I mentioned on Saturday that Gavin Newsom’s flight from the California Governor’s race came at precisely the moment when Jerry Brown was facing some trouble over a member of his staff allegedly illegally taping a phone call with journalists. Here’s a little more detail on that.

The spokesman, Scott Gerber, admitted to taping the phone call in question and others without asking permission. The California Penal Code does require that all parties give consent before taping of private telephone conversations can commence. Gerber has been placed on administrative leave, and others have called for his firing. However, the SF Weekly says that these on-the-record conversations were not private or confidential under the letter of the law, and they get a First Amendment lawyer to agree with them.

The input of a California lawyer seemed relevant on this question, so we called David Greene of the First Amendment Project in Oakland. (Also quoted in the Chron story.) He offered a very different take from that of Dalglish. “They didn’t violate the law,” he said. “Does it appear unseemly? Sure. It seems yucky whenever the government secretly records something.”

What’s actually more disturbing is the content of the phone call and the subject matter discussed. The article in question which Gerber called to complain about to the San Francisco Chronicle, wherein he let slip that he had taped the reporter call (by apparently reading from the transcript), was about Jerry Brown changing the language on a ballot initiative to please a campaign donor:

The initative in question would enable insurers like Mercury to hike motorists’ premiums if they have had a lapse in coverage at any point. Consumer Watchdog contends that the language of the ballot initiative was changed after Mercury Insurance donated $13,000 to Brown’s gubernatorial campaign, in order to obscure the potential rate hikes California drivers would face under the new law.”

“The people of California deserve to know the consequences of the ballot measures they are voting on,” Rosenfeld said. “This new title and summary hides the true impact on people who must stop driving due to these hard economic times or because they choose to stop using their car for other reasons.”

“I have rarely seen political cowardice on this level from a seasoned public official,” he said.

The California Attorney General is given the power to write the title and summary to all ballot initiatives in the state. You can read the ballot side by side at this blog post on the Consumer Watchdog website. Everything in the measure that would highlight how auto insurers could increase premium rates due to a lapse of coverage has been changed to language about how auto insurers could offer a discount if individuals have continuous coverage. Consumer Watchdog has filed a public records act request looking for all communications between Brown’s office and Mercury Insurance, a donor to Brown’s camapign, with respect to this change in the ballot language. So that part of the issue will probably not die, even if the taping issue does.

UPDATE: Scott Gerber, Brown’s spokesman, has now resigned.