California Insider

Here is an AP story on Feinstein's meeting today with Judge Alito. They talked about his 1985 statement that there is no constitutional right to abortion, and she says he backed away from it.

A new report from the attorney general on crime in California is available here. The rate for violent crime fell 5 percent in 2004 compared to 2003, to its lowest level since 1972. Property crime increased slightly, on the strength of a mini-surge in auto theft.

John Myers reports here that Rob Reiner and friends have gathered 1 million signatures for their subsidized preschool initiative, enough to qualify it for the June 2006 ballot. Reiner wants to pay for his program with the same upper-income tax that legislators want to use to pay for higher K-12 spending and Phil Angelides wants to use to balance the budget, i.e. pay for health, education and welfare that the state is already providing with money it does not have. You can't spend this money on preschool and also spend it to increase K-12 spending or balance the budget. But I don't expect anyone on the left to acknowledge that reality in the campaign ahead.

Local government finance guru Michael Coleman posts a roundup here of all the tax, fee and bond proposals that were on the Nov. 8 ballot and how they fared. In general, voters seem to like tourism taxes and school bonds. Utility tax hikes did not fare as well.

I'm impressed by the strategy behind this Nancy Pelosi speech. I've long felt that both parties have neglected the potential in portraying themselves as the technology party -- which implicitly means the party of the future. It's smart politics, and some of it might even be good government.

Daniel Gross opines here on why he thinks Knight-Ridder, the owner of the San Jose Mercury News and many other newspapers, will have a hard time finding a buyer.