Farm workers and their allies began a 200-mile march Tuesday that will last nearly two weeks and is aimed at convincing Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) to sign legislation that would improve working conditions and pay for thousands of California workers. The march began in Madera, Calif., today and will end up in Sacramento. The legislation, if passed, would:

-Guarantee the right for farm workers to be paid overtime after eight hours a day and 40 hours a week -- like other workers
-Make it easier for farm workers to join unions
-Ensure bathroom breaks and water for field workers
-Strengthen heat regulations that are not currently being enforced, leading to a number of deaths due to heat-related illness

Similar legislation was vetoed by Brown earlier in the year, but proponents plan to reintroduce legislation soon. In vetoing the legislation, Brown said that he wasn't yet convinced of the need for passing the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act. United Farm Workers responded strongly to that rationale:

In Governor Brown's veto of the "Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act," he says he is "not yet convinced." For farm workers, "not yet" means farm workers don't get water and shade. "Not yet" means farm workers continue to die of heat illness. "Not yet" means farm workers do not have basic justice implemented by the Agricultural Labor Relations Act. “Not yet” means hundreds of farm workers who last year voted for union representation have waited more than a year for the Agricultural Labor Relations Board to take the simple act of certifying the elections.

If you are in California, join march events at various locations. If you are outside of California, you can join the march virtually or help fund the march.

Yesterday marked a historic day in California as Jerry Brown took the reins as California's governor, 30 years after his first time at the helm. Although his plans for the state haven't been unveiled yet, he gave hints in his inaugural speech. It looks like he will take an approach of cutting where possible and extending sales, income and vehicle tax increases in effect already. It won't be pretty, but it's a start toward keeping California above water.

Brown is known for setting an example of thrift. His entire inaugural cost $100,000. Contrast that with Rick Scott's inaugural in Florida -- a two-day extravaganza expected to cost $2.5 million. But fear not, Florida, because Scott has many high-powered donors kicking in $25,000 apiece. Everyone from insurance companies to lawyers to growers and nursing homes has ponied up for the big party, which began Monday and finishes up on Tuesday.

But for Scott, the real party begins when he starts slashing everything from Medicaid to property taxes. From a recent interview with the Herald-Tribune, some classic Scott-isms:

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California's Republican gubernatorial candidate, Meg Whitman, is getting hit from all sides today on immigration-- not just because of her flip-flopping on the topic, but because of the shocking allegations being brought forward by her nanny of nine years, Nicky Diaz Santillan.

At a press conference yesterday, the former housekeeper choked back tears as she described her treatment by Whitman:

Santillan said she asked Whitman for help in finding an immigration attorney in June 2009, and explained to her that she moved from Mexico because she had "no job, no food, no place to live, and for that reason we made a decision to move here."

Whitman terminated her not long after she made the appeal, Santillan said, telling her, "don't say anything to my children, I will tell them you already have a new job and that you want to go to school and from now on, you don't know me and I don't know you. You never have seen me, and I have never seen you. Do you understand me?

Whitman "treat me as if I was not a human being," Santillan added, suggesting the candidate was "throwing me away like a piece of garbage."

Now, SEIU has released ads that take Whitman on over both her immigration positions and the nanny scandal (in Spanish):

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Bay Area Houston: The 'Republican Medal of Distinction' seems entirely appropriate

INSTAPUTZ: $3T price tag for Iraq war probably too low

slacktivist: The Scandal of the Evangelical Mosk

AMERICAblog News: Jan Brewer retaliates against TV station investigating her ties to prisons-for-pay

p m carpenter's commentary: Principles? Pshaw

Calitics: Jerry Brown launches TV ad

Out here in California, eMeg is spending up a storm -- over $100 million so far. That's before Jerry Brown cranks up his campaign machine.

Problem is, no one likes what she's saying. The more money she spends, the higher her unfavorable ratings go up, and not just with liberals and moderates.

According to SF Gate, the (euphemistically labeled) "conservative wing" of California's GOP plan to call her out on her mixed, muddled messaging around Arizona's AB 1070.

Whitman, who remains in a dead heat with Democrat Jerry Brown despite spending a record-busting $104 million of her own money, will face criticism from some of the 1,000 grassroots party members descending on the Manchester Grand Hyatt starting Friday.

Much of the blowback will come from members of the California Republican Assembly, a group of activists that former President Ronald Reagan called "the conscience of the Republican Party."

Conservatives want the state GOP to approve a resolution backing Arizona's law targeting illegal immigrants and a similar California law, Proposition 187, approved by voters in 1994 but later overturned by a federal judge. Whitman opposes both measures.

The debate could be toxic for Whitman. As far as I can tell, her campaign has been based on a few weird promises to increase state unemployment rates by terminating 40,000 state employees and a lot of vague promises to run the state like a corporation. As far as her views on immigration are concerned, it seems that Whitman adopts whatever position will garner her the most votes. On that score, the conservatives have it right:

Greig isn't worried that a high-profile conversation about the divisive issue will hurt the party's chances in November. "We are standing on principle here," she said. "I do not think pandering to the illegal alien community will help us. They don't vote."

That may be true. But Hispanics vote, and there are a lot of them here in California. Legal ones. With the legal right to vote, and they might not take kindly to the xenophobic attitudes that eMeg and her party espouse.

Bring it on.

Judge Walker has opened the door for same-sex marriage, but with a bit of a twist. The stay will remain in effect until August 18th to give the proponents of Prop 8 an opportunity to appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

That's not surprising, but what does surprise me is the lengthy discussion of whether those same Prop 8 proponents even have standing to file such an appeal.

Because Prop 8 was an amendment to the state Constitution, the Attorney General and Governor are the parties with standing to appeal Judge Walker's ruling. However, Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger both declined to do so. At the trial, the original proponents were allowed to present their case instead of Brown and Schwarzenegger, but after the judge ruled, responsibility for appeal bounced back to the state.

Brown and Schwarzenegger argued that the stay should be lifted and marriages allowed immediately. What Judge Walker has done with this short extension of the stay is to allow the Prop 8 proponents to argue: a) that they have standing to appeal; and b) that the stay should be made permanent.

Judge Walker seems to think they don't have standing. Key conclusion:

Because proponents make no argument that they -- as opposed to the state defendants or plaintiffs -- will be irreparably injured absent a stay, proponents have not given the court any basis to exercise its discretion to grant a stay.

Bottom line: This is moving toward the Supreme Court. The real question is what will happen in the interim.

Chris Geidner has a quick analysis with key points. Maddow also reacts. The LA Times reports that Prop 8 proponents plan an immediate appeal.

Update #2: According to Right Wing Watch, the American Family Association is considering the possibility of dropping any challenge to Prop 8 in order to save bans on same-sex marriage in other states.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Lawyers for gay couples, California Gov. Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown filed legal motions Friday telling a federal judge that allowing same-sex marriages to resume immediately in the state was the right thing to do.

The motions came two days after U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker struck down California's voter-approved gay marriage ban as unconstitutional.

In his 136-page decision, Walker said gay marriages should begin immediately. But later Wednesday, he agreed to suspend weddings until he could consider the legal arguments he ordered to be filed by Friday.

Opponents of same-sex marriage said they want Proposition 8 to stay in effect until their appeal of Walker's ruling is decided by higher courts.

They argued in court papers filed earlier this week that resuming gay marriage now would cause legal chaos if the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals or U.S. Supreme Court eventually reverse Walker's ruling.

The 9th Circuit received their appeal of Walker's decision on Wednesday, hours after the judge ruled that Proposition 8 violates the civil rights of gay Californians.

On Friday, Schwarzenegger and Brown were the first to urge an immediate resumption of gay marriage, which was legal in the state for more than four months before voters amended the California Constitution to outlaw it in November 2008.

The legal team of David Boies and Ted Olson, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of two gay couples that led to Walker's ruling, also submitted a motion in conjunction with the city of San Francisco, another plaintiff.

While O'Keefe may have walked away from his recent criminal charges with a slap on the hand, it's going to be more difficult to weasel his way out of these lawsuits:

A former ACORN employee in San Diego who lost his job after being filmed giving advice to "ACORN pimp" James O'Keefe is suing the amateur videographer and his partner, Hannah Giles, San Diego CityBeat's Dave Maass reported Friday.

Juan Carlos Vera was one of a number of ACORN employees who in the summer of 2009 was secretly filmed giving advice to O'Keefe and Giles, who told media they were posing as a pimp and prostitute with plans to bring underage prostitutes to the US from Latin America.

In a lawsuit (PDF) filed in a California court this week, Vera argues O'Keefe and Giles broke the law when they taped their conversation inside the ACORN office. California is one of about a dozen states where conversations can only be recorded if all parties to it agree. Vera is seeking $75,000, plus unspecified "special damages."California Attorney General Jerry Brown cleared Vera of wrongdoing in a report earlier this year. Brown found that, though Vera appeared sympathetic to the "pimp and prostitute" during the taped meeting, he immediately notified the police of the conversation.

Brown's investigation also found that the O'Keefe videos were "significantly edited."The shocking prospect of ACORN employees aiding in human trafficking prompted Congress to de-fund the group last year, a move that was later ruled unconstitutional. And a report from the Government Accountability Office, released earlier this year, found no evidence of wrongdoingon the part of ACORN, which received some $40 million in federal funding from 2005 to 2009.

In February, Hannah Giles admitted that the flamboyant pimp and prostitutes costumes in which she and O'Keefe were seen in some of the videos were never worn inside ACORN offices, contrary to most news reports. "In truth, O'Keefe represented himself to low-level ACORN workers as the college law school boyfriend of Giles, desperately trying to save her from the house of an abusive pimp who she believed would kill her," Brad Blog reported.

Vera's lawsuit is not the first one to be launched by an ACORN employee over the O'Keefe videos. In January, Pennsylvania ACORN worker Katherine Conway-Russell sued the duo, claiming that they had misrepresented her in the videos."Unlike the videos [O'Keefe] has been showing on the Internet, we refused to help him and called the police and filed this report," Conway-Russell said in an ACORN-produced video.

The influence of Big Money is everywhere. It's washing up on the shores of our Gulf Coast, creeping up on homeowners across the country and showing up in our schools and hospitals.

Our economy, our environment and our well-being are held hostage by lobbyists whose only care is retaining the power they hold. The need for reform is simple: we won't -- can't -- fix any of our country's problems until we end the dominance of money in politics.

On Tuesday, Californians have an opportunity to strike a blow against the entrenched system of money-dominated politics that puts lobbyists' interests above the public interest by voting yes on Proposition 15, the California Fair Elections Act.

Prop 15 will change the way we finance election campaigns, starting with a voluntary pilot project to provide limited public financing for Secretary of State candidates in 2014 and 2018. The Secretary of State referees our elections, so it's especially important that s/he has the best ideas and experience, not the most money.

And it pays for itself, primarily through a $350 per year registration fees on lobbyists, lobbying firms and lobbyist employers (right now, they only pay $12.50 per year in California, one of the lowest rates in the country and less than a daily fishing license).

And that's not all. From Calitics:

It also repeals a ban on public financing, so that local governments can create their own systems—and the system can be extended to other statewide offices with a vote of the legislature and the signature of the governor. Perhaps a Governor Jerry Brown might be inclined to sign a bill creating a public financing system for the 2014 governor's race, given the abhorrent spectacle of Meg Whitman spending $68 million and counting to buy the governor's office?

This isn't a full solution, but it starts us down the path of cleaning up our elections and returning power to the people. It is a great way to show the people of California that we can have democracy again, and not corporatocracy.

Prop 15 is tough:

• Candidates who agree to use public funds must prove they have substantial support by gathering signatures and $5 contributions from 7,500 registered voters.
• Participating candidates are banned from raising or spending money beyond the limited funds.
• Spending limits and reporting requirements are strictly enforced. Candidates can only spend on legitimate expenses. Violators would face fines, possible jail time, and prohibitions from running for office in the future.

Given the state of our state, this is a critical campaign. But this is not just important to Californians. People across the country are watching too, knowing that Prop 15 could open the door for similar reforms across the country. Hundreds of orgs and individuals (including Rep. Alan Grayson and Lawrence Lessig) support it. You should, too.

Glenn Beck starts the smearathon of President's possible Supreme Court nominees with his usual racist-homophobic-Bircher philosophy. Righties try to preempt their smears by saying that if they comment on race, gender or the ethnicity of a candidate---they will be the ones who are smeared.

Riiiight.

Replacing a liberal judge with a liberal judge is too much for right-wing ideologues, who constantly bitch and complain about "activist" judges and insist that Obama must pick a centrist (whatever a centrist is) or he hates America.

Beck really should be outraged at the Citizens United activist ruling by the Roberts court, if he was being honest about the "activist judges" thing, because that overturned decades of settled law on how big business was regulated in what they can spend in politics, or so I've been told. Though the California Chamber of Commerce pulled their smear attack ad of Jerry Brown because some of their members objected to it (and didn't even know they had made it), nonetheless, this ad is one of the previews of what will happen as we move forward with elections because of that ruling.

Not good.