California: Gov. Jerry Brown's approval rating hits new high in election year

[Purveyor]

Welcome to the Landslide State.

Gov. Jerry Brown's approval rating has hit a record high among voters and his budget proposal for the next fiscal year has won bipartisan support from rich and poor Californians living all across the state, according to a new poll.

As Brown prepares to announce his widely anticipated re-election bid, 58 percent of adults and 60 percent of likely voters told the Public Policy Institute of California that they approve of the way he is handling his job, up from 49 percent in December.

The governor's job performance won praise from more than 3 in 4 Democrats and a majority of independent voters -- the bread and butter of California's electorate.

And if November's gubernatorial election were held tomorrow, 53 percent of likely voters polled would pick Brown while 17 percent said they favor Tim Donnelly, a Republican assemblyman from Twin Peaks whose candidacy is supported by the tea party.

"All of this adds up to one thing," said Bill Whalen, a former aide to former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. "Jerry Brown is in a formidable position to be re-elected."

more...

http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_25021982/california-gov-jerry-browns-approval-rating-hits-new

[phleshdef]

1. Jerry Brown has done a hell of a job getting California's books in order.

[ailsagirl]

2. He sure has-- after all of AhNo's ineptitude and depletion of funds...

we've now got a balanced budget!!!



Just like PBO coming into the WH and cleaning up the MESS left by Bushco

[phleshdef]

3. I figure Jerry is too old to go for another Presidential run.

I'm not being ageist, I just figure that's the reality. But honestly, I feel like he has the best resume of any prominent Democrat today. I dunno, maybe he could be our answer to Reagan for real. I doubt he'll even consider it again though.

[juajen]

4. Gavin Newsome is also very good, and would be a great successor.

[msongs]

5. I am sure his ex wife will heartily agree about what a great man he is nt

[reddread]

8. and his ex-campaign manager

funny how consistent those "women's issues" and "loyalty" advocates can be when it comes down to it.
cults of personality.
issues be damned.
Jerry will be there for his constituents.
Occidental and the water merchants.

[phleshdef]

6. I predicted he might run at some point in the future after the first time I saw him on Real Time....

...but I dunno, he does have some sexual related baggage and that of course always matters (unless you are a Republican).

[JDPriestly]

7. Jerry Brown has done an excellent job in Sacramento. I sure hope we re-elect him.

[Purveyor]

11. I can't remember what talking head show I was watching but there is mild speculation that

if Brown wins handily in 2014, he might throw his hat into the 2016 Presidential ring.

What 'fun' that would be around here!

[JDPriestly]

13. I'd like to see it.

[dreamnightwind]

9. Apparently he is supporting fracking

in this state, I received an email about it from some NGO, can't recall which one, I get so many emails. And I never dug into his position on fracking. That's the last thing we should be doing with the coming climate crisis, so if it's true, shame on him.

Otherwise, though, I've always liked Jerry Brown. He's the kind of guy nobody will agree with on every issue. Pretty much a budget hawk and he's a "tough on crime" Democrat, neither of those positions sit well with me. But he's a public servant with a lot of integrity, and has always appeared willing to think for himself but also to listen to the opinions of others. He would have made a pretty good POTUS.

edit to add:

I found the email, from CREDO, a group I usually find credible. Not real clear to me exactly what Brown's role is in this, they may just be pressuring him when it's not really his thing, if anyone knows, I'd appreciate the info.

Here's some of the text, and a link to their action page:
http://act.credoaction.com/sign/levine_letter

Under pressure from activists, Governor Brown is now playing defense to publicly justify his policy of allowing fracking in California.

Now we have a major opportunity to crank up the heat and make it clear to Governor Brown that his legacy as an environmentalist is on the line.

Marin County Assemblymember Marc Levine has just written a powerful letter (full text below) to Governor Brown calling on him to impose a moratorium on fracking while the state studies the risks fracking poses to our climate, the environment, and public health and safety.

The more Assembly members and state senators we can get to add their names to the letter before it gets sent to the governor, the more pressure Governor Brown will feel.

Tell Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro and Senator Noreen Evans, your state legislators, to co-sign Assemblymember Levine's letter urging Governor Brown to impose a moratorium on fracking. Click here to sign automatically.

As Governor Brown himself has said, climate change is "the world's greatest existential challenge" -- and that's no less true for California. Left unchecked, rising oceans, melting glaciers, drought, wildfires, heat waves and other extreme weather will dramatically disrupt life as we know it in the Golden State. 3 4 And, disturbingly, without dramatic policy change California will fail to meet its carbon pollution reduction goals. 5

It's clear that Governor Brown sees confronting climate change as a major part of his legacy. But Governor Brown can't go down in history as a climate champion if he lets the fracking industry extract and burn billions of barrels of dirty oil from California by fracking. No real climate champion would allow Big Oil to endanger our air, water and health so that the industry can make money churning out even more carbon pollution.

The first step Governor Brown must take to preserve his legacy is to impose a moratorium on fracking while the state conducts further study of the myriad risks it poses. Assemblymember Levine's letter couldn't come at a better time to drive that point home -- I hope you'll ask your state legislators to co-sign it.

[reddread]

10. OFFSHORE fracking and oil production

despite moratoriums and common sense, the Brown family has their environmental priorities.
Occidental.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/24/2833161/fracking-offshore-california-regulators/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_oil_and_gas_in_California

http://www.alternet.org/story/147007/how_california's_oil_and_water_policies_are_bankrupting_higher_education

http://www.calitics.com/tag/Governor%20Jerry%20Brown

[dreamnightwind]

15. Thank you

Does your DU handle have anything to do with salmon redds, their spawning nests? I used to work for a research lab attempting to preserve endangered salmonids, so am curious if you're a salmon person (lol) or i it's about something else, perhaps Reddit?

The Calitics link was especially interesting. The politics behind these issues are extremely complex and involve huge and powerful interests, which I do not pretend to fully understand. After reading the calitics article, I know more now than I did before, so thanks.

Their perspective is a long ways from a balanced view of these issues, though their bias aligns with my bias, protecting natural resources rather than corporate interests. In California it's a constant battle between competing interests. A large portion of northern California water (where I live) is diverted to southern California to support their huge population base that is artificially enabled by these water policies, and to support large corporate agriculture down there that grows a sizable chunk of the nation's food supply.

With my admittedly limited knowledge of these complex systems, I think they're being too hard on Brown, blaming him for large forces that are at work regardless of who is Governor. I'm glad, though, that they're on these issues and informing us about what is going on, and we should use every leverage point, one of which is the Governor, to influence policy decisions where nature's interests are poorly represented in a world of profit and big business. Some relevant points from the Calitics article:

Senate Bill 4, the green light for fracking bill, will result in the expansion of the heavily polluting oil extraction process in California's ocean waters and land where Monterey Shale is located. The toxic discharges resulting from fracking will pollute groundwater and streams and threaten already struggling anadromous and ocean fish populations.

On September 20, Governor Jerry Brown signed Pavley's "greenlight to fracking" bill with poison pill amendments that make CEQA review of fracking permits optional and prevent imposing a moratorium on fracking for 15 months. He signed the oil industry-friendly bill after receiving at least $2.49 million over several years from oil and natural gas interests.

Besides the expansion of fracking, Brown's horrible environmental policies include:

• Fast-tracking the $54.1 billion Bay Delta Conservation Plan to divert massive quantities of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to corporate agribusiness, developers and oil companies.

• Pursuing water policies that resulted in the second lowest population levels of Delta smelt and American shad on record in the DFW's fall midwater trawl survey, as well as the third lowest striped bass, the eighth lowest longfin smelt, and the fifth lowest threadfin shad indices.

* Trying to weaken or even eliminate CEQA, one of California's greatest environmental laws, to fast-track big developments for giant corporations.

• Continuing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, a privately funded process characterized by its numerous conflicts of interests, terminally flawed science, violation of the Yurok Tribe's traditional fishing and gathering rights, and failure to actually protect the ocean.

For his many crimes against fish and the environment, Governor Jerry Brown receives the "Cold, Dead Fish" award for the second year in a row. Congratulations, Governor Brown, for going out of your way to pollute and destroy California's river, lake and ocean waters!

[reddread]

17. Yes I am a fishhead

Dan Bacher has been so very important in covering these issues.
No, I had no knowledge of Salmon Redds or anything like it.
Its just gibberish, since I figured all the good names were taken!
Although for me it does conjure that character from the Simpsons,
Sideshow Bob, not sure if he was a redhead with dreads, its been a while.
thanks for reading up.
Its abominable how we treat the planet, our real resources and habitat,
and our fellow inhabitants.

[JDPriestly]

14. California does not have enough water for fracking in my opinion.

I gather they need a lot of water for fracking. Our water is rationed meaning we are supposed to try to use as little of it as we can. And our water costs a lot. I doubt the natural gas fracking companies would want to pay our sewage bills which reflect our water costs.

California, Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon each had a top ten dry year-to-date period. California's precipitation total of 4.58 inches was record low for the seven-month period at 9.82 inches below average, and 1.69 inches less than the previous record dry January–July of 1898.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2013/7

Last I heard, Brown's administration was searching for water for the farmers in the Central Valley where a lot of the nation's winter fresh produce comes from and having a hard time finding it.

I guess it is a little drizzly where we are today so we still have hope, but I don't think that natural gas fracking is in the stars here in California at this time. We just can't afford any threat to our water.

[dreamnightwind]

16. Apparently the offshore fracking uses much less water

I don't know of on-shore fracking in California, though there may be some. I posted above in a response to reddread some relevant info.

Just because it's offshore doesn't mean it's ok though. The San Andreas fault runs the length of the coast, and is either slightly onshore or slightly offshore, depending on which part of the faultline you're looking at. I don't like the idea of fracking anywhere near it, no need to be poking our fingers in that hornet's nest. Also they haven't done an environmental impact on it, using some special "exclusion" that was meant to enable projects such as stream restoration. From one of the links reddread sent:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/24/2833161/fracking-offshore-california-regulators/

A small group of regulators inside the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) gave “categorical exclusions” to oil companies for frack jobs on existing offshore oil rigs, allowing them to proceed with the activity in the federal waters off the Golden State without any public disclosure or environmental impact analysis.

According to federal guidelines, categorical exclusions are intended for projects that don’t warrant an environmental review because they don’t normally “result in significant environmental harm.” For example, the US Forest Service issues them for land and water restoration projects, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service does so for activities like maintenance and management of existing facilities.

A commercial, industrial activity like offshore fracking is “the antithesis of what a categorical exclusion was originally intended for,” according to Environmental Defense Center attorney Brian Segee.

Recent reports show that relevant authorities within both state and federal agencies were in the dark about the issuance of categorical exclusions for offshore fracking activity. Officials from the California Coastal Commission, which has the authority to determine whether or not proposed oil and gas activities in federal waters comply with certain state environmental standards, reportedly said in August that the agency had no idea the practice was occurring, because it had not been routinely informed by federal agencies like BSEE.

The current drought is amazing! Where I live in a small norcal community we normally get over 40 inches of rain per year, but we've had less than 3 inches in the last year and looking forward it isn't promising either. A little drizzle yesterday and today like you said. A stream in my backyard (literally) should have a deafening roar this time of year, but there is not a drop of water in it, completely bone-dry.

An interesting read, if you haven't already seen it:
Brace yourself for California's driest winter in 500 years: UC Berkeley professor
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024370015

[JDPriestly]

18. We have a 40% chance of rain tonight, but we are still waiting for a first drop as far as I can

tell. It's really dry here. The leaves on our avocados are browning. Just awful. We can't afford to lose our trees in Los Angeles.

[Robbins]

12. Brown

He will likely easily win relection and the next 4 years as governor will likely mark his end of his public service.