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Investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department executed a search warrant Wednesday morning at the Santa Monica home of County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. The reason for the search was not immediately known. However, the Sheriff’s Department has been investigating the non-profit, Peace Over Violence, which is run by a close associate of Kuehl’s, Alene Tchekmedyian of the Los Angeles Times reports. The investigation involves allegations that the nonprofit was improperly awarded a series of contracts pushed by Kuehl’s office.

For termed-out and defeated legislators or former high-ranking gubernatorial staffers in search of a soft landing, there is none softer than the California Integrated Waste Management Board. Appointees to the six-member board take home $132,000 a year, plus expenses and a car allowance. That's not bad for what amounts to four all-day meetings a month. Some them work hard between meetings; others don't. The waste board reeks of the government's stale status quo, a potent symbol of lawmakers who are out of touch. Even as California slips further into fiscal chaos, legislators and friends of the governor continue to enjoy...

The long tradition of political appointees landing high-paid slots on California's waste board continued Tuesday. Two termed-out Democratic state lawmakers – Assemblyman John Laird of Santa Cruz and Sen. Sheila Kuehl of Santa Monica – were appointed to posts on the Integrated Waste Management Board, courtesy of the Democratic legislative leaders. The jobs pay $132,178 a year. Both new recycling board commissioners will replace other well-connected members. Laird will replace Cheryl Peace, the wife of a former state legislator. Kuehl will replace former Democratic Sen. Wes Chesbro. Government watchdogs have criticized the board for its high proportion of highly paid...

Termed-out Sen. Sheila Kuehl has landed a high-paying job on California's waste board, securing the $132,178 per year job despite a previous report that Sen. Carole Migden would land the gig. Kuehl, who has chaired the Senate's Natural Resources and Health Committees during her tenure in the upper house, is leaving the state Senate after eight years and was appointed to the spot on the Integrated Waste Management Board by outgoing Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata. Earlier in the day, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass named Assemblyman John Laird to a spot on the waste board, which has been a...

Last Oct. 12, California’s Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a controversial Democratic-authored measure, SB 777, that subtly redefines how sexuality and gender may be taught and dealt with in public schools. This law had been held in abeyance until this month while conservatives were given 90 days to collect signatures to qualify a June ballot referendum that would let voters approve or overturn it. On Thursday, the referendum deadline, activists acknowledged that they had fallen short, gathering only 350,000 of the 433,971 signatures required. With the new law in effect, said referendum supporter Karen England, executive director of...

When society tells a young person ---- in subtle or, often, not so subtle, ways ---- that they are less valuable, perhaps because of the color of their skin, their religious practices or the gender of the person they want to take to the prom, the whole society suffers. When we mandate that every young person must go to school, we must also provide the safety and dignity of an education free from harassment, discrimination and violence. That is why, over the last several years, I have authored several laws that strengthen civil rights protections for students and improve school...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed SB-94, a special bill pushed through the legislature by Planned Parenthood to increase Medi-Cal rates for “family planning services,” the governor’s press office announced early this afternoon. The governor’s decision to sign the measure came just a day before the legal deadline for signing or vetoing bills on his desk. Planned Parenthood affiliates across California had launched a massive PR campaign in an effort to persuade Schwarzenegger to sign the bill, which will result in the state spending another $3.2 million a year on “family planning services” -- potentially tens of millions of dollars over...

Coming to a School Locker Room Near You: Governor Signs SB 777 New law will open female locker rooms to transgender men Governor Schwarzenegger has signed into the law the highly controversial SB 777 (Kuehl) that will permit transgender students to enter the locker rooms and restrooms of the gender with which they identify. Under the guise of preventing discrimination and bias against homosexuals, transgenders and other sexual variants, SB 777 will force innocent school children to accept alternative lifestyles. "We are shocked and appalled that the governor has blatantly attacked traditional family values in California," stated Karen England, Executive...

As the 2007 legislative session begins its final throes, the annual duel between homosexual rights groups and their conservative foes is being rejoined. The former have already scored one victory in the much-delayed budget that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed last month, a first-ever appropriation for aid to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) victims of domestic violence. "These types of government and nonprofit partnerships have for many years kept many Californians healthy, safe and self-sufficient, and for the first time the California budget includes such funds for LGBT- specific services," Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, declared after the...

The California legislature is expected to approve this month a bill redefining “gender and “discrimination” in a way that poses a moral threat to California’s schoolchildren. According to Catholics for the Common Good (ccgaction.org), the bill, SB 777, would “promote discrimination against the Judeo-Christian understanding of human sexuality.” Termed the "Student Civil Rights Act," the bill’s intent, says the its author, Sheila Kuehl, is to protect California students from "bullying and harassment" and to "ensure a safe learning environment." The legislation’s main impact, however, would be to prohibit any "instruction, school activities, or instructional material" that "reflects or promotes a...

If legislative Democrats had their way, California might well be on its way to a government-run health care system. Both houses of the Legislature passed a bill last year to create a so-called "single-payer" system, only to have Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger veto it. Surrounded by union supporters and fellow liberal lawmakers, the leader of the single-payer movement, Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, said Tuesday that she will try again. Kuehl's central goal in Senate Bill 840 is to eliminate health insurance companies -- which she says ring up excessive profits and offer substandard coverage -- from the system. Instead, she...

By Sheila James Kuehl. SHEILA JAMES KUEHL (D-Santa Monica) chairs the state Senate Health Committee Four healthcare proposals are now before the Legislature, including one crafted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which will be spotlighted in his State of the State address tonight. Unfortunately, that plan and two others — state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata's SB 48 and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez's AB 13 — are short-term solutions that have the potential to expand coverage but at the end of the day can't be relied on to achieve what 80% of Californians say they want: a government guarantee of...

Saying he opposes government-run health care, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger followed through Friday on his promise to veto a Democratic bill that would have set up a universal health care system covering all Californians. "Socialized medicine is not the solution to our state's health care problems," the Republican governor said in an unusually long veto message in which also he touted his efforts to expand two other government health care programs, Medi-Cal and Healthy Families, which serve the poor. "This bill would require an extraordinary redirection of public and private funding by creating a vast new bureaucracy to take over health...

SACRAMENTO Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have barred textbooks from using language that would be discriminatory to gays, saying the state's education laws already prevent discrimination. The bill's author, state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, called the veto "inexplicable." Kuehl's bill initially would have required California's social science textbooks to include the historical contributions of homosexuals, but the state Assembly amended it at her request in an effort to avoid a veto from the Republican governor. The final version of SB 1437 would have prohibited any negative portrayal of homosexuals in textbooks and other instructional material, expanding current...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger got off to a fast start in his annual September Veto Parade yesterday by saying he would reject state Sen. Sheila Kuehl's nonsensical, poorly drafted bill mandating that California adopt socialized medicine. It is a sad commentary on the Legislature that Kuehl's bill made it this far. Perhaps the governor next can tackle measures that are, respectively, anti-consumer, anti-common sense and pro-corruption. AB 2592, by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, would allow car-rental companies to omit the cost of airport fees when advertising rental rates. How does Leno – who sees himself as a classic liberal do-gooder...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Tuesday he would veto a bill that would create a government-run health care system for the most populous U.S. state. The widely expected veto, as Schwarzenegger seeks re-election in November, marks one of the Republican governor's sharpest breaks with the state's Democratic-led legislature this year. Schwarzenegger commended the Democratic lawmaker who advanced the health-care bill, but said California could not afford a state-run health system. An immigrant from Austria, Schwarzenegger had previously signaled his opposition to the bill because he believes state-run health systems in Europe work against consumers. The...

I commend Sen. Sheila Kuehl's commitment and dedication to providing health care coverage for all Californians, but I must veto Senate Bill 840 because I cannot support a government-run health care system. Socialized medicine is not the solution to our state's health care problems. This bill would require an extraordinary redirection of public and private funding by creating a vast new bureaucracy to take over health insurance and medical care for Californians – a serious and expensive mistake. Such a program would cost the state billions and lead to significant new taxes on individuals and businesses, without solving the critical...

SACRAMENTO Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Tuesday that he will veto a universal health care bill that is headed for his desk, claiming the measure would set up a "vast new bureaucracy" that would be too expensive. The Republican governor said the single-payer system proposed by Sen. Sheila Kuehl would "cost the state billions and lead to significant new taxes on individuals and businesses, without solving the critical issue of affordability. "I won't jeopardize the economy of our state for such a purpose," the governor said in a statement. Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, said Schwarzenegger's comments indicated he "has not read the...

As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The problems come about when something is broken and the involved parties can't agree on how to fix it. Such is the state of health care coverage in California. The state Assembly on Aug. 28 approved Senate Bill 840, which would provide health insurance to all residents, making California the only state with government-operated universal health care. The state Senate approved it Thursday on a party-line vote, sending it to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Democrats want to establish a system controlled through creation of a California Health Insurance Agency. A...

Sadly, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to veto Bill 840, thus denying medical care for seven million state residents Sacramento (1 September 2006) - California legislators are poised to vote for a Canadian-style health-care system by passing Bill 840, a measure that would outlaw private health care throughout the state. The legislation was approved earlier by members of the state assembly and was endorsed Thursday by the state senate. If enacted, the bill would provide free medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage for all California residents by 2009 through a state-run agency. Arnold Schwarzenegger expected to terminate Medicare The...