Pelosi Repays Her Political Debts in Plums

The rewards of high position come not only to the holder of that position, but to those who helped her get there.

On her way to becoming U.S. House minority leader, Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco needed and got the support of 32 other California Democratic colleagues; it’s the biggest partisan delegation in Congress, and its muscle got flexed on Pelosi’s behalf.

Now she’s returning the favor: Bob Matsui of Sacramento gets to head the Democratic congressional campaign, a post he wasn’t looking for but one that could help his fellow incumbents in the 2004 elections.

Jane Harman replaces Pelosi as the ranking Democrat on the prestigious Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which polishes Harman’s resume on homeland security and intelligence matters. And a man who could have challenged Harman there, Georgia Rep. Sanford Bishop, an African American, gets a good seat on the Appropriations Committee instead.

Silicon Valley’s Anna Eshoo will find herself sitting with Harman on the Intelligence Committee, source of a lot of inside skinny on terror wars and related enterprises.

Also with a boost from Pelosi, newcomer Hilda L. Solis of Los Angeles gets a berth on the power-charged Energy and Commerce Committee. And Maxine Waters, the L.A. firebrand, got Pelosi’s blessing to be one of two Democratic “tellers” to count votes in the election for speaker earlier this month.

A lot of catching up, in all -- considering Pelosi is the state’s first congressional party leader in nearly a half a century.

Flaky Policy Pie and Other Delights

The California budget gap is so broad and deep that they’ve been reduced to staging a bake sale on the steps of the Capitol. But as with much in Sacramento, things are not always what they seem.

Last week’s “budget bake sale for hungry people,” which benefited a Sacramento County food bank, asked for donations and made a point by giving the sweets names like fib newtons, flaky policy pie, income-drop cookies, numbers fudge, upside-down priorities cake, double-cross buns, corporate sweets and penny-wise, pound-foolish cake.

Grim times make for foxhole humor. Among the nuggets making the rounds in the Capitol, this one, which can be filed under “Well, it worked in the movie”:

A 1979 film titled “Americathon,” in which the president of a near-bankrupt United States, a nation facing foreclosure by rich Native Americans who also own Nike, puts on a telethon to save the country.

Then there’s the one about the money-saving measure that will combine two major state agencies to cut administrative costs. The Department of Fish and Game and the California Highway Patrol will merge to form the new Department of Fish and CHiPs.

Shaq’s Yao Remarks Heard in Sacramento

Laker center Shaquille O’Neal has said he’s sorry, in English, for his mock-Chinese message “ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh” to the Houston Rockets’ Yao Ming.

But in a letter Cced to Jerry Buss, Jim Hahn, six members of Congress and 25 state legislators, Monterey Park Democratic Assembly member Judy M. Chu has asked NBA Commissioner David Stern to step into the dust-up.

Chu, who heads the Assembly’s Select Committee on Hate Crimes, dwelt on basketball’s popularity across the skin-color spectrum, and noted that, “given the diversity in its participants and audience, the NBA should understand the dehumanizing harm in stereotypes and discrimination, and work to prevent and publicly punish such behavior.”

Chu suggests that Shaq be required to apologize publicly, pay a fine and perform “community service in the Chinese American community in Los Angeles.”

Shortcuts to Writing a Memorable Speech

More borrowed bloviations, after last week’s disclosure that a Gray Davis speechwriter tailored a couple of sentences from Bill Clinton to suit California:

Davis, Jan. 6, 2003: “In the meantime, we must tighten our belts without hardening our hearts.”

New Jersey’s new governor Jim McGreevey, Jan. 15, 2002: “Like any family, we have to tighten our belts -- not harden our hearts, but tighten our belts and live within our means.”

Vietnam Veteran Is Ticked at Rumsfeld

Bob Mulholland, the Democrats’ hardball political operative and Vietnam veteran of the 101st Airborne, professed himself incensed at hearing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tell the Washington Post that he dismissed the notion of reviving a military draft by saying that, in the Vietnam War, the draft added “no value, no advantage, really, to the U.S. armed services ... because the churning that took place, it took an enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone.”

Off went a letter demanding a faxed apology and telling Rumsfeld he was “a jerk to have said that.” In a postscript, Mulholland wrote, “During the 1968 Tet offensive, thousands, including myself, were wounded and 500 Americans (many of them draftees) a week were killed.”

So far, no response from Rumsfeld.

Points Taken

What’s Bill Simon up to these days? A reporter who encountered him on a Burbank-to-Sacramento flight got some nonspecifics: business, maybe politics again, maybe his own radio show. As for the spokesman for Simon’s failed campaign, Jeff Flint is forming his own Sacramento firm, Flint Communications.

It’s the silver anniversary of the Log Cabin Republican Club, the nation’s oldest partisan group fighting for civil equality for gays -- founded in 1977 to counter state Sen. John Briggs’ effort to keep homosexuals from teaching school. The group began with nine members and now has more than 11,000 nationwide.

Fairfax’s Town Council voted 4-1 not to observe some new federal security laws after hearing civil liberties concerns voiced by more than 100 people, among them peace activist Daniel Ellsberg, the central figure in the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers trial.

Lee Stetson, an actor who for two decades has portrayed environmentalist John Muir for visitors at Yosemite National Park, was sworn in as a member of the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors.

Mariposa County includes a big chunk of Yosemite’s back country. (Muir died in 1914, not long after approval of a dam that eventually flooded the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, which Muir considered even more beautiful than Yosemite.)

From its Hollywood office, the Humane Society issued its 2002 “foe paw” report, condemning the California Milk Advisory Board’s “happy cows” campaign as “more than false advertising. It’s positively hypocritical,” because of milking machines and industrialized factory farms.

More animal news: actress Bea Arthur faxed a letter to the West Hollywood mayor and City Council urging them to vote yes tomorrow on an ordinance to ban the declawing of domestic and exotic cats.

In Sacramento, he’s a special assistant to state Sen. Richard Alarcon, a San Fernando Democrat.

But as part of “Operation Enduring Freedom,” he’s Lt. Col. Alvin H. Kusumoto, returned from a one-year tour of duty at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida to a congratulatory state Senate resolution.

You Can Quote Me

“Certainly I’m against the war personally, but that’s not the issue. You don’t teach kids one side of anything.”

PTA President Sherrie Rosenberg, speaking about a controversy over proposed teach-ins for San Francisco schools about the prospect of a war with Iraq. Rosenberg says the daylong program is tilted toward the antiwar perspective. Sponsors have since toned down the antiwar rhetoric and students, teachers and staff can opt out of the program.

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Patt Morrison’s columns appear Monday and Tuesday. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison @latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Nick Anderson and Michael Finnegan.