Washed It!

By the time the 5-year-old boy was rescued from a dark closet in San Bernardino County last year, much of his body had been burned by a glue gun and hot spoons. Johnny had been starved and sodomized, taunted and punched, forced to eat soap and crouch motionless in corners.

Child welfare officials across the county line, in Los Angeles, might have spared him this. More than a year earlier, they had dismissed allegations that he had been abused as unfounded and determined that the “child [was] not at risk.”

A recent internal review by the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services concluded the finding was wrong — the result of a shallow inquiry in which the agency misjudged what little information it collected, according to records reviewed by The Times.

The department’s involvement in the case might never have come to light but for the decision by the supervising social worker on the case, Roc

Defections from Meg Whitman’s ranks on the part of women, Latinos and nonpartisan voters have fueled a surge by Jerry Brown in the race for governor, according to a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll.

The shift comes after a tumultuous month for the Republican candidate that has led some voters to question her veracity and her handling of accusations by an illegal immigrant housekeeper.

Brown, the Democratic attorney general and former governor, led Whitman 52% to 39% among likely voters, the poll found. His advantage has more than doubled since a Times/USC poll in September.

The abrupt movement in the race for governor came as Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer held onto her 8-point margin over Republican Carly Fiorina in the U.S. Senate contest. Boxer’s 50% to 42% lead was statistically unchanged from September’s 51% to 43% edge.

For both Democrats, the month between the two polls found the party’s strongest supporters rallying to the candidates’ sides: liberals, women and Latinos either solidified or expanded their backing for Brown and Boxer. Nonpartisan voters, whom Republicans had counted on to overcome the Democratic advantage in voter registration, moved away from the two Republican candidates, and moderate voters also tilted toward the Democrats.

Paula Bennett, a schoolteacher in the Sacramento-area town of Acampo, said she was drawn to Brown in part by the blizzard of cash Whitman has thrown at the race.

“I like the little guy; he didn’t have the money behind him like she did,” she said in a follow-up interview, adding that she sided with Brown for the same reason that she favors a mom-and-pop establishment over a retail behemoth.

“We don’t shop at Walmart. We shop at the local store. He just seemed like more of a down-home candidate.”

Although she is Republican, Bennett is also siding with Boxer. She said she was offended by both Whitman’s and Fiorina’s infusions of personal cash into their races.

“That message that they’re sending to people is a very bad choice,” she said. “We’re looking to people to act their values rather than throw money at causes. People are holding their money really closely and those candidates are really splurging.”

Most of the nation has seen pronounced enthusiasm by Republican voters as the midterm elections approach. In California, however, Democrats have gained strength and GOP motivation has ebbed slightly in the last month, the poll showed. The current standings represent a reassertion of a more typical profile for the state after an election year convulsed by a foundering economy, widespread discontent about the future and record-breaking spending by Whitman, who has dropped more than $141 million of her own money into her campaign.

The poll was conducted for The Los Angeles Times and the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences from Oct. 13 to 20 by the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and the Republican firm American Viewpoint. It included a random sample of 1,501 California voters, including 922 likely voters. Results for likely voters have a margin of sampling error of 3.2 points in either direction, with a larger margin for subgroups.

The survey was taken as the two gubernatorial candidates pummeled each other over the state’s airwaves and flooded telephone lines and mailboxes with entreaties for the election — now nine days away. And it came at the close of a particularly difficult period in the race for Whitman.

A turning point appears to have been the Sept. 29 announcement by her former housekeeper, Nicandra Diaz Santillan, that she had been employed by the former EBay chief for nine years, a period during which she said Whitman became aware of her illegal status. Whitman countered that she had not known of Diaz Santillan’s status until shortly before firing her in 2009, and she released copies of falsified documents presented to her by Diaz Santillan.

Diaz Santillan, accompanied by attorney Gloria Allred in a series of sob-wracked news conferences, displayed a copy of a 2003 government document sent to Whitman and her husband that could have alerted them that their employee was using a false Social Security number.

The subsequent days of controversy upended Whitman’s carefully nuanced position on illegal immigration and whipsawed her between voters who thought she was too easy on Diaz Santillan and those who thought the housekeeper deserved better than banishment. Whitman slipped among both groups in the new poll.

Among likely Latino voters, support for Brown grew from a 20-point lead in September to a 34-point advantage in the new survey. His lead among women voters expanded from 9 points to 21 points. Among nonpartisan voters, who in California register as “decline to state” and tend to recoil from tough stances against illegal immigrants, Brown’s lead over Whitman grew from 6 points to 37 points.

At the other end of the ideological scale, Whitman’s standing among conservatives ebbed slightly, from 77% to 70%. She continued to outdistance Brown among those voters, although his support grew slightly from 16% to 21%.

Overall, by 52% to 41%, voters said that Whitman had not handled the housekeeper controversy well. The same key voter groups — women, independents and Latinos — offered the harshest verdicts. When asked how Brown had handled the matter, voters were more divided, with 37% saying he did well and 43% saying he did not. Among independent voters, a plurality approved of Brown’s actions.

Jerry Brown’s lead doubles in a month; little change in Senate race

The increasingly contentious Nevada Senate race between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his ultra-conservative Republican opponent, Sharron Angle, took an ugly turn last week when the candidates accused each other of going easy on child molesters — and campaigning isn’t expected to get any more pleasant between now and election day.

“It’s not much fun to live through,” said political scientist David Damore of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “It’s about 95%, if not 100%, negative.”

In a surprise move on Saturday, Angle softened some of her harsh stances on government benefits such as Social Security and unemployment insurance that have led opponents to characterize her as extreme, according to the Associated Press. Her remarks came during an interview before an audience with a conservative radio host in Las Vegas.

While Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 14.4%, and the highest foreclosure rate, Reid and Angle concentrated on ratcheting up the fear factor with their new spots, a sign that the race remains uncomfortably tight. Three polls released in the last week showed Angle with a slight lead over Reid, but within the margin of error.

“I would say that the ramping up of the rhetoric indicates that the internal polling of the candidates shows they have no clue who is winning this race,” said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. As a result, the candidates are scrambling to demonize each other.

“Reid’s goal isn’t to get people to like him,” Herzik said, “it’s to scare people about Sharron Angle. He’s got very high unfavorables and he knows he can’t change that, so what can he do? Make people like Sharron Angle even less, or be afraid of her.”

In a 30-second spot, Angle accused the incumbent of voting to allow taxpayer dollars to pay for Viagra for convicted child molesters and sex offenders. “What else,” it asks, “could you ever need to know about Harry Reid?”

Her charge is rooted in political maneuvering around the healthcare reform bill that became law this year. Reid voted against an amendment that would have barred the use of federal funds to buy Viagra for sex offenders. Democrats opposed the amendment for procedural reasons. Politifact, a website that evaluates claims in political ads, rated Angle’s charge as “barely true.”

Reid blasted Angle for a vote she cast in 1999 while a member of the Nevada Assembly opposing background checks for people who volunteer with youth and church groups. “Sharron Angle voted to protect the privacy of sex offenders,” says the star of the spot, a Las Vegas family therapist who works with abused kids. A rating for Reid’s ad could not be found on Politifact.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the bill, which passed the Assembly, would create a fund to pay for the screening of volunteers. The newspaper quoted minutes from the discussion in committee, which reflected that Angle was concerned with “the possible invasion of privacy and liability issues included in the bill.”

Angle has been dogged by other issues, as well.

Last month, she seemed to suggest in a town hall meeting that Dearborn, Mich., which has a large Arab population, is operating under Islamic law, which drew a denunciation from the mayor of that city.

An account by the online news site, Mesquite Local News, said that in response to a question about whether “Muslims are taking over the U.S.,” Angle replied: “Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas, are on American soil, and under constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don’t know how that happened in the United States. It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States.”

On Thursday, the Reno News and Review published an interview with Angle’s one-time pastor, an evangelical Christian, in which he slurred Reid’s Mormon faith, calling it a “cult” and “kooky.” The Rev. John Reed of Sonrise Church in Reno said he was alarmed by Reid’s “allegiance to Salt Lake City,” where the Mormon religion is based.

Angle disavowed Reed’s remarks, but it is unclear what effect they will have on the 11% of Nevada’s voters who are Mormon. Some political observers believe the pastor’s remarks could prompt Mormons, who generally vote Republican, to choose “none of the above,” which is an option on the Nevada ballot.

In the last week, Reid has garnered the endorsements of two prominent Nevada Republicans — the state Senate’s Republican leader Bill Raggio and former First Lady Dema Guinn, whose late husband, Kenny Guinn, was governor from 1999 to 2007.

The new Assembly speaker’s promise was unequivocal: Decisions about how billions upon billions of California taxpayer dollars are spent would no longer be made in private meetings or in the middle of the night.

“The budget will not be written behind closed doors,” Speaker John P

California’s deeply troubled labor market took another hit in August as employers laid off more workers than expected, renewing fears that the state’s economic recovery has stalled.

Employers cut 33,500 jobs, marking the third straight month of losses and pushing the state’s unemployment rate to 12.4%, up from 12.3% in July, according to data released Friday by the Employment Development Department. California has lost 113,100 jobs since August 2009.

Last month’s losses were widespread, hitting almost all sectors, including construction, manufacturing, financial services, leisure and hospitality, trade, transportation and utilities. Government was the biggest loser, shedding 9,200 jobs, most of them temporary census positions.

“The thing that is disconcerting is that we have lost jobs in virtually every industry,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economist and UC Channel Islands professor. “At this stage of an economic recovery, we should be doing much better.”

California has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, well above the national rate of 9.6%.

The deteriorating job market is bad news for the Golden State’s 2.3 million unemployed workers. Almost 1 million of them have been jobless for more than six months. And nearly 200,000 have exhausted their unemployment benefits, which last up to 99 weeks.

Some of the unemployed — discouraged or depressed — have quit looking for work. About 926,000 such Californians who are no longer counted as unemployed said they want a job, according to the most recent state government figures. Some are going back to school or retraining for other careers. Others are retiring early or applying for disability insurance.

California’s labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the population working or actively seeking a job, fell to 64.2% in July from 66% in July 2008. Economists said that’s a worrisome decline that could hurt the state’s productivity down the road.

“When the economy turns south, people exit the labor market,” said Mary Daly, a vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco who has studied the trend. “They search and search and don’t find anything, so they just stop looking for work.”

Applications to the Social Security disability insurance program are projected to reach 3.3 million in the 2010 fiscal year, a 27% jump from 2008, according to Mark Hinkle, a spokesman for the agency. In California, applications increased to 287,000 in the 2009 fiscal year, up 12% from the year before.

“As the economy has gotten worse, the applications have gone up at a pretty steady correlation,” said Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue.

Mark Allen Jr., 29, lost his job at a mortuary in downtown Los Angeles in April and has been unable find new employment. His car was repossessed two weeks ago and he’s barely making his rent. Allen said he had been battling medical problems for a few years. After consulting a lawyer, he’s now in the process of applying for disability benefits.

“It’s absolutely a last resort,” he said. “I really don’t know where to turn before I am totally out on the street.”

Other unemployed workers are going back to school. Community colleges throughout the state are experiencing “unprecedented demand,” said Paige Marlatt Dorr, a spokeswoman for California Community Colleges, the largest higher education system in the nation.

But because of funding cuts, campuses had to turn away 140,000 students in the 2009-10 school year, she said.

Rosemead resident Queenie Luc, 52, is studying commercial and medical billing at Los Angeles City College. She lost her job in 2008 when the garment factory that she managed closed.

“I just want to finish so I can find a job,” Luc said.

But so far, California employers have shown little confidence in the strength of the economic recovery.

“Businesses are still really cautious and are taking a wait-and-see attitude,” said Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast.

Los Angeles County lost 12,800 jobs in August as the unemployment rate rose to 12.6% from a revised 12.4% in July. Manufacturing, information and government experienced significant job losses. But construction and professional and business services gained jobs.

Orange County’s unemployment rate fell to 9.6% in August, from a revised 9.9% in July. The county lost 2,300 jobs, with the biggest losses in government, educational and health services and trade.

In the Riverside-San Bernardino metro area, the unemployment rate fell to 14.8% from a revised 15.1% in July. Job losses were modest, with payrolls down by only 100 positions. Still, that area has lost 22,700 jobs over the last year.

San Diego County lost 2,200 jobs in August, and its unemployment rate dropped to 10.6% from a revised 10.9% in July. Ventura County added 500 jobs as its unemployment rate fell slightly to 11.2% from 11.3% the month before.

Cristina Molinari, 60, has been out of work since July 2008 and ran out of benefits in April. The Woodland Hills resident worries that because of her age no one will hire her. A onetime computer programmer, she says she has been told that her skills are outdated, or, alternatively, that she’s overqualified.

She recently called the Social Security Administration to inquire about receiving benefits early. They said she was too young for Social Security but recommended she apply for disability insurance.

“It’s ironic that I’m too young for that. Because as far as the job market, I’m too old to be hired,” she said. “It’s pretty tough.”

alana.semuels@latimes.com

Job losses cut wide swath in California

The ranks of the working-age poor climbed to the highest level since the 1960s as the recession threw millions of people out of work last year, leaving one in seven Americans in poverty.

The overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people, the Census Bureau said Thursday in its annual report on the economic well-being of U.S. households. The report covers 2009, President Barack Obama’s first year in office.

The poverty rate increased from 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million people, in 2008.

The share of Americans without health coverage rose from 15.4 percent to 16.7 percent — or 50.7 million people — mostly because of the loss of employer-provided health insurance during the recession. Congress passed a health overhaul this year to address the rising numbers of uninsured people, but its main provisions will not take effect until 2014.

In a statement, President Barack Obama called 2009 a tough year for working families but said it could have been worse.

“Because of the Recovery Act and many other programs providing tax relief and income support to a majority of working families — and especially those most in need — millions of Americans were kept out of poverty last year,” Obama said.

The new figures come at a politically sensitive time, just weeks before the Nov. 2 congressional elections, when voters restive about high unemployment and the slow pace of economic improvement will decide whether to keep Democrats in power in the House and Senate or turn to Republicans.

The 14.3 percent poverty rate, which covers all ages, was the highest since 1994. It was lower than predicted by many demographers who were bracing for a record gain based on last year’s skyrocketing unemployment. Many had predicted a range of 14.7 percent to 15 percent.

Broken down by state, Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 23.1 percent, according to rough calculations by the Census Bureau. It was followed by Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas and Georgia. On the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 7.8 percent.

Analysts said the full blow of lost incomes was cushioned somewhat by increases in Social Security payments in 2009 as well as federal expansions of unemployment insurance, which rose substantially under the economic stimulus program. With the additional unemployment benefits, workers were eligible for extensions that gave them up to 99 weeks of payments after a layoff.

David Johnson, the chief of the Census Bureau’s household economics division, estimated that expanded unemployment benefits helped keep 3.3 million people out of poverty last year.

The 2009 poverty level was set at $21,954 for a family of four, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income, before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as noncash aid such as food stamps.

Another 7.8 million people would have been counted above the poverty line if food stamps and tax credits were included as income, Johnson said.

Last year saw the biggest single-year increase in Americans without health insurance, lifting the total number to the highest since the government began tracking the figures in 1987. The number of people covered by employment-based health plans declined from 176.3 million to 169.7 million, although those losses were partially offset by gains in government health insurance such as Medicaid and Medicare.

Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said additional increases in the uninsured are probable in the short run.

In 2014 under the new health law, Medicaid will be expanded to pick up millions more low-income people, and the government will offer tax credits for many middle-income households to use to buy coverage through new online insurance markets in each state.

By 2019, the government has estimated that nearly 93 percent of the U.S. population will have health insurance, roughly a 10 percentage point increase from today’s level.

Other census findings:

–Among the working-age population, ages 18 to 64, poverty rose from 11.7 percent to 12.9 percent. That puts it at the highest since the 1960s, when the government launched a war on poverty that expanded the federal role in social welfare programs from education to health care.

–Poverty rose among all race and ethnic groups, but stood at higher levels for blacks and Hispanics. The number of Hispanics in poverty increased from 23.2 percent to 25.3 percent; for blacks it increased from 24.7 percent to 25.8 percent. The number of whites in poverty rose from 8.6 percent to 9.4 percent.

–Child poverty rose from 19 percent to 20.7 percent.
1 in 7 Americans live in poverty, Census Bureau reports

Many of the pressures that can push California’s leaders toward a budget accord are absent this summer as the state lurches into yet another budget year without a spending plan.

The lack of acute suffering from the budget stalemate may help explain why talks between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers show no signs of agreement on how to tackle California’s $19.1-billion deficit.