Nancy Pelosi

I had planned to spend today making phone calls on various stories. Bad idea.

No one's here. The governor, the lieutenant governor, the leaders of the state assembly and the state senate, the attorney general, the secretary of state, the mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles -- they're all in Washington for the inaugural. In fact, the ceremony was dominated by Californians. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein presided. Feinstein and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi escorted Obama in. Orange County's Rev. Rick Warren said the opening prayer.

With everyone out of town, one wonders who is in charge. Fortunately, it's not a bad time for our leaders to be gone, since the state is in such great shape, big budget surplus, no calamity staring us in the face... Oh, yes?... Never mind.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other California Congressional Democrats this week declared their opposition to Prop 11, the redistricting reform initiative on the state's November ballot. Yes, the initiative's prospects are bleak, but this particular endorsement is worth examining. Pelosi announced her opposition in a letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger, a major backer of the initiative. That letter (posted here on the California Majority Report, a Democrat site that also opposes the measure)  is highly -- and unintentionally -- revealing about Pelosi, her thinking and the out-of-touch mindset created by California's gerrymandering, which protects incumbents of both parties.