Responding to the scandal that has a pair of Democratic state senators looking at jail time, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has proposed banning legislators from accepting free tickets to ball games and theme parks. That will show ‘em. Admittedly, Steinberg and the Democrats have a problem. When Roderick Wright and Ron Calderon’s, ah, […]

Stop the presses. Jerry Brown is running for re-election. Newspapers from the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune all the way down to the Sioux City Journal and the Billings Gazette carried the news Thursday. Web sites and blogs all reported that the governor announced his intentions in a Twitter feed. The statement on […]

Well, it looks like Californians are going to have to keep relying on constipation, obesity, writers cramp and a whole constellation of other ailments if they want to keep their legal marijuana coming for the next two years. Backers of the well-financed Control, Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act, a weed legalization measure that had been […]

The endgame is here for Gov. Jerry Brown’s long-running battle with the courts over prison overcrowding. On Monday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. District court gave Brown the two-year extension he was looking for, but he had to pay the price. And it was a steep one. The governor agreed to accept the court’s […]

Well, the water bill by Hanford GOP Rep. David Valadao that just passed the House may not ease the drought, but it did wonders to warm up the state’s political climate. “Congressman Garamendi Opposes California Water Theft Legislation,” screamed the press release by, well, Congressman Garamendi. Sen. Barbara Boxer called it “another divisive and discredited […]

Gov. Jerry Brown knows he’s in trouble when even President Obama seems to be ganging up against him. One of the high points of the president’s State of the Union address the other night was a clarion call for universal pre-school education, paid on the public dime. You know, almost exactly like the proposal by […]

Once again, a new Cincinnatus of the GOP has surveyed the political landscape, put down his, ah, spreadsheet and marched off toward Sacramento to restore fiscal order to the state. “I owe it to the people of California to share my wisdom with them,” he tells the waiting scribes. “But only if I can be […]

In politics, as in much of life, when it comes to a choice between power and a paycheck, cash usually wins. Just ask Democratic State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, who had to make just that choice last week. The 61-year-old DeSaulnier was one of the frontrunners to take over the state Senate’s top job when state […]

California’s economy is on the mend, but most voters still don’t believe it. That’s happy news for Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown released his 2014-15 budget Thursday and he was his usual downbeat self. Things may look good, he said at his Sacramento news conference, but they really aren’t all that rosy. The budget “represents prudence […]