Mineta’s Pals Are Offended by Op-Ed Lashing

Norman Y. Mineta (whose name now adorns the airport in his old district, San Jose) has been transformed from a Democratic member of Congress to secretary of transportation and the only Dem in George Bush’s cabinet.

After Sept. 11, that got to be a much bigger job than either Mineta or Bush probably imagined, but his old Capitol Hill colleagues are still sticking up for him.

A letter circulated by Atherton Democrat Anna G. Eshoo and signed by 54 other members asks the White House to issue a “public denunciation” of an op-ed in publications called Jewish World Review and Front Page Magazine.

The column bangs away at the administration’s airport security policy for not relying on ethnic profiling, and lambastes Mineta as a man who gets choice government jobs “solely and exclusively because he is a minority.”

Mineta spent World War II in a Japanese internment camp and remembers having his baseball bat taken away because it could be used as a weapon. “A guard took Mineta’s baseball bat as a child,” the column said, “and as a result he’s subjecting all of America to the Bataan Death March!”

The congressional letter condemns the “racist and hateful language” of the piece and asked President Bush to do the same.

And who is this wordsmith? Ann Coulter, a sometimes-darling of conservatives who--well, let’s just say she parted company with the National Review online publication over her prose exhortation that in the war on terrorism, the United States should “invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

Government Holiday Is Study in Confusion

Hail Cesar--but what comes next, no one seems to know.

This is the second year of the state’s official Cesar Chavez holiday, a paid holiday on March 31--celebrated today this year because March 31 was a Sunday.

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante marked the holiday by letting the world know he’d be working with the United Farm Workers, the union founded by Chavez, to let former farm workers know that thousands in unclaimed pension benefits may be awaiting them.

That’s nice, but what was on the minds of most government employees in California was another day off. Some government employee unions are just dropping Columbus Day as a holiday and adding Chavez Day, which has worked some Italian Americans into a lather.

In Fresno, Superior Court workers are peeved that they have to go to work today even though the courthouse will be closed and judges and other county workers are off. That’s because when their union negotiated their last contract, the Chavez holiday wasn’t on the calendar. A union official said the court agreed to give its staff the Chavez holiday off if the staff would work Lincoln’s Birthday, another holiday for the courts but not for other county workers.

Are you with us so far?

In Los Angeles, lawyers at the city attorney’s office observed the holiday last Monday, probably for some contractual reasons; many of them ended up going to work anyway, because the courts were still open--and all of their support staff were working too.

The support staff and the city attorneys will be working today--they get a day off for the dead-white-European-male holiday, Columbus Day, even though the attorneys do not.

But the courts are closed.

As one city attorney put it, “Let’s hope our homeland security isn’t coordinated like this.”

Simon Declaration Doesn’t Hold Water

Here in California, water has been a fighting word since, oh, sometime between 1492 and 1849. Drought cycles have been altering the landscape and the economy since long before California was even a gleam in the nation’s eye, much less a star on its flag.

So it is understandable that more than a few eyebrows were hoisted at a news release from Republican gov candidate Bill Simon, bragging that Simon had “first called attention to the state’s potential water shortfall in June of 2001.”

The release was couched as a backhanded compliment to Sen. Dianne Feinstein for being yet another Democrat “parroting” a Simon declaration, this one “nine months after [Simon] first warned of an impending water crisis.”

We did a little digging--and a little is all it took--and found that Feinstein, who was born in California, was warning about water problems back when she ran against Pete Wilson for governor. That was in 1990--about the same time that Simon moved to California.

Let’s Hear It For Mrs. Calderon

The news release from Montebello Democratic Assemblyman Thomas M. Calderon extolled the virtues of the Montebello school district board member being honored as a California woman of the year for laboring on behalf of education in Calderon’s district.

Her name is Marcella Calderon, and in the third paragraph, we learn what we might have suspected--she is the assemblyman’s wife.

Now, don’t get riled; this is a good thing, and a distinct improvement because Calderon’s brother, Charles, a former state senator, had a very bad and very public relationship with his ex-wife, going so far as to wear a wire for Montebello police to get his ex-wife’s fiance charged with trying to extort $100,000 from [Charles] Calderon, threatening to reveal some alleged misuse of campaign funds. (For the record, Calderon, now retired from the state Senate, was fined a total of $33,000 in 1995 and 2001 for campaign finance violations, including personal spending on items like a Lake Tahoe trip and $298 for his first wife’s modeling photos.)

Moderate Group Ponies Up for Simon

Can’t they all just get along? Evidently, yes, at least for a few hours.

A big kiss-and-make-up gala in Orange County’s Monarch Beach reconciled gov nominee Bill Simon to Orange County’s Republicans for a New Majority, the rich-and-renegade arts and high-tech crowd that had backed former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan.

About 500 people showed up in black-tie uniform--perhaps drawn, truth be told, by guest speaker Arnold Schwarzenegger, who predictably told them he couldn’t wait to say, “Hasta la vista, baby” to Gray Davis.

Helping to heal the wounds: $100,000 for Simon’s campaign from New Majority’s 105 members. Still undiagnosed: how Simon, who calls himself a Reagan conservative, matches up with the group’s mission to back more moderate Republicans.

The only possible pebbles in all those Gucci shoes was a pending lawsuit by several New Majority leaders against two of its former and highflying members, Henry Samueli and Henry Nicholas. They had not only joined the New Majority, they’d invested in a Samueli-Nicholas outfit called Broadcom, whose stock flatlined from $274 a share to $18.77. Compared to that kind of missing moolah, the friction between Simon and the Riordan-lovers was mere piffle.

Points Taken

* Spell check watch: a news release from the Governor Gray Davis Committee quoted the Grayster as saying, “We now have the strongest pro-choice statues of any state.” (Our statue of choice--Michelangelo’s “David.”)

* Karen Hanretty, lately the press secretary of Senate GOP leader Jim Brulte, is the new press secretary to the California GOP, where her old boss swings a big stick as an ally of Gerald L. Parsky, who is President Dubya’s top ops man in California.

You Can Quote Me

“It’s a great position for people of either gender who want to protect democracy and freedom, including the freedom to make idiotic statements like that.”

Secretary of State Bill Jones--rancher, calf-roper, regular winner of the state legislative rodeo and accomplished typist. We asked Jones to comment on a remark by a Republican national committeeman from Michigan, Chuck Yob, who said women are well suited to be secretary of state: “That’s a real nice place on the ticket for a woman. They like that kind of work.”

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Give Magic the assist: Was it just a year ago that Gray Davis was endorsing the mayoral candidacy of Antonio Villaraigosa, and Magic Johnson was putting on a full-court press for rival Jim Hahn? Yes, indeed--and now Johnson has endorsed Davis’ second run for the governorship. And, who knows, if the former Lakers basketball star decides to take on Hahn in 2005--as has been bruited about since Hahn let down Magic’s team by not backing a second term for Police Chief Bernard C. Parks--Davis might be able to return the favor.

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Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Wednesdays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@ latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Ann Conway and Jean O. Pasco.