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GOP legislators unlikely to pay price for cap-and-trade vote
SACRAMENTO – As the California Legislature approached a late-night Monday vote to extend the state’s climate-change-fighting cap-and-trade system, the Capitol buzz focused on Jacqui Irwin of Thousand Oaks. The Democratic assemblywoman was absent because of a long-standing family commitment, thus
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CA Legislature seeks data on race, sexual orientation of lobbyists
SACRAMENTO – A letter late last month from the state Legislature’s six special-interest caucuses asking California lobbying firms to provide legislators with detailed demographic data has sparked debate and controversy within the Capitol and media. The Sacramento Bee reported last week
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Democrats again outspend GOP in California primary races
While maintaining a marked edge in legislative representation across the state, California Democrats notched a different but familiar distinction against Republicans in the 2016 election cycle, new data showed. Consistent with the results of previous races since the implementation
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Teacher-tenure reform shaping up as big education fight this year
SACRAMENTO – Despite the oft-discussed need for education reform in California, the state Legislature will only consider one major reform bill this year. Even that bill’s passage is uncertain, given opposition from the powerful California Teachers’ Association. The issue involves
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Assembly speaker shelves single-payer health bill
SACRAMENTO – Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, an avowed supporter of single-payer health care, nevertheless announced last week that he was pulling the plug on a Senate-passed measure that would create such a system in California. Rendon, who is holding
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Is California budget as ‘balanced and progressive’ as Gov. Brown suggests?
SACRAMENTO – The California Assembly and Senate have until Thursday to approve the budget deal announced by Gov. Jerry Brown last week, but there’s little uncertainty about the outcome. The general-fund budget is a record-setting $125 billion – something Brown
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High-speed rail agency lacks leader at crucial juncture
Four months after then-California High Speed Rail Authority Chief Executive Jeff Morales told authority board members he was moving on and two months after Morales made his decision public, the agency overseeing the state’s $64 billion bullet train project hasn’t
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State elections chief denies NSA report of California hack
Who will Californians believe: Secretary of State Alex Padilla or the National Security Agency? That’s one way to boil down a flap that’s emerged this week over the sanctity of California’s 2016 elections. Beginning shortly after November’s election, Padilla has
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Criminal justice reformers target punitive traffic tickets
California reformers seeking sweeping changes in the state’s criminal justice system have a new target: burdensome traffic tickets. The leading proponent of the proposal is California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. She is working on a plan to decriminalize
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Is Assembly speaker playing game of chicken over 72-hour rule?
SACRAMENTO – California voters in November overwhelmingly passed Proposition 54, a constitutional amendment to promote transparency by requiring all bills in their “final form” to be published online for 72 hours before legislators vote on them. It’s designed to stop
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