The Skinny

GOP spokesperson-turned-TV-pundit Karen Hanretty is moving lock, stock and barrel to the nation’s capital in two weeks. The former Schwarzenegger campaign spokesperson–who recently told Fox she’d vote for Hillary Clinton for president before she’d ever cast a ballot for Arnold if he was eligible for the corner office–will be appearing on Fox, MSNBC, CNN and will be working for a to-be-named-later political group.

Speaking of leaving, everyone who’s covered California politics knows Caren Daniels-Meade, that unflappable, authoritative doyen of information who’s retiring after 35 years at the secretary of state. She may be the chief of the SOS’ Political Reform Division, but to the Skinny she’ll always be the score keeper of the Muckrakers–a position of true trust for those bandy-legged, aging, ink-stained jocks who did softball battle every week at Reichmuth Park and 21st and C streets.

Sharon Runner has brought back legislation to impose stiff new penalties on necrophiliacs. While the crime at issue is macabre and mind boggling, the bill takes a fairly standard approach. It requires the perps to register as sex offenders (they don’t already?) and would increase the maximum jail sentence from three to eight years in prison. The Skinny just wonders if any potential ghouls out there actually will be deterred by tacking a few years on to the sentence. “Whoa, eight years? Well, forget it. What was I thinking?”

We were impressed by the success of Joel Anderson’s legislation to divest state retirements funds from Iran. His AB 221 has garnered bipartisan support, and last week passed its first committee, grabbing headlines in the New York Times along the way. The bill also drew a letter of support from the Crown Prince of Iran, one Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah of Iran. He wrote to Speaker N