Debate Begins Over Pregnant Drivers’ Parking Spots

Should pregnant women get to park in handicapped spaces? Tony Strickland thinks it might not be a bad idea. The Republican Assemblyman from Moorpark is considering launching a bill to make parking easier for women who are heavy with child -- or in this age of fertility drugs, children. Many, he said, had told him they didn’t bother going to the mall or the market because the walk was just too taxing.

This is already a subject generating some Web heat; on one website, the question, “Stork Parking: Yes or No?” drew a “No” from “Theresa, a mother of one from California,” who said she’d used a wheelchair ever since having polio and “it is no privilege to ... have to use handicap spaces.” Giving said rights to pregnant women and new mothers, she said, “will only make it more difficult for individuals with severe and permanent limitations to locate parking.”

Seventeen years ago, two Orange County women were ticketed separately for driving alone in the carpool lane. Each said she wasn’t alone -- she was pregnant. A judge dismissed one woman’s ticket; the second woman was found guilty -- but let off without a fine. As a precedent, the court might have required a motorist to submit, not to a Breathalyzer, but to a pregnancy test.

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Keeping an Eye on Bush’s Man in L.A.

Web news:

The unofficial e-newsletter for elements of the unreconstructed California Republicans is Parsky Watch, a critique of the Bush administration’s California point man, Gerry Parsky.

The first Parsky Watch, in April 2002, demanded rhetorically, “Does anyone truly believe Gerry Parsky is fit to lead the California Republican Party?” and declared that Parsky had launched “a crusade to remake the California Republican Party as if Ronald Reagan had never existed.”

Now the Parsky Watch is up on the Internet, with a site that lets the disaffected wear their sentiments on their sleeves, their heads, their chests with Parsky Watch gear. A selection with the “got my eye on you” binoculars logo is for sale online -- T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, mouse pads, mugs, caps, wall clocks. Watch for them at the next state GOP convention.

In other Web news, Howard Kaloogian is a candidate in the Republicans’ U.S. Senate primary, but he’s also still on the Internet at howardisaliar.com. Someone -- identified only as “a private citizen” -- is still irked at him for claiming extra credit for the recall, and set up the site to say so, instead praising Rep. Darrell Issa, Ted Costa and “100 patriots.”

And Chuck Quackenbush, California’s former insurance commissioner who has taken up residence in Hawaii, has his own website too: chuckquackenbush.org. On the site’s chatty “Hawaii” page, he says, “After the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York, I went to work for Military Intelligence putting together analysis of events in various countries. Recently, I have been advising various Republican legislators in Hawaii on political strategy as they adjust to the happy reality of a newly elected Republican governor.” Asked about his work, Quackenbush said it was classified, and he had been enlisted to do the work because “there were some specific needs I filled at the time.”

And on the official website for the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, this curious disclaimer: “The content found herein may not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Schwarzenegger administration.” And which ones would those be? The page about children’s safety? Or the part that says the vehicle license fee refund checks are in the mail?

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Schwarzenegger Can’t Decide How to Vote

He’s endorsed Bill Jones for U.S. Senate, but Arnold Schwarzenegger has split his vote in the tricky race for best-picture Oscar. He told former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and S.F. Chronicle columnist Phil Matier in a TV interview that he liked “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” as “a great picture,” but he also carries a torch for “Mystic River” because its director, Clint Eastwood, “is a friend.”

If you ever thought the Oscars weren’t serious business, get a load of this:

On the day of President Bush’s first State of the Union address after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, they didn’t shut down the House of Representatives wing of the Capitol until 5.30 p.m., less than four hours before the speech, and they didn’t block off the streets around the Capitol until an hour before.

Ah, but Hollywood Boulevard outside the Kodak Theatre will be closed for six days before the Feb. 29 Academy Awards ceremony so the place can get the red-carpet treatment; the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says its bus lines will be rerouted as early as Feb. 24 and not resume regular stops until noon March 1.

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Points Taken

* Los Angeles Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman is asking U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft to say just who it was who gave the all-clear for members of Osama bin Laden’s family and other Saudi citizens to leave the U.S. right after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Waxman, according to the Washington publication the Hill, said the public “needs reassurance” that the Bush administration’s investigation of the matter was “appropriate.” Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, said, “If such an investigation did not occur, the public deserves to know why.”

* The Assembly Republican caucus is watching the clock -- the calendar -- even if others aren’t; the daily e-mail countdown marks 14 days “left to reform workers’ compensation,” March 1 being the Schwarzenegger administration’s deadline for getting legislators’ suggested changes on the governor’s desk.

* A press release headlined “Rosario Marin hold” was not, disappointingly, about a new grip in a wrestling match among the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, but an announcement that Marin would hold a press conference about her differences with fellow candidate Bill Jones on taxes.

* First Lady Laura Bush arrives in Southern California on Tuesday for a political reception in Newport Beach, a stop at a Los Angeles elementary school for an education round table, a “victory 2004” reception and stops in those Rat Pack faves, Palm Springs and Las Vegas.

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You Can Quote Me

“When I was speaker, we had smaller podiums. I look like a bobble-head up here.”

Yes, but for which team? Past Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, trying to peer over the podium on the north steps of the Capitol building for the California Democratic Party endorsement for Propositions 57 and 58.

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Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Times staff writers Joe Mathews and Jean O. Pasco.