Washed It!

Jerry Brown returned to Sacramento on Thursday as California’s next governor, forging relationships and crunching numbers as he anticipates his first budget, which will set the tone for a new administration that he says will be characterized by his trademark frugality.

The former two-term governor has little time. He must present a spending plan within days of taking office in January, when the state will probably be grappling with a new deficit as well as with the new restrictions that voters placed on how revenue can be raised and used. Throughout his campaign, Brown offered few specifics on how he would balance the state’s books, focusing instead on an “exhaustive” collaborative process that he says will include all stakeholders, including labor unions and business.

The spending plan is typically sent to the printer in late December, meaning Brown won’t even be governor by the time his initial draft must be finished. Brown said his transition team is working with the staff at the state Department of Finance.

On Thursday, Brown met with the state budget director, Ana Matosantos. Addressing reporters, Brown described the meeting as “very sobering” and vowed to start working full-time on a budget after he returns from a weeklong vacation.

“I think the problems we face are as bad as anyone could imagine, and it’s going to take a lot of very tough decisions,” Brown said. “It’s very daunting. It’s certainly as bad as it’s ever been, and it’s going to take people in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party” to produce a viable budget.

He added: “The people of California, they’ll have a chance to see in great depth what it is we’re doing and what kind of money we have to do it and what the gap is. And it’s certainly considerable.”

By next Tuesday, Brown’s transition team will probably be sitting in on a key meeting that takes place at this time every year, when leading state economists come to Sacramento to offer revenue projections. The governor’s office uses those projections to come up with its own forecasting model, on which the proposed budget is based. One of the economists, Stephen Levy, director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, said all the early signs suggest no major improvements.

“The budget will include some very difficult revenue numbers,” he said. “We’ll be back in the soup.”

Legislative leaders have estimated that the state will face a deficit of at least $12 billion.

Brown flew with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to Sacramento on Thursday from San Diego, where the two attended the funeral of a police officer. Later, Brown worked the halls of the Capitol, meeting with Matosantos, Assembly Speaker John P

GOP gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman paints rival Jerry Brown as a machine Democrat who as governor decades ago spent big and coddled liberal interests while pursuing an expansive role for government. Brown says he was a deficit hawk who deftly managed the state’s finances and a world-class educational system.

Neither of the conflicting portrayals, featured in the battle the two have been waging on California’s airwaves, is exactly how those eight years went.

Brown disdained political convention and protocol and refused to govern as a run-of-the-mill liberal. He tangled with the Legislature constantly, though it was controlled by fellow Democrats: Lawmakers overrode his vetoes 12 times. And although his early approval rating hit 85% — higher than Ronald Reagan’s had reached — Brown ultimately tripped over his famous frugality, irritating voters by squeezing local schools, delaying road construction and neglecting the growing state university system.

“He had his own ideology, and it was one we had never seen before,” said Paul Priolo, who was the Assembly Republican leader during part of Brown’s governorship. “He was different.”

Brown had many successes, and several of his ideas — carpool lanes, satellite communications for California, computers in classrooms —- are commonplace now. He was the skilled dealmaker who, at 37, negotiated the landmark farm labor agreement that ended the nationwide produce boycotts. He protected some of the state’s most pristine lands and crafted energy policies that sowed the seeds of a green economy long before it was stylish.

But he was also the distracted intellectual who dawdled as soaring property taxes began to crush homeowners, spurring a ballot box revolt. He was paralyzed by the Medfly crisis and criticized for being inattentive to schools.

He recruited a dynamic group of Californians to run the government, spurning the usual insiders and filling many prominent positions with women and minorities for the first time. Some of them helped usher in such pioneering policies as a 25% reduction in air pollution and pressured Detroit for more environmentally friendly cars.

Others flailed. Rose Bird, the ardent death penalty opponent with no judicial experience whom Brown appointed as chief justice of the Supreme Court, was ultimately rejected by a 2-1 margin in a regularly scheduled retention vote.

Lawmakers were inclined to dislike Brown from the start. He came into office on the heels of a successful initiative campaign to ban lavish gifts from lobbyists to politicians. Lawmakers had earlier rejected Brown’s “two hamburgers and a Coke” proposal, inspired by his view that that’s about all a lobbyist should be allowed to buy a lawmaker.

The state Senate leader once ordered the sergeant-at-arms to halt an impromptu Brown press conference in Senate chambers and threatened to have state police forcibly evict him. By Brown’s second term, his bill vetoes were overridden so often that it appeared lawmakers were doing it for sport. No governor since has been overridden.

Sometimes it seemed like Brown was winging it — as he appears to be these days on the stump. His distaste for plans and pamphlets, policy agendas and schedules dates back decades.

“Often we have to just let things emerge,” Brown said in an interview with Playboy in 1976. “If you’re interested in agendas, you might read the inaugural speeches of the last five governors. They say much the same thing: Down with crime, unemployment and taxes.”

Brown had kept his inaugural speech to seven minutes. He talked about unemployment. Then he took a group to Man Fook Lo, a Chinese restaurant in the produce district of Los Angeles. No inaugural ball.

But liberals attracted by Brown’s progressive outlook and family legacy of big projects — his governor father, Pat Brown, built universities and freeways — were disappointed. Brown’s frugality went beyond his rented apartment with a mattress on the floor; he declared an “era of limits” and tightened the state belt even as a record state surplus mounted.

Former Gov. Gray Davis, Brown’s first chief of staff, said Brown suggested senior government staffers save taxpayers money by staying with friends when traveling instead of in hotels.

“His Department of Finance would hide money from us,” said Richard Robinson, a Democrat who represented the Santa Ana area in the Assembly. “It was a major source of frustration.”

Some programs suffered. California slipped from 18th to 31st in the nation, by some measures, in per-pupil school spending. Brown suggested that cutting off some funds for schools would inspire reform. Instead, the school day was shortened, classrooms grew crowded and teachers’ salaries fell behind those in other states.

At the state’s universities, faculty salaries were frozen. Brown said highly compensated state employees such as university professors were deriving “psychic income” from the interesting nature of their work. He vetoed raises for other state employees and curbed spending on transportation, leaving much of the freeway system, a Pat Brown legacy, to deteriorate.

The junior Brown did sign off on construction of the 105 Freeway. But mostly he focused on alternative transportation. He appointed Adriana Gianturco, a 36-year-old Bostonian with no background in highway engineering, to run Caltrans. She had opposed the 105 Freeway, rejected plans for another expressway and transformed the fast lanes on the Santa Monica Freeway into “diamond lanes” for carpoolers.

As young governor, Brown went his own way

Repeated clashes over illegal immigration have marked the state’s political races for years, but a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll found that voters hold positive views about immigrants overall and favor accommodating illegal immigrants who have held down jobs in the state.

Asked whether immigrants represented a benefit or a burden to the state, 48% of voters likely to cast ballots in November said they were a benefit, and 36% said they strongly held that view. Only 32% said immigrants overall were a burden to California because of their impact on public services, and only 22% felt that way strongly.

Separately, 59% of likely voters said that an illegal immigrant who had lived and worked in the United States for at least two years should be allowed to remain here if discovered. More than 2 in 5 voters saidthey felt strongly that such an option should be available. Only 30% of likely voters thought the illegal immigrant should be deported, and only 19% backed that option strongly.

But views varied widely by political persuasion and age.

Liberals were most supportive of immigrants legal and illegal, with 75% saying immigrants were a benefit and 81% saying that working illegal immigrants should be able to keep their jobs. Voters under 45 agreed, with 59% saying immigrants were beneficial and 68% calling for illegal immigrants to keep their jobs rather than be deported.

Among conservative likely voters, 52% felt immigrants were a burden and 25% felt they were a benefit. Conservatives were the only group that leaned more toward deportation — by a narrow 2 percentage point margin.

Voters over 65 were more split, with 41% citing immigrants as a benefit and 36% as a burden. They also favored letting illegal immigrants keep their jobs, 55% to 33%.

By far the demographic group most supportive of immigrants was Latinos. Sixty-eight percent said immigrants were a benefit, a view shared by 43% of whites. And 76% felt illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay in the country, a sentiment shared by 56% of whites.

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.

cathleen.decker@latimes.com
Californians hold positive views of immigrants; most oppose deportation

It wasn’t tough decisions on California’s ailing schools, or the prison crisis or the direction of healthcare reform that kept lawmakers locked in chambers for more than 20 hours before they finally passed the latest budget in state history Friday morning.

What bedeviled the process of approving the $125-billion spending plan was such matters as whether electronic highway billboards should have advertisements, whether a big political donor should be appointed to a state commission, whose name should adorn a disaster-relief bill, and whether the state needs a paid secretary of volunteerism.

The vote was supposed to be easy, a bipartisan election-year feint that pushed tough decisions into the future, papering over the deficit with clever accounting.

The budget lawmakers passed would keep state services at the status quo, with a freeze on school spending, modest trims to healthcare programs and some new money for universities.

It assumes billions of dollars in federal aid that most experts agree will never materialize and relies on loans and bookkeeping maneuvers such as transfers and funding shifts.

Yet the approval process became an all-night affair, with tens of millions of dollars in transportation spending lost because lawmakers had a spat over electronic billboards and DUI checkpoints.

Some Democrats disliked a provision to sell advertising space for soft drinks, automobiles or other products alongside the flashing alerts about abducted children and hazardous road conditions on the more than 700 state-owned electronic freeway billboards. The proposal was pushed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Who thinks it’s a good idea to give drivers one more reason to take their eyes off the road?” said Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto). He chairs a budget subcommittee that initially rejected the plan, which was later reinserted into the budget by legislative leaders.

Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) sought to make the multi-provision bill more palatable by adding a new measure. It addressed an element of alleged corruption in Bell, where the city was reported to be making money by towing the cars of sober immigrants from DUI checkpoints if they did not have proper ID.

Without a provision banning such a practice, Cedillo was refusing to vote for it and other parts of the budget, which was contained in 21 bills. Democrats added it. Some Republicans said the proposal could interfere with legitimate law-enforcement actions, and the bill failed to garner enough votes to pass. So the Senate killed the entire $112-million transportation bill.

Just after dawn, an impromptu hearing was needed to get a bill authorizing schools funding back on track. GOP senators were refusing to put up the votes for it, and the measure came up short. Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) abruptly announced there would be a 120-second hearing, stopped business on the budget and conducted a confirmation proceeding that took just slightly longer.

Senators approved a Schwarzenegger nominee to the California Transportation Commission whom they had refused to confirm through the normal committee process. Steinberg, with a hint of sarcasm, declared the nominee, Fresno developer and GOP donor Darius Assemi, “eminently qualified.”

Sen. Jeff Denham (R-Atwater) spoke in praise of Assemi and changed his vote. The education bill passed.

Over in the Assembly, meanwhile, lawmakers were annoyed by a demand they said came from the governor. It called for the state to create a “Secretary of Volunteerism,” a paid post. The idea was heavily mocked in side conversations and during floor debates.

“I would like to volunteer to be the Wizard of Adjournment,” Assemblyman Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks) said after 3:30 a.m., when the legislation finally passed the lower house

Ultimately, the full Legislature approved the post, with some lawmakers expressing worry that the governor might otherwise use his line-item veto authority to retaliate.

“This was the governor’s thing — or else his blue pencil came out,” said Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills).

Other last-minute side issues included a bid by Republicans to secure a tax break for online travel companies such as Orbitz and Expedia. It didn’t survive. A proposal to help San Diego use more redevelopment funds in a way that could help facilitate construction of a new NFL stadium made it to the governor’s desk.

Special tax breaks for a timber company, cable companies and software firms made it to the governor’s desk too. So did a provision that could help boost the bottom line of an ethanol company founded by former Secretary of State Bill Jones, an ally of and contributor to Schwarzenegger.

Not all of the bickering was partisan. Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco, a Democrat, refused to vote with most of his caucus on many elements of the budget. He paid a price: Disaster-relief legislation that he wrote for families affected by the San Bruno explosion and fire was killed, and Democrats later moved to Schwarzenegger an identical measure without Yee’s name on it.

Lawmakers sweat the small stuff

The State Department issued a travel alert Sunday for American citizens in Europe in light of increased U.S. and European intelligence that a large-scale Al Qaeda attack may be imminent.

Intelligence officials in the U.S. and Europe have said an increase in activity in recent weeks suggests that a small cell of potential terrorists hiding in North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region, are preparing an attack that could be as spectacular as the 2008 raids in Mumbai, India, that killed 166 people.

Plotters could be planning to use “a variety of means and target both official and private interests,” the State Department said, adding that Americans abroad should be careful on trains, subways and other transportation systems, and in visiting hotels, restaurants and tourist spots.

“U.S. citizens should take every precaution,” the travel alert said.

It is thought that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is behind the plot, and that if successful, it could become the largest terrorist action since the Sept. 11 attacks nine years ago.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are traveling in Europe at any given time — as tourists, college students and business professionals. But the State Department did not upgrade its alert to a warning, which could have led to widespread cancellations of airline and hotel bookings.

Nevertheless, many in Europe found themselves quickly aware of the situation.

With the Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves in London preparing for a preseason game, the National Basketball Assn. promised to take “appropriate” measures to ensure their safety.

“The NBA is staying in contact with the U.S. Embassy, the CIA and Scotland Yard,” said Lakers spokesman John Black. “They are keeping us informed of the situation.”

European governments began warning of a possible attack last week.

In Britain, the threat of terrorism has been listed as “severe,” meaning an attack is highly likely. Britain’s Foreign Office also warned its citizens to be careful traveling in France.

French Defense Minister Herve Morin told Le Parisien newspaper that “the terrorist threat exists and could hit us at any moment.” But Morin said law enforcement officials were continuing to pursue would-be terrorists.

“Networks organizing themselves to prepare attacks are constantly being dismantled around the world,” he said. “It is good for the French to know this.”

The U.S. military in recent weeks has stepped up drone missile attacks on suspected hideouts in regions of Pakistan, and the U.S. is passing its intelligence to its European counterparts.

According to intelligence sources, the threat apparently arose after the arrest and interrogation of a German man of Pakistani origin who was being held at the U.S. air base in Bagram, Afghanistan. He is said to have provided information about the activities of half a dozen other men from Germany and England who were linked through Al Qaeda and were reportedly talking to other operatives in several European cities about upcoming strikes.

richard.serrano@latimes.com

U.S. issues travel alert for Europe amid threat of Al Qaeda attack

Nick Franco squinted across Morro Bay to the potential future of the California state parks system. The district superintendent of this coastal jewel, Franco ticked off money-making possibilities: Install gates and charge to get in the parking lot. Sell off the nearby county-run golf course. In the marina, bring in more concessions. Outsource to allow motorized recreation in the wetlands. And in the wild, undulating spine of sand dunes at Monta

The U.S. Labor Department issued a critical report on enforcement of workplace safety in California on Tuesday and ordered the state to fix myriad problems, including poor training of safety inspectors and delays in responding to complaints.

Federal officials took aim at the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health, saying, among other things, that inspectors do not always review a company’s history statewide before deciding whether to cite it for repeat violations. They also found that the division’s appeals process “falls short.”

The problems found with California’s program were “relatively serious, especially with the appeals board,” said Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of Labor for occupational safety and health.

The Labor Department’s review mirrors many of the findings of a Times investigation last fall that found the division’s appeals board repeatedly reduced or dismissed penalties levied by health and safety inspectors, even in situations in which workers died or were seriously injured.

The Times highlighted the case of Bimbo Bakeries USA, where nine employees have lost parts of fingers or a limb in several California plants since 2003. After most of those accidents, investigators found that baking machines did not have proper guards to prevent employees from reaching in to dislodge dough that got stuck. It is not clear that inspectors recognized the problem as a pattern across the plants.

Many of the penalties levied by the Cal/OSHA were dismissed or reduced on technicalities by judges working for the appeals board, so the company wasn’t required to immediately fix hazards.

The Times focused on several serious examples, including the case of a worker on the Golden Gate Bridge, Kevin Scott Noah, who plummeted 50 feet to his death.

A Cal/OSHA investigator concluded that the contractor had not provided employees with scaffolds; it issued three “serious” citations and a $26,000 fine, records show.

The contractor appealed on the grounds that Cal/OSHA had issued the citations to Shimmick Obayashi, the name listed on the company’s business cards. The company’s full name was the Shimmick Construction Co. Inc./Obayashi Corp.

An administrative law judge tossed the case out, writing that Cal/OSHA had failed to determine the company’s legal name.

Candice Traeger, chairwoman of Cal/OSHA’s appeals board, could not be reached Tuesday for comment

Workplace safety advocates hailed the federal government’s action, saying it underscored that safety in California has been suffering for years.

“I don’t think people realize how broken our system is,” said Gail Bateson, executive director of Worksafe, a nonprofit that advocates for workers.

But Len Welsh, the chief of the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, took issue with some of the more than 40 findings about his division.

“They got a lot of stuff frankly wrong, and embarrassingly so,” he said. For example, he said, one finding accuses the division of not opening investigations into seven fatal accidents quickly enough. But another finding says there were two such accidents. When his office questioned the findings, federal officials couldn’t explain the discrepancy, he said.

Cal/OSHA and the appeals board have 30 days to respond to the report and develop corrective plans.

The general review of California’s program was part of a larger examination of all 25 U.S. states that run their own workplace safety programs under the jurisdiction of the federal program. Serious problems were also found with Hawaii’s program, which could be taken over by the federal government.

jessica.garrison@latimes.com
Cal/OSHA ordered to improve workplace safety

A federal judge Tuesday blocked the execution of convicted rapist and murderer Albert Greenwood Brown, saying there was “no way” the court could conduct an adequate review of California’s new lethal-injection procedures before the death sentence was to be carried out Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in effect reversed his Friday decision that the execution could go forward if the state gave Brown the option of dying by a single-injection method used in other states, rather than the three-drug cocktail prescribed by California’s new regulations.

Earlier today, Fogel had asked attorneys to weigh in on the state’s new procedures for carrying out lethal injections, including how similar and different they are from the older rules that the judge had previously found to be flawed.

Time has become a crucial factor in whether Brown will be put to death this year.

The attorney general’s office has said that the state’s supply of a key drug that renders condemned prisoners unconscious will expire on Friday and that further executions would have to wait until at least next year, when new supplies are expected.

Brown was convicted of raping and killing a 15-year-old Riverside girl in 1980.
Judge blocks California’s first execution in five years

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

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown argued Thursday that his experience makes him the only candidate who can right California, and he slashed at Republican rival Meg Whitman by calling her a neophyte who has run an ugly and inaccurate campaign against him.

“Everything I’ve done in my life has prepared me for this moment in time, to do what I can to protect the state I love,” said Brown, the former two-term governor and current attorney general, standing in front of a vat of sulfuric acid after touring New Leaf Biofuel in San Diego.

“I’m confident at the end of the day, though it’s going to be a close race, people are going to vote for change, they’re going to vote for integrity, and they’re going to reject the negativity and the carpet-bombing of deceptive commercials we’ve been facing these last two months.”

More than 100 miles north, at a rivet manufacturer in the City of Industry, Whitman argued that the state would be ill-served if it elected a career politician who “has not delivered” in the past. Faced with a query from a worker about whether she could be any more effective than another political novice, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Whitman said the business skills she developed as EBay’s chief executive would ease her path in Sacramento.

Schwarzenegger “did a number of good things … but he had not run and managed and led large organizations” as she has, Whitman told an audience gathered on the factory floor of Allfast Fastening Systems. The next governor, she said, “has to be very tough-minded.”

“We cannot afford a third term of Jerry Brown,” Whitman said. “And I am going to give Jerry Brown the toughest fight he has had in his 40-year political career.”

The events marked a rare moment in the general election campaign so far — one in which the two gubernatorial candidates were actually campaigning at the same time.

Although Whitman has kept a brisk pace traveling around the state, airing ads and reaching out to voters since she won the GOP primary in June, Brown, who lacks his rival’s deep pockets, has spent much of his time raising money while juggling his duties as the state’s attorney general.

Organized labor has propped up his campaign with television ads over the summer, but until Wednesday it had been nearly a month since the candidate held a campaign event. Brown has said he was biding his time and would spend $25 million to $30 million in the fall, when voters would be paying attention.

“There are two things that are unprecedented in American political history,” he said Thursday. “One, the $100 million plus that Whitman has paid on her campaign, most of it from her own pocketbook, and two, the virtually no effect it’s had. This is basically a tie race.”

Brown, who picked up the endorsement of Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America on Thursday, appeared to be gearing up for the start of the general election battle. He headlined a rally in front of 800 people in Santa Rosa on Wednesday night, followed by the Thursday morning tour and news conference.

Those events offered Brown the chance to respond to several attacks Whitman has launched against him in recent weeks, including questions about his recent use of a state plane after he bragged about eliminating such luxuries during his prior time as governor. Brown dismissed a query as a “Whitman-fed” question.

“I fly it so little, really, compared to commercial flights,” he told reporters in Santa Rosa. “By the way, sometimes funerals are very important to go to, for fallen officers.”

Whitman’s newest television ad, unveiled Thursday, charged Brown with hypocrisy for touting his frugality even though he used a state plane 10 times since he assumed the attorney general post in 2007. The ad says that Brown used a Beechcraft King Air turboprop for trips to a conference at the La Costa Resort and Spa and a reception in Pebble Beach. “It’s your money — not his,” the announcer says.

Whitman, who received the endorsement of the National Federation of Independent Business on Thursday, was fending off her own attacks from the state’s nurses‘ union and the Courage Campaign, which used the anniversary of women’s suffrage vote to protest the candidate and her spotty voting record at a Sacramento rally.

More than 1,000 people gathered on the west steps of the Capitol, ostensibly to honor the 90th anniversary of suffrage. Labor leaders, led by the California Nurses Assn., hammered Whitman for her poor voting record and painted her as a corporate elitist who plans to cut 40,000 state jobs, slash pension benefits and curtail the political influence of unions.

“She may not have voted,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the nurses’ union, “but we will.”

Whitman countered that the protest appeared to be driven by “union bosses trying to distract from the fact that I will go to Sacramento and I will change Sacramento.” But she once again apologized for her past voting record: “I have said I should have been more engaged and I was not. But I am all in now.”

seema.mehta@latimes.com

maeve.reston@latimes.com

Times staff writer Michael Mishak contributed to this report from Sacramento.
Brown and Whitman spar in sync