Proposition 66, which aims to cap death-sentence appeals at five years, stands at 51.1 percent of the vote. While such a slim margin of victory would usually suggest the electorate is divided, a competing measure to end the death penalty altogether was rejected by 53.4 percent of voters (ballots are still being counted, so totals may change).

“California voters not only want to keep the death penalty intact but they want it to work as intended,” said Anne Marie Schubert, Sacramento County district attorney, who called Prop. 66’s lead “insurmountable.”

Prop. 66 speeds up the appeals process by expanding the number of courts and attorneys able to hear and try death penalty appeals to meet a five-year cap on the appeals process that currently takes decades. A court order could be sought when cases drag on. 

Stance stands out

In a cycle when voters chose a cornucopia of liberal policies, like implementing a $2-per-pack tax on cigarettes, extending a tax on the highest incomes, legalizing recreational marijuana, placing further restrictions on guns and ammo and upholding a ban on plastic bags, the death penalty position stands out.

In fact, voters at the same time resoundingly approved a measure that would allow (but not guarantee) early parole for thousands of “non-violent” inmates, showing that Californians’ soft spot hardens when it comes to those considered the worst of the worst. 

“Californians have long been a bit schizoid when it comes to the death penalty,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. 

Pitney recalled Democrat Dianne Feinstein’s campaign ad from the 1990 gubernatorial race. Feinstein, who is currently a U.S. senator, but at the time had just finished a second term as mayor of San Francisco, pitched herself as pro-choice, pro-environment and “the only Democrat for governor for the death penalty.”

Good policy?

While some debate the morality of the death penalty, others argue it is an ineffective policy.

According to data provided by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, no one has been executed since 2006. The vast majority of Death Row inmates will die of other causes long before the state kills them (Prop. 66 will presumably speed this process up, although there’s still legal complications with the lethal injection process).

And it’s costly: The state spends $55 million each year on death penalty appeals, for both prosecutors and court-appointed defense attorneys. 

Opponents use the inefficiency and cost of the current system as grounds for abolition of the death penalty. But that may have ultimately been their undoing, said Pitney.  

“In recent years, opponents of the death penalty have argued that it is too inefficient and costly,” Pitney said. “That argument may have backfired, at least in this state. Instead of abolishing it, voters backed a measure to make it more efficient.”

Parole measure’s success depends on CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Good morning! TGIF. As votes are still being counted and we wait for some of the closest contests to be decided, we can start looking forward as to how some new policies will work.

Proposition 57, which amends the California Constitution to make it easier for some felons to win release from state prison, coasted to victory Tuesday, winning more than 60 percent of the vote in initial statewide tallies and giving Gov. Jerry Brown a triumph on an issue — criminal justice reform — that he sees as crucial to his legacy.

The Brown-orchestrated, well-funded Yes on 57 campaign crushed lightly funded opponents, led by the California District Attorneys’ Association. A ballot measure description that used technical, arcane definitions to say the proposition only applied to “nonviolent” felons made victory close to a sure thing. District attorneys’ argument that the definition included many crimes involving violence, including sexual violence — while factual — got little traction.

But for Proposition 57 to be the policy triumph that Brown envisions, it will require improved performance from a state agency that’s faced frequent criticism from oversight agencies, judges and activists for decades: the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• “Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is claiming victory in his hotly contested re-election bid, but Democratic opponent Doug Applegate says the numbers are too close to call while there are still 1 million ballots left to count in Orange and San Diego counties. The congressional district straddles the two counties’ border,” writes The Orange County Register.

• Prop. 66, which would speed Death Penalty appeals, is leading in the results but hasn’t been called yet. Regardless, opponents are already challenging it. The Los Angeles Times has more.

• “If Antonio Villaraigosa can cut a path to the California governor’s office, for which he announced his candidacy on Thursday, his widest opening may have come in Tuesday’s election of a polar opposite, Donald Trump. California Latinos voted at a higher rate on Tuesday than in previous elections, according to exit polls, turning out in record numbers to oppose the president elect. If they turn out again in 2018, whether because of the gubernatorial race or broader forces of midterm discontent, more than a decade of voting history suggests Villaraigosa will benefit more than most.” Politico has more. 

• The San Jose Mercury News/Kaiser Health News looks at what a Trump presidency means for Obamacare coverage in California. 

Legislature:

• Gone till December.

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced. 

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @HavikenHayes

10 things to know about Tuesday’s election

Good morning. TGIT. It was foolish on our part to assume the election madness would end post election, with protests against Donald Trump’s victory occurring throughout the state and now a secession movement is gaining a little steam.

But independent of all that, we put together 10 things that stood out to us from Tuesday’s election.

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• Non-progressive blip: One thing that really stood out was the state’s position on the Death Penalty. Not only did voters decide to keep it in place, but it looks like a measure to speed up the appeals process may pass. CalWatchdog has more. 

• Going somewhere? “(A) group of secessionists is taking advantage of post-election discontent and reintroducing a proposal to make California its own country. And it’s gaining momentum,” reports The Sacramento Bee.

• Taxes: “A tax plan from President-elect Donald Trump could solve one of the biggest problems facing the Bay Area’s tech industry: billions in cash parked overseas, with foreign governments itching to get their hands on it.” The San Jose Mercury News has more. 

• What’s next for Democrats? “Shocked by Donald Trump’s stunning victory, California Democrats are turning their attention to the next generation of politicians emerging as future party leaders at the state and national level,” writes Politico. 

Legislature:

• Gone till December. 

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced. 

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @DonZoltan

But down the ballot, 10 things stood out.

• Nearly 50,000 people voted for Roger Hernandez, a termed-out Democratic assemblyman from West Covina who had been running for Congress until he suspended his campaign after he was placed under a domestic violence restraining order and was stripped of his committee assignments.

• Congressman Darrell Issa seems to have won re-election. Although it’s still close and the Los Angeles Times had not yet called the race, Issa maintains a nearly 4,000-vote lead over Democrat Doug Applegate. This isn’t noteworthy because Issa was vulnerable and squeaked out a win. It was noteworthy because Issa, the richest member of Congress, wasn’t seen as vulnerable. The Vista Republican, in his 15th year in Congress, has been one of the most high-profile Republicans over the last few years as a constant thorn in the side of the Obama administration. But as national money started flowing to Applegate and an endorsement of Donald Trump appeared to be weighing Issa down, the race tightened.  

• As long as these results hold, Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, will be the only incumbent in California’s 53-person congressional delegation to lose. Fellow Democrat, Ro Khanna of Fremont, finished what he started in 2014, when he first challenged Honda.

• A reminder that California is not as uniformly progressive as it often seems: Voters upheld the death penalty as the maximum sentence for murder. Even more surprising is that a measure to speed up death penalty appeals is clinging to a two-point lead in the returns.

• Republicans appear to have held their seats in the state Senate, beating back a Democratic supermajority. Everything hinges on a Southern California district that extends from Cypress to West Covina to Chino Hills, where Republican Ling Ling Chang, a sitting assemblywoman, is holding an almost two-point lead over Democrat Josh Newman. 

• But in the Assembly, Republicans lost three seats, dipping below one-third of the chamber. In the Los Angeles South Bay, David Hadley was knocked out by former Democratic Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi. In Orange County, Young Kim trails former Democratic Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva. And in the Inland Empire, Eric Linder is losing to Sabrina Cervantes.

• While no Senate incumbents of either party were defeated, five incumbent Assembly members either lost or trail. That includes the Republicans, Linder, Kim and Quirk-Silva, along with two Democrats who lost intraparty challenges. Cheryl Brown, the Inland Empire incumbent, lost to Eloise Reyes in a proxy war between environmentalists and unions that opposed Brown and Big Oil and charter schools that supported her. In the San Fernando Valley, Patty Lopez was ousted after the Democratic Party endorsed her challenger, former Democratic Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, who also had major support from outside business interests.

• Orange County, the traditional Republican stronghold, voted for Hillary Clinton for president. According to The Orange County Register, the county hadn’t supported a Democrat for president since the Great Depression. That result reflects a consistent slide in Republican registration in the county, which has persisted for decades.

• Speaking of Orange County, Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez lost her home county in the U.S. Senate race by 9.6 points. Sanchez has represented Orange County in Congress since she was first elected in 1996.

• And speaking of the U.S. Senate race, more that 1.1 million people sat it out. The race made headlines after the June primary, when no Republicans advanced to the general election — a byproduct of the state’s relatively new primary system where the top two candidates advance regardless of party. Sanchez lost to Attorney General Kamala Harris, a fellow Democrat.

Supermajority eludes Democrats

Good morning. As you know, Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States in what felt like another mini Republican wave election.

In fact, Republicans seemed to have fought off a Democratic supermajority in the state Legislature Tuesday night, according to early returns.

With a supermajority, Democrats would be able to increase taxes, override gubernatorial vetoes and send measures to the ballot without Republican support. Democrats need two seats in the Assembly and one in the Senate in order to hold a supermajority — both chambers are a must.

But as of just before 2 a.m., Republicans looked like they would hold their seats in the Senate.

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news, here’s how the ballot measures did, according to the Los Angeles Times:

• The $9 billion in school bonds passed.
• Medi-Cal funding measure passed.
• Statewide vote on bonds of $2 billion or more was too close to call.
• Legislative transparency measure passed.
• Extension of Prop. 30 passed.
• Tobacco tax passed.
• Parole measure passed.
• Repeal of ban on bilingual education passed.
• The Citizens United advisory measure was too close to call.
• Condoms in porn was too close to call.
• The pharmaceutical pricing measure was too close to call.
• Death Penalty repeal was too close to call.
• Ammo regulation passed.
• Recreational pot was legalized.
• The measure redirecting the plastic bag fee did not pass.
• The measure to speed up Death Penalty appeals was too close to call.
• The plastic bag referendum was too close to call.

And in Congress:

• Attorney General Kamala Harris was elected to U.S. Senate.
• Democrat Ro Khanna knocked off Rep. Mike Honda, a fellow Dem. This was the only California Congressional incumbent to have been declared defeated last night.

Scheduling in Legislature:

• Gone till December.

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mfleming

New follower: @DonZoltan

If approved, Prop. 62 would repeal the death penalty and commute the condemned sentences to life without parole. On the other hand, Prop. 66 would speed up the process by expanding the number of courts and attorneys able to hear and try death penalty appeals to meet a five-year cap on the appeals process that currently takes decades. (If both measures pass, the highest vote-getter would become law.)

But failure to meet the five-year time frame would not commute the sentence or throw out the appeal, according to the proposed language. So what happens at the five-year mark?

“If the process takes more than five years, victims or their attorneys could request a court order to address the delay,” said Drew Soderborg, managing principal analyst with the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office. “Because it is unknown how often this would happen or how courts would rule on such a requests, it is difficult to know what the effect would be.”

A court order could pump a sense of urgency into whichever party or court is holding up the process — the violation of which could be punishable in some instances.  

Is the system broken?

Proponents of both measures agree that the current system is broken. The appeals process takes decades at a tremendous cost to the state ($55 million annually), which has to prosecute as well as defend in many instances.

Because of legal complications with the lethal injection process, the state hasn’t executed anyone since 2006. In fact, only 15 inmates have been executed since 1978, while 100 have died while waiting, according to an LAO analysis of the measure.  

Currently, there are around 750 inmates on Death Row. Some supporters of a total repeal of the death penalty argue it’s a cruel and unusual punishment, while others point to exonerations, which, while not entirely common, happen frequently enough to worry critics about executing innocent people. Since 1973, 156 people have been exonerated nationwide, including three in California, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Prop. 66 would reform the system in an entirely different way — by speeding it up. The measure would increase the pool of eligible attorneys qualified to represent condemned inmates by forcing them to do it. Many who are qualified don’t like to represent death penalty appeals because of inadequate state funding and the major time commitment. 

The number of courts in which cases could be heard would be increased under Prop. 66 by sending one type of appeal (habeas corpus petitions) back to the initial court to see if any error had been made. As of April, there were 360 Death Row inmates waiting for habeas corpus petitions. 

Critics say Prop. 66’s five-year cap is arbitrary. But proponents say it’s enough time in most instances. 

“Prop. 66 limits state appeals to 5 years instead of allowing  convicted criminals to file appeal after appeal after appeal,” said Bill Bradley, a spokesman for Prop. 66. “However, the initiative does not impose a rigid deadline that must be met in every case as extraordinary cases may take longer. With that said, five years is generally sufficient to get through state appeals, even in the most complex cases.”

Death penalty measures revive old fight

Good morning! While the 17-measure ballot might seem overwhelming to many voters, the good news is that it is not as long as it seems. Voters will choose between two competing death-penalty initiatives. 

In Proposition 62, voters are being asked whether to repeal the death penalty for those found guilty of murder and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole. In Proposition 66, voters are asked whether to streamline the appeals process to make it easier for the state to execute convicted murderers. 

Ironically, Prop. 62 would put an end to executions that rarely happen anyway. The last execution in California took place a decade ago – all executions have been delayed because of legal challenges to the use of lethal injections.

Those realities actually bolster the case made by the supporters of both initiatives. Backers of Prop. 62 argue that the state’s death penalty is a failed system because so few people are actually executed.

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• “(Andrew) Naylor, a systems administrator with a business degree, had bought up thousands of web addresses, many wine-related, and sold one for a five-figure sum. After watching the Prop. 8 blitz, he started buying addresses with combinations of yes and no on propositions 1 to 100. And that’s how Naylor became a virtual landlord of more than 1,000 campaign domain names — and a dominant player in California’s marketplace for political web addresses.” The San Jose Mercury News/Calmatters has more.

• “California’s two senators and House members from both parties are trying to block the Pentagon from recovering tens of millions of dollars worth of illegal retention and re-enlistment bonuses it awarded to California National Guard soldiers during the height of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars,” reports The Sacramento Bee.

• But Congress shouldn’t be too shocked, as members knew about the issue two years ago, reports the Los Angeles Times.

• “The Bay Area’s only Republican state legislator is in an expensive fight to keep her seat, with Catharine Baker, of Dublin, facing a challenge from Cheryl Cook-Kallio in a battle pitting an avowed supporter of bipartisan work against a former city councilwoman and teacher espousing traditional Democratic values,” writes The San Jose Mercury News.

Legislature:

• Gone till December.

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New followers: @CaCities

It was easy for many people to understand the emotional nature of the issue during mid-1980s. Crime rates had soared by 276 percent over a 20-year period. They had begun to fall again in the late 1980s, but political angst often trails the data. Justice Bird rejected the death penalty in all 64 such cases that came before her and so became a lightning rod for those upset over crime. Crime rates crept up again in the early 1990s, but have been falling precipitously since.

Now, there’s been a recent spike in crime, and a debate over the role some recent incarceration policies have played in that uptick. For instance, some blame Proposition 47, the 2014 voter initiative that reduced some felonies to misdemeanors, and the governor’s realignment policy, which houses some prison inmates in county jails. Others say the data doesn’t back up those claims, and that crime rates ebb and flow for various reasons.

Whatever the case, crime rates remain relatively low – and the crime issue doesn’t come close to generating the emotions it did during the Rose Bird controversy. Nevertheless, voters on Nov. 8 are being asked to revisit the death-penalty issue in two competing initiatives. It’s a crowded ballot, with 17 initiatives overall, which explains in part why these measures have not garnered much attention. But they offer Californians two starkly different choices.

In Proposition 62, voters are being asked whether to repeal the death penalty for those found guilty of murder and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole. In Proposition 66, voters are asked whether to streamline the appeals process to make it easier for the state to execute convicted murderers. When initiatives are contradictory, the one that receives the highest votes prevails. An interesting showdown is in the works.

Ironically, Prop. 62 would put an end to executions that rarely happen anyway. The last execution in California took place a decade ago – all executions have been delayed because of legal challenges to the use of lethal injections. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office puts the numbers in perspective: “As of April 2016, of the 930 individuals who received a death sentence since 1978, 15 have been executed, 103 have died prior to being executed, 64 have had their sentences reduced by the courts, and 748 are in state prison with death sentences.”

Those realities actually bolster the case made by the supporters of both initiatives. Backers of Prop. 62 argue that the state’s death penalty is a failed system because so few people are actually executed. The cost per execution, they argue, is $384 million as they languish on costly death rows. Instead of endless delays, they propose doing away with the penalty – something supporters say will provide “real closure” for families of victims. Instead of fighting in courts, convicted murderers will have a permanent sentence and will never be allowed to go free.

Backers of Prop. 66 say the solution to the lack of executions is to speed up the appeals process. “There are nearly 2,000 murders in California annually,” according to supporters’ official ballot argument. “Only about 15 death penalty sentences are imposed. But when these horrible crimes occur, and a jury unanimously recommends death, the appeals should be heard within five years, and the killer executed.” Both initiatives require these inmates to work.

Opponents of Prop. 66 raise concerns that speeding up the appeals process will cause innocents to potentially be executed, whereas supporters argue that their initiative will allow plenty of time to assure that innocent people aren’t executed. This proposition attempts to speed up the process by requiring “that habeas corpus petitions first be heard in the trial courts,” according to the LAO analysis. It also “places time limits on legal challenges to death sentences” and “changes the process for appointing attorneys to represent condemned inmates.”

The San Francisco Chronicle raises concerns about the attorney appointment process in the initiative: “Condemned inmates often must wait years for representation. The measure attempts to compel attorneys to take up capital appeals by excluding them from certain other defense work. This raises two serious concerns: One is the prospect that attorneys less steeped in the fine points of capital appeals — and it is a specialized part of the law — will be representing inmates with lives on the line. The other is the possibility of attorneys enlisted against their free will in these appeals.”

Contra Costa County District Attorney Mark Peterson, writing in the San Jose Mercury News, argued that “Defense attorneys refuse to represent death row inmates in order to thwart the process, so it takes an average of five years before a condemned inmate is even assigned an attorney.”

Proposition 62 is more straightforward than Proposition 66. The former ends the death penalty – even for those currently on death row – and replaces it with “life without parole.” The latter includes a series of complex reforms designed to “mend” the current system. For voters, however, the choice will come down less to the specific details and more to their overall outlook. If they want to end the death penalty, they’ll vote yes on 62. If they want to speed up its use, they’ll back 66.

A recent public-opinion poll from Sacramento State’s Institute for Social Research showed Proposition 62 losing 45-37 and Proposition 66 winning 51 to 20. So while the level of contentiousness over the death penalty is far different now than it was in 1986, it seems that public attitudes about it haven’t changed much in 30 years.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. He is based in Sacramento. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Despite a broad trend toward increasing skepticism and opposition around capital punishment, California’s ballot initiative ending the practice faces a steep climb heading into November. 

The Institute for Social Research at Sacramento State University, through the CALSPEAKS public-opinion project, found that respondents “opposed Proposition 62, which would end the death penalty in the state, 45-37. All other propositions in the poll had comfortable support,” KPBS noted — a dual anomaly, given Californians’ history of generally sinking ballot measures instead of voting them through. 

The numbers cut against a persistent U.S. trend in public opinion away from the death penalty. “A Pew Research poll published late last month revealed that only 49 percent of Americans now favor executing murderers, a seven-point decline from March 2015,” the Marshall Project observed. “Those poll numbers may reflect growing public concern about botched executions, the high costs of operating death rows, and the suspicion that states may have executed innocent people.”

A unique decision

California was not the only state to prompt a referendum on the practice. “Meanwhile, voters in Nebraska will be asked whether they want to reinstate the death penalty and Oklahoma residents will decide whether to make it harder to abolish it,” according to the Associated Press. Last year, the Nebraska Legislature scrapped capital punishment, raising questions about whether voters would have done the same; Oklahomans saw a freeze in executions after two consecutive errors.

“The votes for the three states come amid an evolution for capital punishment in the U.S. Executions have mostly been in decline since the turn of the century and last year reached their lowest level in 25 years, with 28 prisoners killed. Capital punishment has been either legislatively or judicially repealed in eight states since 2000,” the wire noted, citing Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

But dueling measures made it onto California’s ballot this year, driving financial backing from rival groups. Silicon Valley has shaped up to be the champion of the ban, while law enforcement organizations have lined up against it. “Stanford Prof. McKeown tops the list of donors to Proposition 62, followed by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Mr. Graham, and Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of the former Apple Inc. CEO.,” the Christian Science Monitor reported. “Their support, totaling $4.2 million, puts them in opposition with Proposition 66, another ballot initiative that seeks to speed up the death penalty system. The latter is supported by many police associations, prosecutors and sheriffs, and has contributions totaling $4.3 million.”

Mobilizing former inmates 

Support for Prop. 62 has focused around the kind of flaws apparent in Oklahoma, rather than the more abstractly principled objection to capital punishment that has traditionally driven political activism. “In the nearly 40 years since California revived the death penalty, executioners at San Quentin have put 13 convicted murderers to death,” the Los Angeles Times editorialized. “But were they all truly the ‘worst of the worst’ of the state’s killers? Were they all even killers? There’s a strong argument to be made that at least one of the executed inmates, Thomas Thompson of Laguna Beach, may, in fact, not have been guilty of murder.”

California has also attracted outside opponents to capital punishment. Juan Melendez, an ex-death row inmate, visited the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego to level a far broader kind of criticism than Prop. 62’s supporters have typically offered. “People need to know that it is racist,” he said, according to U-T San Diego. “People need to know that it costs too much. People need to know it does not deter crime. People need to know that it’s cruel and unnecessary. We have alternatives!” In Los Angeles, meanwhile, other former inmates pressed the issue with a religious audience. “Death row exonerees Nate Fields and Sabrina Butler joined a diverse group of faith leaders to talk about the importance of ending California’s death penalty during an interfaith breakfast hosted at Holman United Methodist Church,” the L.A. Sentinel reported.

Top Democratic donor  Tom Steyer considered for Cabinet position

Good morning. Have a good Tuesday! We start this morning with someone else’s story — but it’s a good story.

“Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate activist and possible candidate for California governor, was under consideration to become President Barack Obama’s first energy secretary, according to a hacked email exchange released Monday by WikiLeaks.”

“John Podesta, an Obama transition adviser and now chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, included Steyer’s name for the Cabinet post in September 2008 correspondence,” but Steyer was passed over.

“Emails from 2012, also disclosed by WikiLeaks, showed Podesta discussing a planned meeting between Steyer and former President Bill Clinton. Podesta wrote in the exchange that he would try to push Steyer to support the Clinton Foundation.”

“The praise heaped on Steyer, a major Democratic donor, by one of Clinton’s top advisers is being scrutinized for its political ramifications in California. Should Clinton win next month, she may look to Steyer for a Cabinet position, giving him direct White House policy experience and a formal title as he mulls a run for governor.”

The Sacramento Bee has more. 

In other news:

• “Climate change from human activity nearly doubled the area that burned in forest fires in the American West over the past 30 years, a major new scientific study has found, and larger, more intense fires are all but guaranteed in the years ahead,” writes The San Jose Mercury News. 

• “If Prop. 55 passes, the state budget will rely even more on California’s highest earners,” reports the Los Angeles Times. (Many budget experts think this is a troubling trend.)

• The always-zigging-when-others-are-zagging Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa, called “GOP leaders ‘gutless’ for bailing on Trump.” The Orange County Register has more.

• “Over the past four decades, (actor Mike Farrell), who has wielded his celebrity to bring attention to social and political issues in Central America, the Middle East and Africa, has become a leading voice against the death penalty. This year, he is the author of a ballot measure that seeks to end capital punishment in California. For Farrell, the cause has taken precedence over others because at its root, he says, is the idea that some people are dispensable.” The Los Angeles Times has more.

Legislature:

• Gone ’til December. 

Gov. Brown: 

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @RunGomez