CalWatchdog Morning Read – April 28

• Presidential campaign focus on CA
• Cruz and Carly
• Legislator pay panel can’t get quorum
• UC Davis chancellor placed on leave during investigation

Good morning. Happy Friday eve!

All eyes are on California as presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle are planning big pushes in the Golden State.

A poll last week showed Sen. Bernie Sanders within six points of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in California, with 12 percent of respondents undecided. 

Both campaigns have “zeroed in on California as a must win,” writes CalWatchdog. Although big losses on Tuesday for Sanders has the Vermonter “conceding he’d now have to focus on merely influencing the party’s agenda.”

In other news:

• Republicans are also eyeing California, as Sen. Ted Cruz announced Wednesday that he’d selected former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as his running mate. The Texas senator’s announcement seemed premature, as he’s not the nominee nor even the frontrunner. The move confused many observers as Fiorina has not been very successful as a candidate, including earlier this cycle as a presidential candidate. Plus, after losing a Senate race in 2010, she left CA for Virginia. The San Jose Mercury News has more.
• And just because: Former Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday at Stanford University that Cruz was “Lucifer in the flesh,” and the most “miserable son of a bitch” he’s ever met, reports The Stanford Daily. 

• Last month, CalWatchdog reported that the commission on state lawmaker pay was plagued by vacancies. This month, the California Citizens Compensation Commission had to cancel its annual meeting scheduled for Wednesday due to lack of quorum. The governor is supposed to appoint commissioners within 15 days of a vacancy, with the shortest of the three vacancies spanning more than a year. The CCCC’s duty — which came out of a sweeping ethics reform package, Proposition 112, in 1990 — is to decide the pay and benefits of constitutional officers (like governor and attorney general) and state legislators. CalWatchdog has more. 
• Linda Katehi, the embattled chancellor of UC Davis, was placed on administrative leave by UC President Janet Napolitano on Wednesday, to allow for an investigation into “‘serious questions’ raised about her involvement in campus jobs for family members, possible misuse of student service fee revenue and misstatements about her role in social media contracts,” according to the Los Angeles Times. And The Sacramento Bee compiled a timeline of stories about Katehi, dating back to 2011, just before the pepper-spraying-of-students incident. 
• Congressional oddities: A Republican challenger to Rep. Pete Aguilar is accusing the Redlands Democrat of stealing his campaign signs, reports The Press-Enterprise. And an ethics watchdog group “has filed complaints with two federal oversight agencies, asking officials to investigate what the group describes as a pattern of questionable campaign spending by Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Alpine,” reports The San Diego Union Tribune. 

Assembly:

• In at 9 a.m., with a few hearings today. 

Senate: 

• In at 9 a.m., full slate of budget hearings. 

Gov. Brown:

• No public events scheduled.

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