Politics and Elections
Back to homepageCampaign records contradict lawsuit against top lobbyist
Never let the facts get in the way of a good lawsuit. In a wrongful termination lawsuit filed on Christmas Eve, Rhonda Smira, a former employee of the powerhouse lobbying firm Sloat Higgins Jensen and Associates, claims that her former
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Brown seeks to prop up doomed bullet train with AB 32 $
As warned in this spot, Gov. Jerry Brown is conflating two of the state’s worst programs: “Brown plans to propose spending millions of dollars in fees paid by carbon producers to aid the state’s controversial high-speed rail project. “The proposal
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Only 2 Californians make Gallup’s ‘most admired’ list
Every December Gallup asks Americans whom they “most admire.” Not surprisingly, this year’s winners repeated from last year. At 16 percent, President Obama was the most admired man. And at 15 percent, former Secretary of State — and potential next
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Will Kamala Harris monkey-wrench CA pension reform — again?
I’ve been following California politics obsessively since 1990, and I simply have never seen an editorial like the Los Angeles Times’ piece Friday exhorting Attorney General Kamala Harris to do an ethical and honest job in preparing a ballot statement for
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New report details California lawmakers accepting gifts
A new report by California Common Cause shows that elected officials in California accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts in 2012. The gifts to lawmakers, according to the non-partisan citizens’ lobby organization, came primarily from special interest groups
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Six Californias?
Dissatisfaction with the current state of California continues to spread. The latest idea: Split the mega-state into six smaller states. It comes from tech investor Tim Draper: “TechCrunch has learned about noted technology investor Tim Draper’s plan to split California into six
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Lawsuit threatens teachers unions’ power
“Money is the mother’s milk of politics” — Former Assembly Speaker Jesse ‘Big Daddy’ Unruh The California Teachers Association has poured more than $150 million into state politics in the past decade – most of
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Immigration reform in 2014? Not so fast
One of the most poignant, and frequently discussed, political narratives to come out of Washington in the last year has been the relationship between House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on the one hand; and on the other hand the conservative
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