Matier & Ross: You probably won’t see many California Democrats on prime-time TV.
From Gov. Jerry Brown to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, California Democrats are headed back to Philadelphia in force — but with the exception of a couple of high-powered members of Congress, chances are you won’t see them on prime-time TV.
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a hero to the LGBT movement for his early backing of same-sex marriage, said: “Everything is fluid,” from his time slot to his topic. “I was told ‘Monday,’ then it was ‘Wednesday.’ At first they wanted me to talk about job creation, then I got a call saying, ‘Hold off.’ ”
As for national exposure? “Right now, I’m just hoping that C-SPAN is up and running
when I go on,” Newsom said.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco may get a prime-time appearance either Tuesday or Thursday. Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is leaving the Senate after this year, is in the running for a bright-lights address in which she would talk about her relationship with Hillary Clinton.
That relationship goes beyond politics. Boxer’s daughter Nicole was once married to Clinton’s brother Tony Rodham, making Clinton the aunt and Boxer the grandmother of the couple’s son, Zachary.
As for Brown? He may be the fourth-term Democratic governor of the biggest state in the country, but that apparently doesn’t guarantee him a prime-time podium spot. That’s still up in the air.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein? To be determined.
Two faces you won’t be seeing in Philly are California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton and Willie Brown, the longtime Assembly speaker, former San Francisco mayor and now Chronicle columnist.
“I’m not up for sitting around listening to bunch of people talk,” Burton said. Instead, he’ll be sending teenager Elmer Lizarde, whose parents brought him to the U.S. from Mexico without documentation when he was 5 years old. He’s one of the “dreamers,” undocumented youths shielded from potential deportation by order of President Obama, and is headed to UCLA in the fall.
Willie Brown, who is a member of the Democratic convention’s rules committee, was planning to go only if there was going to be a fight between Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
“No fight, no reason to go,” Brown said. “Besides, they expect you to pay your own way.”
Hold the presses: Businessman and former San Francisco mayoral candidate Clint Reilly, who has long had his eye on the news game, is buying an upscale monthly, the Nob Hill Gazette.
Clinton Reilly Communications takes over the magazine of the swells on Aug. 1. Reilly is interviewing candidates for editor and publisher of the socially and culturally minded publication, which operates out of the Fairmont Hotel.
Reilly told us that he has no immediate plans to change the magazine’s focus and that it was pretty much a business decision to buy it. Reilly also owns 465 California St., home of the Julia Morgan Ballroom, where dozens of social events are booked every year — and what better place to feature photos of guests than in the Nob Hill Gazette?
Of course, Reilly has a long memory. One of the things he hasn’t forgotten is a last-minute attack mailer sent out with the help of the town’s leading socialite, Dede Wilsey, that he contends cost his wife, Janet Reilly, a seat on the Board of Supervisors in 2010.
That mailer was aimed at helping Supervisor Mark Farrell — whose district includes a boatload of Gazette readers.
It will be interesting to see how often those two turn up in the Gazette’s society pages.
Bureaucratic boom: Want to see how government grows? Take a look at the recent city controller’s report on the effect of the sales tax being proposed for the November ballot by Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisors John Avalos, Mark Farrell and Scott Wiener.
According to the report, the proposed 0.75 percent sales tax increase is projected to bring $154 million a year into the city’s coffers.
It will also leave San Franciscans with less money in their pockets — translating to a drop in spending of $150 million a year, analyst Ted Egan wrote.
Less spending means less money going into businesses, which in turn could mean the loss of 430 to 480 jobs in the private sector, the report said.
But! Remember, government will have more money, so the city will hire more employees and give new contracts to nonprofits that, in turn, will hire more employees.
The controller’s report estimates that a $154 million tax will create 500 to 550 new bureaucratic jobs — or roughly 100 more than the private sector will lose.
Better yet, as we know, city jobs are forever.
So we get to pay for them forever.