Harris, California’s Democratic attorney general, is leading in polling, fundraising and name ID in the race to replace Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is retiring. But her inclusion on lists in publications like USA Today and the New York Times as a possible replacement to Antonin Scalia — the conservative Supreme Court justice who died over the weekend — is leaving observers in doubt.

“It would surprise me if she were very high up on the list,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political scientist at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. “I just don’t think it makes sense at this point, particularly since she is the frontrunner for the Senate.”

Why Harris Doesn’t Make Sense

Harris has little incentive to accept a nomination if it were to be offered by President Barack Obama since the nominee is not likely to get confirmed.

The U.S. Senate has the Constitutional responsibility to advise and consent to Supreme Court justices and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., issued a statement within hours of Scalia’s death saying the Senate won’t confirm a replacement until after the November presidential election, leaving Obama with little leverage.

But Bebitch and others agree that if and when he nominates someone, it would make sense for the nominee to have already been confirmed by the Senate, like a federal judge, so that Democrats could say: “Look, you already voted for this person once.”

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch — who Scotusblog argues is the most likely choice — also already survived a Senate confirmation. But neither Harris nor Lynch have judicial experience, which would likely be seized upon by opponents.

There’s no requirement that justices have judicial experience, but they usually do. With the exception of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, the Senate hasn’t confirmed a nominee without judicial experience since the early 1970s.

“Her lack of judicial experience would give opponents an easy rationale for opposing her,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College. “And by choosing a partisan political figure, Obama would enable opponents to accuse him of politicizing the court.”

Senate Race

It would be very difficult for someone to complete the tasks required of a Senate candidate while being subjected to a Senate confirmation process, so Harris would likely be forced to choose one or the other, and again, there’s little benefit to accepting the nomination in this instance. But just being mentioned helps her campaign, said Raphael Sonenshein, the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University Los Angeles.

“Getting on a list of 10 is always a plus for a candidate,” said Sonenshein.

But if she were to be nominated, and if she were to accept, it would likely throw the Senate race into turmoil, as Democratic candidates would rush in to challenge Rep. Loretta Sanchez, an Orange County Democrat, and two former CAGOP chairmen.

“There are only a few weeks until the filing deadline, and Democrats would be scrambling to find a better candidate than Loretta Sanchez,” said Pitney.

How This Plays Out In The Senate

Obama and Senate Democrats don’t have too many options if McConnell holds true to his word. Sooner or later, Obama will send a name to the Senate, and the Judiciary Committee will have to decide whether it’ll consider the nominee or refuse to play along.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats would label McConnell and Republicans as obstructionists — in press conferences, in campaign ads and in floor speeches. With the balance of power in the Senate hanging precariously on the 2016 election, and with an open presidential election, this will be one of the most politicized issues going forward.

Since the Senate operates largely on unanimous consent, Democrats would likely object at most, if not all, turns, thereby “shutting down the Senate,” predicts Jim Manley, a former top advisor to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

“The idea that a president with 11 months to go doesn’t have the right to nominate a replacement for a crucial Supreme Court seat is absolutely outrageous,” said Manley. “So I assume that the caucus will demand retaliation.”

This surprise wasn’t just prompted by Chavez having an unexpectedly ambitious sense of what his electoral possibilities were. It was also the skepticism that a Republican could win statewide office against a glamorous Democratic figure like state Attorney General Kamala Harris. Over the last 16 years, the only GOP statewide candidates to win were mega-celebrity Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 2003 gubernatorial recall, Schwarzenegger in his 2006 re-election bid, and Steve Poizner in his 2006 run for insurance commissioner against widely disliked Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.

But Chavez, 63, has an ace in hand that most politicians would die to have. He’s a former colonel in the Marine Corps — a much-decorated 28-year veteran. The hope is that this part of his resume peels away Latino, independent and moderate votes from Democrats. It’s why his press releases now routinely refer to him as “Col. Chavez.”

The last well-credentialed Latino Republican candidate for statewide office was Abel Maldonado, a Santa Maria rancher-turned-politician whom Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plucked from the state Senate to serve as lieutenant governor after Democrat John Garamendi was elected to the House of Representatives. In November 2010, seven months after the governor finally managed to face down a contentious Assembly and win Maldonado’s confirmation, the moderate GOPer lost his bid for a full four-year term as lieutenant governor to Gavin Newsom.

Newsom trounced Maldonado 50 percent to 39 percent — by 1.1 million votes — in balloting that saw libertarian candidate Pamela J. Brown gather nearly 6 percent support.

Maldonado had a difficult relationship with the state GOP establishment because of his votes for budget deals and his successful push for a “top-two” primary system that reduces the power of both parties. He also doesn’t have big-money backers, which led him to abandon a 2014 bid for governor.

Chavez will need deep-pockets backers

Chavez has much better party relations and a stronger image. It’s easy to see him wooing — or at least making a plausible case to — deep-pockets backers for a campaign against Harris. Without such backers, he will be a huge underdog.

That’s not just because of Democrats’ basic advantage in statewide elections. Harris also seems a much more formidable candidate then she did in her first run for attorney general as San Francisco DA in 2010, when she beat Los Angeles County DA Steve Cooley by 80,000 votes — less than 1 percent. She became a national figure, and not just because of President Obama’s unusual comments about her attractiveness. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for one example, is a big fan. In 2014, Harris won re-election as attorney general by 1.1 million votes over little-known GOP challenger Ronald Gold.

And she is certain to draw huge funding from big-money interests, only starting with those in San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Hollywood/West Los Angeles. The half African-American, half Indian-American attorney is seen as a potential future vice-presidential nominee for Democrats, at the least.

In recent coverage of the Senate race to succeed retiring Barbara Boxer, talking heads on CNN and MSNBC have treated Villaraigosa, 61, as a formidable foe for Harris, 50. But they have been vague about what it is that might make him preferable to a Democratic rival who seems much more comfortable and appealing on TV and who has far more national patrons.

Given his mayoral record on issues of crucial importance to state Democrats — global warming, mass transit and disdain for cars — Villaraigosa has reasons for optimism. Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer may adopt Villaraigosa as his stand-in after his announcement Thursday that he wouldn’t run for Senate.

This record is lauded in a June 2013 Los Angeles Times look back at his eight years as mayor.

Rail stations under construction on the traffic-clogged Westside attest to the billions of dollars in transit money he secured. …

And the Department of Water and Power established itself as a leader among utilities nationwide in shifting from coal-fired power plants to solar and wind energy. …

Villaraigosa took office amid rapid changes in the urban landscape of Los Angeles, most dramatically in the revival of downtown and Hollywood. He embraced those changes and tried to hasten the city’s transformation into a place that is more amenable to pedestrians, cyclists and public transit passengers. The city opened 149 miles of bike lanes and launched CicLAvia, a festive cycling event along miles of boulevards closed to auto traffic for the day.

By lucky timing, large-scale rail investments by his predecessors came to fruition on Villaraigosa’s watch. The Gold Line between Union Station and East L.A. opened, followed by the Expo Line linking downtown and Culver City.

But Villaraigosa made his own mark by leading the campaign for Measure R, a $35-billion transportation package passed by voters in 2008. Largely through that ballot measure, Villaraigosa reshaped the region’s notoriously inefficient transit system more than any mayor since Bradley, who got a subway line built between downtown and North Hollywood. Measure R produced much of the money now being spent to extend the Expo Line into Santa Monica, start construction on the new Crenshaw Line in South Los Angeles and bring the Wilshire Boulevard subway to the Westside. It also covers an array of other rail, bus and road projects across Los Angeles County, some of them coupled with zoning changes to concentrate new development around transit stops and draw people out of their cars.

“One of the things about Villaraigosa that is most impressive is that he actually did get it done, and the importance of Measure R cannot be overstated,” said Martin Wachs, an urban planning expert at the Rand Corp. …

Environmentalists welcomed the [city] utility’s growing reliance on renewables, along with the drop in truck pollution at the Los Angeles Harbor, synchronization of city traffic lights and installation of energy-saving LEDs in city streetlights. Evan Gillespie, a deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, called Villaraigosa’s record “phenomenal,” particularly in addressing climate change. “We now have a road map from the largest public utility in the nation for how you rapidly cut carbon pollution,” he said.

A politician who likes the ladies

But given the repeated tabloid headlines over his personal life during his time as mayor, Villaraigosa is also hugely vulnerable to attack ads. This George Skelton column only scratches the surface.

Actor Tom Hanks had a great line in the movie “A League of Their Own.” Playing the crusty manager of a women’s baseball team, he berates one member into tears and shouts: “There’s no crying! There’s no crying in baseball.”

That came to mind when I read last week that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was asking for privacy, after admitting to an affair with a prominent TV reporter. To paraphrase Hanks’ character, Jimmy Dugan, there’s no privacy in politics.

There’s no privacy, at least, that a politician can ever count on, particularly at Villaraigosa’s level. He is, after all, mayor of the nation’s second-largest city, with his eye on becoming the first Latino to be elected governor of California since statehood.

Of course, Kamala Harris could face salacious attack ads as well. Her rise to power in San Francisco politics began when Assembly Speaker Willie Brown chose to groom her for a big future after she became the married politician’s girlfriend when he was 60 — and she was just 29.

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s retirement announcement earlier this month kicks off a major demographic shift in California’s congressional delegation, as aging Democratic women move closer to retirement. Democratic women are the oldest group in California’s congressional delegation from both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

California’s Congressional Delegation: Democratic women oldest group

The 104 women in the 114th Congress make up 19 percent of the members. In California, that percentage doubles — with women claiming 21 of 55 slots, or 38 percent.

Those numbers don’t tell the full story. There’s only one Republican woman from California in Congress, Rep. Mimi Walters of Orange County. Twenty Democratic women represent California in Washington, D.C. — near parity with their 21 Democratic male counterparts. Yet that parity is likely in jeopardy due to one factor: age.

At 81 years old, Dianne Feinstein is the oldest member of the United States Senate. She isn’t alone. Of the 15 members of California’s congressional delegation that are 68 years old or older, Democratic women take up 11 slots. The average age of California’s representatives in the 114th Congress, including both U.S. Senators, is 59 years old. For Democratic women, that figure jumps nearly a decade to 67 years old.

Even when you exclude Boxer and Feinstein from the tally and just go with House members, Democrats from California bring up the average age of the delegation. Five of the six oldest members of California’s congressional delegation are Democratic women:

• Rep Grace Napolitano of El Monte, age 78;
• Lois Capps of Santa Barbara, age 77;
• Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, age 76;
• House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, age 74;
• Lucille Roybal-Allard of Commerce, age 73.

Rep. Alan Lowenthal of Long Beach, another 73-year-old California Democrat, is a few months older than Roybal-Allard.

1992 Year of the Woman

Many of California’s Democratic women first claimed a spot in Congress in 1992’s “Year of the Woman.” While the history books highlight the record number of women elected to the U.S. Senate, California also sent Lynn Schenk, Jane Harman, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Anna Eshoo and Lynn Woolsey to the House of Representatives.

Robin Swanson, a California political strategist who has worked for the state’s top Democratic politicians, is optimistic that California is ready for another wave of women.

“We’re long overdue for another Year of the Woman,” she said.

More Democratic retirements around the corner

The remaining members of the class of 1992 are now among the oldest members of Congress and are, obviously, more likely to retire.

When asked about a possible retirement in 2016, Napolitano’s office was unambiguous. “Congresswoman Napolitano is not retiring,” said Jerry O’Donnell, her press secretary. “She plans to run for re-election.”  Despite her advancing years, Napolitano isn’t slowing down. Last week, she reintroduced H.R. 291, “W21: Water in the 21st Century,” a plan to provide “new incentives and investments to help local water agencies, residents and businesses to conserve, recycle and manage limited water supplies.”

A spokesperson for Capps was less emphatic, saying it was still too early to know whether the eight-term Central Coast congresswoman would call it quits this term.

“It’s been less than two weeks since the 114th Congress began, so her focus isn’t on 2016 yet,” said Capps’ spokesperson Chris Meagher. Her focus is “on representing the people of the Central Coast and fighting for the issues they care about.”

Intra-party challengers not waiting for retirements

Even if Capps and Napolitano decide to seek reelection, they could face upstart intra-party challengers —  thanks to California’s Top Two primary system. Older House Democrats have faced spirited challengers from younger politicians in the last two election cycles.

In 2012, then 80-year-old Rep. Pete Stark was unseated by fellow Democrat and 31-year-old challenger Eric Swalwell. Last November, Ro Khanna came within a few points of knocking off 73-year-old Rep. Mike Honda.

Age was a clear factor in both races, where the younger challengers portrayed the seasoned veterans as out-of-touch, especially on technological issues. Honda, according to emails obtained by San Jose Inside, needed his government staff’s help to “set up his personal Netflix account.”

In 2016, state-level politicians eager to move up California’s political food chain could get impatient, knowing un-elected Democratic challengers, such as Swalwell and Khanna, have cut in line.

Shift in Congressional demographics: 113th to 114th Congress

The 113th Congress, according to the Congressional Research Service:

• An overwhelming majority of Members of Congress with a college education.
• The dominant professions of Members are public service/politics, business and law.
• Most Members identify as Christians, and Protestants collectively constitute the majority religious affiliation.
• Roman Catholics account for the largest single religious denomination, and numerous other affiliations are represented.

In the 114th Congress, according to The Hill:

• There is a record number of female lawmakers at 104, alongside 430 men, following the departure of former Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.).
• Lawmakers have an average age of 57. The Senate is older than the House, with an average age of 61 to the lower chamber’s 57.
• Democrats on average are older than Republicans in both chambers, at 62 to 60 in the Senate and 59 to 54 in the House.

According to the Los Angeles Times, De Leon’s campaign has been handing out flyers that read:

“Kevin de Leon for State Assembly
“THE ONLY DEMOCRATIC CHOICE.”

Maybe it has something to do with the overwhelming control Democrats have in California. They will need two Assembly speakers, one from the Assembly, one from the Senate.

Wait!

I just read the rest of the article. It turns out de Leon will not be Assembly speaker. And he is not even running for an Assembly seat. He’s only running for re-election to the Senate.

So Speaker Atkins’ position is safe.

What de Leon did do is send out incorrect flyers saying, as quoted above, that he’s running for the Assembly.

Tell me again: Why do people like this in government run most of our lives?

By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO — There was no shortage of drama yesterday in a Capitol hearing about California’s gun laws. A show-and-tell, demonstration by the California Department of Justice, of several high-capacity rifles held the rapt attention of lawmakers.

A short documentary was shown of the survivors of the 1989 Cleveland Elementary school killings in Stockton, during which five children were murdered by a deranged shooter.

The prevailing theme for state Democrats during the three-hour hearing was that there are bad  guns and good guns, and the bad guns need to be outlawed.

They did not discuss that home robberies have increased in many cities in California. The typical home invasion consists of three to four perpetrators, armed with semiautomatic pistols or semiautomatic rifles, who force their way through the door of the home. Police report that the perpetrators do not care at all about gun laws, and are willing to kill. And since a felony murder charge already carries a life sentence or the death penalty, the gun crime is a freebie in sentencing.

Sen. Joel Anderson, R-San Diego, told me about a meeting he recently had with another lawmaker about gun bans. “What’s a good gun?” he asked. “The one which a single mother uses against an intruder to save her children.”

In reply, the other lawmaker told Anderson, “We just want to ban the bad guns.”

Opening statements set the bias

Nearly every lawmaker present at the Joint Committee on Public Safety made an opening statement which drew a line in the sand on their position. “Perhaps after the recent shootings, we’ve reached the tipping point,” said Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, the committee’s co-chairwoman.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, said certain laws may need to be tweaked, and asked everyone “to respect those with divergent views.”

“I am looking forward to engagement with regard to ammunition,” said Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles. De Leon has proposed regulating gun ammunition.

Freshman Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, said the Newtown tragedy and the previous shooting in an Aurora, Colo. movie theater has reignited a national debate about how to prevent such senseless crimes. “While this is a highly emotional and political issue, we shouldn’t rush into passing measures that may sound or feel good, but do nothing to save lives,” Melendez said.

Melendez also reminded the committee that even the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence says California has the toughest gun laws in the country. “California’s laws already match U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposed law, and much of what President Obama wants.”

Interestingly, all of the Democratic lawmakers acknowledged during the hearing that California already has the toughest gun control laws in the nation, leaving many to wonder what the problem is.

What is the problem?

It quickly became apparent during the hearing that many legislators pushing for more gun control laws were trying to legislate a problem that does not exist. Or if there is a problem, it is that law enforcement is not following up on criminals who have guns.

Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, referred to Interstate 80 and several other state highways as “leakage” to other states. According to Skinner, Californians drive to nearby states to purchase guns, and then bring them back to California illegally.

The Department of Justice issues an annual report every year on firearms, and includes statistics about crimes committed in California with guns. “In the past 11 years, fewer than 60 crimes have been committed in California with assault rifles,” Sam Paredes with Gun Owners of California told me in an interview after the hearing. “Some years, zero crimes were committed with assault rifles.”

“Of the more than 170,000 legally registered assault rifles in California, not one has ever been involved in the commission of a crime.”

Paredes explained to the committee that much of what they think they know and have been told about guns is not correct. “It is already illegal for anyone to buy a handgun in another state and come back to California,” Paredes said. “Everyone must comply with the laws and procedures of this state.”

Several legislators said the National Rifle Association is trying to recruit members by attracting children. Paredes reminded lawmakers that the Boy Scouts of America has been teaching boys about guns for decades.

As for assault rifles, “The AR 15 and AK 47 are the single most popular guns in America,” Paredes said. “They are used for home defense, recreation, target shooting as well as personal defense. There are 40 million guns owned in California, and 400 million in the U.S. Homeland Security just bought 2,000 AR 15 guns for personal defense.”

No follow up on convicted criminals

While every lawmaker on the committee agreed that all efforts should be made to get and keep guns out of the hands of criminals, Sen. Rod Wright, D-Inglewood, asked some of the best questions of the hearing. Wright grilled Stephen Linley, Bureau of Firearms chief, about why his agency and state law enforcement do not follow up on criminals attempting to purchase guns and falsify the applications.

Linley admitted that California already has laws in place to deal with situations like this, and said they do not follow up in these cases.

Linley also told Wright the guns used in the commission of the majority of crimes in the state are handguns.

“The fact is that the person is the problem, not the gun,” Sen. Steve Knight, R-Antelope Valley, told me. “It is people committing these acts, not the guns.”

Knight said that, of all of the crimes committed in California, not one was committed by a person with a concealed carry permit.

California stiffened its criminal laws in the 1980’s, and made a point of not only identifying criminals, but puting them in prison when they were caught breaking the law. Knight said that, in order to bring down the violent crime rate, when criminals are caught using a weapon during the commission of a crime, they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law instead of getting plea deals from district attorneys.

Knight added, “Laws that punish law abiding citizens are not the answer to reducing crime in the United States.”

By Katy Grimes

I hope you don’t need $1,635, because that is what the average tax increase will be on the majority of Americans.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, 80 percent of American households with incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 will be out more than $1,600 next year. And that’s just the starter.

The much hyped last-minute fiscal cliff deal negotiated Jan. 1 between Vice President Biden, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and President Barack Obama, cuts only $15 billion in spending but increases tax revenues by $620 billion. The 41:1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts is no deal for Americans.

The tax increase is primarily due to the expiration of a payroll tax cut, according to the Tax Policy Center in Washington.

While the bill, known as the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, will protect millions of middle-class taxpayers from tax increases set to take effect this month, it will increase tax rates on wages and investments for households making more than $450,000 a year.

This is the first time in more than 20 years that a huge tax increase has been approved with GOP support.

The measure, which addressed the tax increases while holding off sequestration cuts and the debt ceiling, passed with the support of 85 Republicans, including the Speaker who took the unusual measure of casting a vote, and 172 Democrats.

The Deal adds to the deficit

The smelly Senate deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff” will add approximately  $4 trillion to the deficit, according to new  the CBO, and achieves minimal deficit reduction in the early years.

“For a family making median income, they’ll notice an additional $3,500 dollar income tax increase,” Fox News reported. “27 million Americans will be subject to the alternative minimum tax, and additionally, the death tax will increase to 55 percent for estates of $1 million and over.”

The extension of lower tax rates for taxpayers, and the addition of only a patch to the insidious Alternative Minimum Tax would add more than $3.6 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, the CBO said.

Other individual, business and energy tax extenders will add another $76 billion to the deficit.

The latest extension of unemployment benefits will cost $30 billion.

The “doc fix”, a one-year payment patch for physicians who treat Medicare patients, would add $25 billion to the deficit through fiscal 2022.

Pork-laden deal

One of the most egregious aspects of this bad deal is how much pork was stuffed into the bill.

* Perks for Hollywood: special expensing rules for certain film and TV productions

* special tax-exempt financing for New York Liberty Zone, an area around the site of the World Trade Center.

* extension of American Samoa economic development credit

* Green energy — nearly a dozen provisions in the bill would extend green credits and green incentives for plug-in electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, biodiesel and renewable diesel, and other alternative energy initiatives.

* The legislation also would kill the part of Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act designed to let millions of elderly and disabled people get help at home rather than be placed in institutional care, which tends to be more expensive.

Democrats acknowledge that the insurance initiative known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Support program, or CLASS, is financially flawed but they had argued it should be fixed rather than ended.

The House voted to repeal that provision 11 months ago.

* No $8 per gallon milk: the “dairy cliff” was avoided. Measures to prevent a steep increase in milk prices were averted.

I can hardly wait.

See the Final Vote Results