CONTENT October 3, 1996
Brad Rourke
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C O N T E N T
Brad Rourke's Political Newsletter on California
http://www.well.com/user/rourke/content.tst1.html
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October 3, 1996
THE HAND THAT (MIGHT) FEED
Term-limited Assemblyman Phil Isenberg (D-Sacramento) has an irate letter
to the editor in today's Sacramento Bee. Isenberg says Senate President
Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) promised a "good, clean" gambling
regulation bill this year, but the result (SB1887) looked more like a
special-interest wish-list than a regulating bill. Isenberg says the
Assembly had to clean it up. One of the things the Assembly did was add a
provision which would ban candidates from attorney general from taking
campaign contributions from gambling interests. Makes sense, huh? But
Lockyer is mulling a race for AG, and campaigns being as expensive as
they are, it would take quite a politician to give up all that potential
money. Evidently, Lockyer isn't that politician: he let the Senate
adjourn instead of allowing the bill to be heard.
GIRLS TALK
The Educational Testing Service (ETS) has agreed to alter its PSAT test
by adding a reading-comprehension section, designed to quiet the many
complaints that the test has an unfair bias against young women because
it ignores subjects traditionally better-handled by girls. This is good
news, but many advocates say the move doesn't go far enough. But what is
not being said is that the problem lies with the structure of
standardized tests themselves. In order to make standardized tests work,
test-writiers look at how the traditional high-scorers do on their new
experimental questions. The ones that high-scorers get right get kept,
the ones they get wrong are assumed to be "flawed" somehow. Who are the
traditional high scorers? White males, that's who. The test-writing
process itself *builds in* bias that I believe no amount of fiddling will
be able to overcome. The problem is that, while colleges do indeed
consider other factors besides just how a student did on his or her SAT,
the National Merit Scholarships are chosen ONLY on the basis of PSAT
scores. Millions of dollars of scholarship money is being denied girls in
the semifinalist rungs of the competition.
SHREDDING PARTY ENDS
It's a little-known fact that until quite recently, policy at Cal-EPA was
that any documents containing scientific or experimental evidence that
appeared to contradict management decisions (like about second-hand
smoke, toxic waste, etc.) was DESTROYED. SHREDDED. Environmental and
watchdog groups have understandably thought this to (perhaps) go against
the principle of intellectual honesty. But Cal-EPA has come around, and
now promises it will stop shredding the bad documents. Instead, they'll
be kept in a vault.
DOLE LIGHTS "STILL BRIGHT"
Dole's campaign has gone out of its way to deny and spin reports that it
is pulling out of major media markets (including California). They've
even got CNN to "admit" that its earlier reports to that effect were "in
error". Methinks they doth protest too much.
FED EX WINS, TRUCKERS AND UPS LOSE
The FAA Authorization bill with the FedEx amendment that would classify
FedEx employees as "aviation workers" has passed and been sent to the
President, over the objections of Sen. Edward Kennedy and all of
organized labor. It was just too little, too late to stop it. The losers
are two: FedEx's truck drivers, who will now find it almost impossible to
unionize, and UPS. Yes, UPS: Despite the fact that it has the same number
of airplanes as FedEx (500), UPS is considered a trucking firm and its
employees fall under the National Labor Relations Act, so they can
unionize easily (and they have). Doesn't quite seem fair, does it?
BLACK GOLD, TEXAS TEA
Last week Congress passed a bill that would "simplify" safety
requirements for oil pipelines. The bill passed despite strenuous
objections from many in the environmental community. One small provision
in the new law would allow court challenges to the cost-benefit analyses
provided by the Office of Pipeline Safety, the unitl-now regulating
agency for pipelines. The Environmental Defense Fund says that this
potential litigation may set up an "endless loop" of lawsuits.
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Copyright 1996 by Brad Rourke
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