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Farmworker overtime bill to get second chance soon

After a staged, 24-hour hunger strike, proponents of a bill to increase overtime pay for farmworkers announced on Wednesday the once-dead measure will be on the Senate floor next week.  The hunger strike was designed link the legislators’ sacrifice of

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Vacancies, dysfunction cause legislator-pay commission to cancel meeting

Last month, CalWatchdog reported that the commission on state lawmaker pay was plagued by vacancies. This month, the California Citizens Compensation Commission had to cancel its annual meeting scheduled for Wednesday due to lack of quorum.  The seven members of the

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Legislature mostly mum on lawmaker accused of domestic violence

Following the news that the wife of Asm. Roger Hernández had filed a temporary restraining order against the West Covina Democrat, a lone colleague was questioning whether he should remain in a leadership position in the Assembly. It wasn’t the newly chosen Speaker

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How much taxpayers lose in special elections

Henry T. Perea’s decision to vacate his Assembly seat early cost Fresno County a half-million dollars — enough to pay for four sheriff deputies — and has reignited a discussion on the cost of special elections. The Fresno Democrat announced

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State officials report expensive gifts and luxury trips

State lawmakers and constitutional officers accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in international travel, fine wines, rounds of golf and expensive meals in 2014, according to annual financial disclosure reports filed this week with state ethics officials. Among the top

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Leg Analyst: Fix CA lost-and-found program

California needs to find ways to improve its lost-and-found program. That’s the conclusion of a new report by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor. He reviewed the state program for returning unclaimed property to its rightful owners. At the end of 2014, the state

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CalSTRS to sock local school budgets

California’s pension crisis just keeps getting worse. The major crisis now is the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. Gov. Jerry Brown warned about the crisis in his Jan. 2014 budget proposal, but didn’t do anything about it. Election year. We’ll

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Gov. Brown’s $23.6 million

As Major Kong in “Dr. Strangelove” is about to begin “nuclear combat toe-to-toe with the Russkies” and start Armageddon, he opens a survival kit aboard his B-52 and says, “Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with

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How Obama energy rules hurt, help CA

  On June 2, President Barack Obama announced his new rules to mothball “dirty” coal power plants so as to reduce carbon-dioxide power plant emissions by 30 percent from their 2005 level. He also set voluntary targets for the percentage of

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Taxpayers win Fresno rate hike court ruling

A group of taxpayers battling the City of Fresno has won a critical legal victory in their fight to get a referendum of the city’s water rate increases on the November ballot. On April 28, Superior Court Judge M. Bruce

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