Free Republic

At first blush, it looks like just another bureaucratic shuffle. It isn't. In fact, the move to carve out a new state Department of Public Health reflects a shift in California's attitude toward fighting disease and confronting health emergencies--including those prompted by terrorism and fears of epidemics, such as avian flu. The department is patterned in part after the kind of agency that all 58 counties and three cities--Berkeley, Pasadena, Long Beach--already have, by law. It will be run by a medical doctor known as the state's public health officer--the state's "Top Doc" or "Papa Doc," as the position already...

SACRAMENTO Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will propose a new plan Saturday requiring drug companies to give discounts to low-income residents within five years or face state sanctions, Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe said Friday. The plan is similar to Democratic proposals the governor has rejected in the past. Under the new proposal, drug companies would have five years to offer discounts to people who earn less than three times the federal poverty level, or about $60,000 a year for a family of four. Companies that do not cooperate could be cut out of the state's Medi-Cal program, which provides...

As dismay grows in his own party and among many observers over Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s seemingly surprising embrace and defense of left-liberal Democrat Rob Reiner and his tenure as chairman of the California Children and Families Commission, it is becoming evident that some of Schwarzenegger’s highest ranking appointees and advisors have long been involved with the controversial commission and the movie director/initiative promoter himself and have played key roles in the direction the program has taken. “The First 5 Commission,” says one Schwarzenegger friend using the Reiner commission’s nickname, “and Reiner himself have been much closer to the governor...

Why hasn’t Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced controversial movie director/initiative promoter Rob Reiner as chairman of the California Children and Families Commission? That’s the question that has many, especially Schwarzenegger’s fellow Republicans, perplexed. Reiner has stepped away, taken a “leave of absence” from his post at the so-called “First Five Commission” in the wake of revelations about its highly questionable spending practices under his leadership. But he intends to return to the chairmanship after his Proposition 82 universal preschool initiative is voted on in June, even though his term in office expired in 2004. Many Republicans thought they understood Schwarzenegger’s motivation...

SACRAMENTO - California's capital is packed with more than 1,000 lobbyists, but when people want to make something happen in Sacramento, they often turn instead to Bob White, a genial Republican maestro who helped elect Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. White has an advantage lobbyists don't. While registered influence peddlers must reveal whom they work for, White calls himself a strategist who doesn't directly push for changes in state policy. That legal distinction allows White to conceal who his corporate clients are, even though he and members of his consulting firm, California Strategies, go to bat for them by exploiting a loophole...