent split with Keith Olbermann. Newsom and Gov. Jerry Brown, both Democrats, have appeared before on the network's "The War Room with Jennifer Granholm," a show hosted by the former governor of Michigan.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, file photo, Feb. 7, 2011. Autumn Cruz / Sacramento Bee.

VIDEO: Dan Walters says job-killer bills don't do so well at the Capitol.

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Dan Walters, in today's video report, says California's business interests have been doing pretty well in killing measures they label "job killers."

California's high-speed rail project, which the Legislative Analyst recommended Tuesday should not receive construction funding, gets a double-barreled look today from committees in both houses.

An Assembly budget subcommittee considers the High-Speed Rail Authority's revised business plan at a hearing from 9 a.m. to noon in the Capitol's Room 447. Then a Senate budget subcommittee takes up the subject at 2:30 p.m. in Room 112, or after the Senate Rules Committee adjourns.

Speaking of the Rules Committee, Gov. Jerry Brown adviser Steven Glazer is required to show up as members consider his appointment to the California State University board. His confirmation hearing was put on hold last week as Brown trolled for Republican support.

Also required to appear: former legislator Hector De La Torre, who Brown has named to the California Air Resources Board, and Mark Cowin, the director of Water Resources. The Rules Committee hearing starts at 1 p.m. in Room 113.

Education committees are also meeting in both chambers, with the upper house's panel considering dueling bills on school employee discipline. In fact, the lists of committees and bills are long as the Legislature faces its next deadline: April 27 is the last day for policy committees to move along fiscal measures introduced in that house. Click here for the Senate's daily file, and click here for the Assembly's.

Outside the building, Lockheed Martin officials are setting up an F-35 cockpit demonstrator to highlight the fighter aircraft's national security role as well as its economic impact on the state. Assembly members Betsy Butler, D-Los Angeles, and Steve Knight, R-Palmdale, will also be talking up their legislative resolution urging Congress to support the F-35 program. Both of them count aerospace manufacturers in their districts and serve on the Assembly's Select Committee on Aerospace, with Butler as chair. The presser starts at 11:30 a.m. on the Capitol's west steps.

PASSOVER SEDER: The 47th annual Sen. Herschel Rosenthal Passover Seder, a Capitol tradition, takes place tonight from 6 to 9 p.m. at Sacramento's Albert Einstein Residence Center. Listed participants include Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, Assembly members Marty Block, Bob Blumenfield, Mike Feuer, Linda Halderman, Bonnie Lowenthal and Jeff Miller, and Sens. Mark Leno, Alan Lowenthal and Lois Wolk.

ANSEL ADAMS: Gary F. Kurutz, recently retired as director of the California State Library's special collections, will be discussing California icon Ansel Adams at a California State Library Foundation talk tonight, starting at 6 p.m. at the library, 900 N St.

CAKE AND CANDLES: Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, turns 65 today.