Today we take a look at the latest immigration reform news. Then, Southern California troop leaders say eliminating ‘no-gay’ policy could revitalize Boy Scout programs, Peter Hook recounts Joy Division's short history in 'Unknown Pleasures', California’s highest court could clear legal haze on marijuana shops, we look at the strange and secretive life of In-N-Out's billionaire heiress Lynsi Torres, and much more.
House Judiciary Committee hosts its own hearings on immigration reform
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers meet today for their first full hearing on immigration. The President and a group of senators have already publicly outlined framework for immigration reform.
Lesser known, is the secretive work of a group of House negotiators who've been hustling behind the scenes to come up with their own plan. Here with more is KPCC's Washington correspondent Kitty Felde, who has been sitting in on the House Judiciary Committee hearing this morning.
Who are the likely winners and losers of immigration reform?
If immigration reform passes Congress, it's a given that immigrants stand to gain. But there's something in it for non-immigrants, too. We find out about the economic winners and losers with Christopher Matthews, a reporter for Time Business.
The legacy of Reagan's 1986 immigration bill lives on
The last time Congress passed a major immigration bill, one of its goals was to stop the flow of undocumented migrants across the border. Instead, it seemed to have the opposite effect as illegal immigration surged.
Today, the legacy of that 1986 bill is a critical part of the immigration debate. Fronteras Desk reporter Adrian Florido has the story.
Southern California troop leaders say eliminating ‘no-gay’ policy could revitalize Boy Scout programs (Photos)
More than a dozen scouts in Troop 36 are gathered for a recent Tuesday night meeting at Temple Beth Hillel in Valley Village.
The boys are getting a lesson in public speaking, but ut they’re not delivering speeches about how to tie a taut-line hitch or how to spark a fire with flint and steel.
The subject: gun control.
“Yes, the Constitution does say that people have the right to bear arms, but that can be changed,” says Jared Leon, 12, as he stands behind a podium.
The seventh grader has the full attention of his fellow scouts. Many are raising their hands, eager to challenge him in a debate. Gun control is a sensitive issue, but the Troop 36 leaders are letting the boys tackle it.
"Forbidden territory"
An issue that's a little too sensitive for discussion on this night is the one that the national leaders of the Boy Scouts of America might resolve this week: whether to drop the group's longstanding policy against allowing in openly homosexual scouts or scout leaders.
“While the boys may discuss it with each other, really as adult leaders, that’s kind of forbidden territory," says assistant scoutmaster Wayne Schulman. "That’s supposed to be discussed with their parent or with their religious leader.”
But Schulman says despite the national ban on gays, his troop practices inclusion, and it has for years.
“We select our leaders based on values we find important to our faith," says Schulman. "As such, we’ve always been inclusive of parents, scouts and leaders. And that’s just been the way we’ve practiced here.”
"Some impact from within"
Temple Beth Hillel renews its Boy Scout troop charter every year to include language that underscores its commitment to allow anyone to join, regardless of sexual orientation. The Temple’s now-retired rabbi Jim Kaufman initiated the effort decades ago.
He recalls the sharp reaction to the Supreme Court ruling in 2000 that allowed the Boy Scouts of America to continue its no-gays policy. In protest, some synagogues wanted to toss out their Boy Scout troops.
Kaufman thought that was a mistake.
“I encouraged specifically synagogues that were throwing their troops out to keep their troops in and try to have some impact from within," says Kaufman. "Once you leave, you can’t fight very well.”
Temple Beth Hillel's Troop 36 has about 35 Boy Scouts. Not a large number compared to other Southland troops, but Kaufman says he saw the numbers grow when some synagogues got rid of their scouting programs.
"Always welcomed" gay parents
The national Boy Scouts of America policy of excluding gays makes it tougher for Troop 36 to recruit new scouts, says Hollywood film editor Glenn Cote. He helps run the Temple’s Cub Scout pack, which right now has more than 60 boys enrolled.
“There are a lot of gay and lesbian parents," Cote says. "They want their sons to have the same experience in scouting, and they’re not sure if they’re going to be welcome. We’ve always welcomed them.”
Mark Cutler, whose son became an Eagle scout last year, works to raise money for the scouting program at Temple Beth Hillel. Cutler says the group will gain more donor support if the national body lifts the policy denying gay membership.
Other doors could open, says Cutler, and “hopefully the school districts will take us back and allow us to be secular as well as religious and broaden our appeal.”
Some leaders say a new national policy to let local groups decide who to let into their scout troops won’t go far enough. Critics contend that removing the ban goes against the Boy Scout oath of living a life that’s "morally straight.”
Leaders at Temple Beth Hillel say regardless of how the national board decides, they’ll continue to operate as all-inclusive group — or they won’t operate at all.
Big Hollywood donors enter school board race for first time (Photos)
Hollywood donates a lot of money to national political campaigns. Big players in “the industry” have also donated to Los Angeles City Hall races over the years. But L.A. Unified school board races have been way off the radars of these big donors. Until now.
Nearly two-dozen people are campaigning for three L.A. Unified school board seats. Most of the Hollywood money is going to one candidate: school board president Monica Garcia. Nearly 10 percent of Garcia’s donations have come from the entertainment industry.
Wes Craven, director of the "Scream" films, donated $1,000 to Garcia’s campaign. "The Hangover" screenwriter Scott Moore gave money too. So did several major, major players, like Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. She, along with studio bosses David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and media billionaire Haim Saban also gave Garcia the $1,000 maximum donation.
UCLA management scholar Bill Ouchi, an advisor to LA mayors on education issues for decades, says this is a new development.
“For many, many years our homegrown entertainment industry has not been actively engaged in the K-12 system, in really any way,” he said.
Ouchi supports Garcia. He donated to her campaign, too.
Why would people with no children in the public schools donate to a campaign for school board?
“We have a message that is strong,” Garcia said. “We absolutely need help to get our message out and I think it is very appropriate for every citizen and resident of this city to care who is on the school board."
Garcia said she doesn’t know these big Hollywood players and hasn’t asked them for campaign donations.
“These are people who don’t answer every phone call they get,” longtime Democratic political strategist Darry Sragow said, “so obviously this money is being raised because someone they know and trust and who has access to them has asked them to give.”
The person making “the ask” isn’t a staffer on Garcia’s campaign committee or a political insider. It’s Megan Chernin - wife of Peter Chernin, the former president of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and current head of a TV and film production company.
She said she got involved because she’s aware that not everyone can afford to send three kids to LA’s elite Harvard Westlake private school as she and her husband did.
“I think that education is probably the single most important equalizer in society today and if I can do anything, that’s all I’m interested in doing,” Chernin said.
She said Garcia’s defeat on election day would be a big loss for LA. She’s tapped into her network to make sure that doesn’t happen.
“Do I know--who is it--Wes Craven, David Geffen? Yes I know them," she said. "I’d be flattered if an email blast that I sent out got people to pay attention or got people involved in anything around schools, I’d love to hear that."
Several of Garcia’s big Hollywood donors couldn't be reached. David Geffen was out of the country. Jeffrey Katzenberg’s people said he’d “take a pass on this one.” The chair of Fox TV, Dana Walden, said through a spokesman that she couldn’t make the time to talk.
Teresa Nathanson, wife of former Fox Television president Greg Nathanson, did take the time.
“People need to know how to get involved, they need specific ways to get involved, they need someone to lead them towards community service,” she said.
She gave $500 to Garcia’s campaign. She said it hadn’t occurred to her to contribute to a school board race until she had lunch with Chernin, who is also raising money for the district’s arts education program.
“She’s so impressive and engaging that I just sat there and listened to her with my mouth open with all the different things she wanted to accomplish,” Nathanson said.
Garcia donor Davis Guggenheim has more of a stake in the public school system. His 2010 documentary, "Waiting for Superman," featured families in failing schools who saw charters as their last hope. Guggenheim donated the $1,000 maximum to Garcia—a supporter of charter schools.
The board election is on March 5th. Garcia expects a tough fight from candidates endorsed by a more veteran player — and spender — in board elections: United Teachers Los Angeles.
Peter Hook recounts Joy Division's short history in 'Unknown Pleasures'
Joy Division, the Manchester rock band formed in the late 70s, pioneered the post-punk movement of the era with tracks like "Transmission," "She's Lost Control" and the classic "Love Will Tear us Apart."
But like so many tragedies in the music business, its lead singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide the day before the band was scheduled to begin its first U.S. tour. Bassist Peter Hook's new book "Unknown Pleasures — Inside Joy Division" chronicles the band's short, but influential history.
Interview Highlights:
On why he emphasizes that the book is solely his own personal reflection:
"I was very aware that when the three members of Joy Division…sat down, mainly as New Order, to talk about our past, that we all had a different memory. Telling the story is a personal thing. It's mainly my experiences and my feeling of what we went through. I am very careful to let people know that other people that were around at the time may have a different memory."
On how the Sex Pistols inspired him to pursue punk music:
"This seems the most unlikely part of the book, to think that I had walked into that venue as a normal 9-to-5 civil servant and then within an hour walked out as a punk musician who was obsessed with making his group a success, which was even more implausable when I didn't have an instrument, I couldn't play an instrument, and I'd never written a song in my life. But the spirit that Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols brought out, the way it was delivered, the passion and the idea that there was something else that you could do."
On why punk appealed to him at a young age:
"It was very nihilistic, punk. It was all about smashing everything and rebellion. Fighting against the norm and shocking people and things like that. For a 21-year-old just coming out of my teens, I think it was just the perfect, for me, when I looked at it I thought 'Oh God that's exactly what I want to do.' The strange thing is that musically I had been to see Led Zeppelin about two weeks before, and when I saw Led Zeppelin I never looked at them and thought, 'I could do that.' But when I saw The Sex Pistols, I didn't think 'I could do that,' I thought 'I've got to do that.'"
On the band's earlier sound, such as in the track, 'At A Later Date':
"That's a contrast to 'Love Will Tear Us Apart.' You see the thing is that what happened was as soon as we sort of collected our instruments and with the spirit involved, which meant a lot of work, and it did become a complete obsession, and what used to happen is we used to practice so much that our song writing abilities within six months changed from doing punk songs, where we were aping the people we had been to see to creating these classic songs and not knowing why or how they appeared. It was to do with the chemistry between the people. The chemistry in a group is quite an intangible thing. When you get those musicians together sometimes they can only create that well when they're together…The thing is that Joy Division, the three people who played the music — Bernard, Stephen and I — were very, very well-matched and each brought something completely individual, but when they joined together they made a wonderful bedrock for Ian Curtis, for his wonderful lyrics and melodies."
On why he initially hated producer Martin Hannett's work on the album "Unknown Pleasures":
"Because I was so young and was still on the very stupid and very stubborn scale. The thing is in my head I was still a screaming punk, but Martin had recognized, along with our manager and record company, that these songs belied your age, and it was something that you had no control over, the songs that you were producing. Bernard and I, the guitarist in particular, wanted the album to sound like the Sex Pistols like we did live. Martin Hannett recognized something in the songs, in the music, thank God. He said this is a classic album, these are classic songs you will not get your own way. It was our first battle in music and I am so delighted that we didn't get our own way, because the thing that Martin gave us, which is such a gift for a musician and for music is he gave us timelessness."
Hear Peter Hook read from his book "Unknown Pleasures":
California’s highest court could clear legal haze on marijuana shops
The California Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday on whether cities and counties can ban medical marijuana dispensaries-even as state law allows them. KPCC's Julie Small says the answer to that question is critical to both local governments-and medical pot advocates who struggle to pick their way through a legal haze.
The California Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday morning on whether cities and counties can ban medical marijuana dispensaries — even as state law allows them. The answer to that question is critical to both local governments and medical pot advocates who struggle to pick their way through a legal haze.
The case (City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patients Health and Wellness), involves a dispensary that opened its doors in 2009 to sell medicinal marijuana in Riverside. Despite a city ban on pot dispensaries, the collective is still open. There’s even a video on its website in which the founder, Lanny Swerdlow — donned in green scrubs — takes viewers on a tour of the co-op’s “farmers market.”
“Imagine rows of medicinal cannabis cultivators,” he says, “displaying the various strains of cannabis they cultivate, with patients walking up and down the aisles, deciding which vendor has the right marijuana at the right price.”
RELATED: LIVE VIDEO: Calif. Supreme Court hearing on marijuana dispensaries
Swerdlow sued the City of Riverside for banning his co-op. He lost that round in 2011, but was able to keep the doors open when the California Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal.
Swerdlow says don’t look for a ruling on the merits of medical marijuana. His dispute is about zoning laws and whether a city can use them to close dispensaries that are legal under the state’s Medical Marijuana Program Act and the Compassionate Use Act.
“The state says patients can form collectives and cooperatives to obtain medicinal marijuana,” Swerdlow noted. “The city says, ‘Well, we’re not going to allow this even though the state says you can do it.’”
Cities and counties maintain they have the right to pass local ordinances — even if those rules conflict with the state’s efforts to authorize and regulate medical marijuana.
Attorney Stephen McEwen, a partner at the Orange County offices of Burke, Williams and Sorensenco, wrote a friend-of-the-court brief for the League of California Cities.
“Cities and counties have been battling for years with the dispensary advocates” McEwen said by phone from his Orange County office, “on whether or not you can completely ban storefront dispensaries within a city or county’s boundaries.”
McEwen said the California Supreme Court justices could take it a step further and rule on whether a state law that violates federal law is even legal: “We’re not aware of any other situation anywhere else in the country where a state has compelled its cities and counties to require or allow a land use that’s illegal of federal law.”
According to the medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, about 50 municipalities — mostly in Northern California — regulate pot dispensaries in some way, allowing them to operate, but far from schools, churches and parks. Medical marijuana advocate Swerdlow believes more cities and counties should try that approach.
“Collectives are the only legal method for patients to obtain medicinal marijuana other than growing their own," Swerdlow said. "Most patients can’t grow their own. If we lose this case, and cities can ban collectives, that means that patients are back to dealing with criminals rather than licensed and regulated collectives.”
But many city government officials and police say the dispensaries attract crime. Two hundred cities and counties in California have banned them; 85 have issued temporary moratoriums.
In a sign of just how divisive the issue has been, the Los Angeles City Council banned pot dispensaries last year, only to rescind the ban a couple of months later. Now they’re asking voters to weigh in on several medical marijuana initiatives in May.
But any ballot box decision in Los Angeles could be moot. The California Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of pot dispensaries this spring.
Movement in Congress to change US marijuana laws gains momentum
Meanwhile, as the state Supreme Court considers what to do with medical marijuana dispensaries, members of Congress are quietly working on other measures to change how this nation deals with pot. Today, two Congressmen plan to introduce legislation which would remove oversight of marijuana from the DEA and create a federal tax on the drug.
Tony Dokoupil is our guest. He's a Senior Writer at The Daily Beast and is working on a book about the marijuana business in America.
In-N-Out heiress Lynsi Torres is America's youngest female billionaire
A Double-Double, fries and shake is about as L.A. as it gets. You order that classic combo at any In-N-Out burger and you'll get a fast-food meal that's a favorite of celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsey and Anthony Bourdain.
Sure, it's small as far as chains go with fewer than 300 location in just five states, but the private Irvine-based company has a devoted following, and it's estimated to be worth more than $1 billion.
"It is an extreme oddity considering they started in 1948, about the same time as McDonald's, Jack In The Box, Carl's Jr., all of which have gone on to become giant global, multinational corporations," said Bloomberg reporter Seth Lubove, who recently wrote an article about the company's young heiress. "But these guys stuck to the plan laid out by the co-founder Harry Snyder: very slow, very methodical growth, don't sell to outsiders, don't franchise and its allowed them to set their own agenda."
Perhaps one of the most surprising facts about the beloved chain is that the entire empire is owned by one woman.
In-N-Out president and owner Lynsi Torres is a media shy, thrice-married mother of twins who races hot rods in her spare time. At just 30 years old, Torres owns half of the restaurant chain and stands to inherit complete control of the company when she turns 35. She came to inherit the business after a series of tragic deaths befell several members of her family.
"The company was founded by her grandparents Harry and Esther Snyder. When Harry died his second-born son Rich took over. He ran the company and expanded it to 93 units until he died in a plane crash in 1993," said Lubove. "Then the older son Harry Guy Snyder took over, and he ran the company and continued the expansion until he died of a drug overdose at the age of 49 in 1999. Esther was still alive, so she was ostensibly the figurehead who still maintained control of the company. But when she died in 2006, a trust had been set up to bequeath everything to Lynsi."
Though Torres is owner and president, the day-to-day business is managed by a team that has been with the company since almost the beginning. Lubove says this longevity allows In-N-Out to maintain its very defined identity.
"This is a unique corporate culture above and beyond anything else. They've created this cult following, and a lot of it is by only using the freshest ingredients," said Lubove. "They only make the hamburger patties at two facilities, in Baldwin Park and more recently in Dallas, and they'll only expand as far as the trucks will go in one day from either of one of those facilities."
When Torres gains complete ownership in five years, is there a chance she might sell off the company or open it up to franchising or outside interests? Of course, only time will tell, but Lubove has seen it happen before with other family-run companies with a third-generation descendent at the helm.
"Third generations of family-controlled companies is often when these things tend to self-destruct or people within the family want to get rich and so they look for ways to liquidate their holdings," said Lubove. "In her case, it's hard to say, because there isn't the pressure there of other family members who may have divergent interests, may have other spending habits, that may want to figure out a way to cash in on all the money that this thing cranks out."
Until recently, Torres has lived a relatively modest life. However, she just purchased a $17.4 million mansion in Bradbury, Calif. that was once owned by former L.A. Dodger Andre Beltre.
Alaskan Brewing Co. uses 'beer-powered beer' to go green
There are all sorts of ways for companies to go green these days: Solar panels, eco-friendly packaging, biofuels, and now, beer. One Alaskan brewery is using the extra grain left over after it brews its beer to create energy.
The Alaskan Brewing Company built a special steam boiler that uses the soggy spent grain to power their brewhouse. The company says its new "beer-powered beer" will cut oil use by more than half.
Brandon Smith, the company's brewing operations and engineering manager, joins us from Juneau to talk about
Ambergris: Why rare sperm whale excrement is akin to 'Floating Gold'
Last week, a British man walking his dog on a beach in northern England came upon what looked like a waxy and smelly soccer ball-sized rock. Turns out, it wasn't an ordinary rock, it was something called ambergris, or Sperm whale excrement, and it's worth more than $100,000.
We'll talk to Christopher Kemp, the author of the book, "Floating Gold: A Natural and Unnatural History of Ambergris."
'Sneaker waves' pose big danger for California beach-goers
A so-called "sneaker wave" is a disproportionately large wave that can sometimes appear behind a smaller one, without warning. Because they are much larger than preceding waves, sneaker waves can catch unwary swimmers, washing them out to sea.
So far this year, sneaker waves have claimed the lives of five people in northern California.