Free Republic

Environmentalists trying to push a green agenda through the Legislature will face a decidedly different atmosphere in 2007. The Senate has long been the friendlier of California's two legislative houses to environmental legislation, but Tuesday's primary elections swept a small cohort of pro-business Democrats into the upper house. That, combined with the replacement of moderate Assembly Democrats with more liberal counterparts, looks to have shifted the legislative landscape for environmental legislation. "The Senate is less green and the Assembly has gotten more green," said Bill Magavern, the Sierra Club's senior legislative representative. According to the California League of Conservation Voters...

In 1975, Jerry Brown was first elected Governor of the State of California. He was sworn in with a $6 billion surplus. By the time he left office in 1983, he left California in “full-blown financial crisis” (Sacramento Bee) with a billion dollars in debt. Later as Mayor of Oakland, he entered office in 1999 where education and crime got much worse by the time he left in 2007. Fast Forward to 2011. Jerry Brown’s first act as Governor of California (the second time) was to work toward eliminating California’s $28 billion deficit by eliminating the Inspector General and saving...

SACRAMENTO -- Another attempt to allow illegal immigrants to qualify for California driver's licenses is one step from the governor's desk and a likely veto after a heated Assembly debate that included charges of racism. Lawmakers voted 42-34 late Wednesday to approve a bill by Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, that would allow undocumented immigrants to get licenses that would have to be of a different design or color than standard licenses and would not be widely recognized as valid identification documents. The bill's supporters said the measure would implement federal security requirements and improve highway safety by requiring that...

On April 1, Washington Mayor Vincent Gray was denied a second term, defeated in the primary by upstart city councilwoman Muriel Bowser. The beginning of the end came on March 10, when U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen struck a plea bargain with a wealthy businessman who confessed he'd spent $668,000 on an illegal "shadow campaign" to fund get-out-the-vote efforts that helped Gray win the mayoral office in 2010. So the corrupt mayor of America's most important city is thrown out. A political scandal? The same networks that were utterly breathless over the local story of Gov. Chris Christie's aides slowing traffic...

For some odd reason, they seem as rare as public pay phones and customer services. If someone can find one or two, I appreciate it if they could provide a couple. Thank you.

April 6, 2014 Like a criminal wiping down a crime scene, the California State Senate has scrubbed its website and deleted the online archives of three Democratic state Senators that face criminal charges ranging from weapons trafficking to public corruption.

The California Senate has erased the names and online archives of three suspended lawmakers entangled in criminal cases. The Senate removed pictures, video clips and legislative archives over the weekend involving Democratic Sens. Rod Wright of Los Angeles, Ron Calderon of Montebello and Leland Yee of San Francisco. All that remains on the websites is information about their Senate districts. The three men have lost the rights and privileges of a senator, which include having a Senate-maintained website, said Mark Hedlund, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

The California state Senate today took the unprecedented step of suspending three of its members who have been accused of crimes including corruption, perjury and conspiracy to traffic weapons -- a move that takes away their power but maintains their pay. With a vote of 28-1, senators ousted colleagues Democrats Leland Yee of San Francisco, Ron Calderon of Montebello and Rod Wright of Baldwin Hills with a resolution that says they can't resume office "until all criminal proceedings currently pending against them have been dismissed." Expelling them would be premature, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg said, because Yee and Calderon have...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com/AP) — Two Southern California state lawmakers were among a trio of Democratic senators who were suspended Friday over criminal charges. KNX 1070′s Megan Goldsby reports the vote comes after Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco was indicted this week on federal charges that included accepting bribes and coordinating an international gun-running operation.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Keith Jackson, accused by the FBI on Wednesday of being involved in a murder-for-hire scheme and a gun- and drug-trafficking conspiracy, was San Francisco's top elected educator during the late 1990s.

State senator accused of gun charges SAN FRANCISCO — A California state senator who authored gun control legislation asked for campaign donations in exchange for introducing an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday. The allegations against State Sen. Leland Yee were outlined in an FBI criminal complaint that names 25 other defendants, including Raymond Chow, a onetime gang leader with ties to San Francisco's Chinatown known as "Shrimp Boy," and Keith Jackson, Yee's campaign aide. The affidavit accuses Yee of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms. Yee...

State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) was charged Wednesday with conspiring to commit wire fraud and traffic firearms, part of a sweeping public corruption case outlined by federal prosecutors. The charges sent shock waves through the San Francisco and Sacramento political establishments, as FBI agents searched Yee's Capitol office. Last year the FBI raided the offices of Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), who was targeted in a bribery sting. SNIP The indictment alleges Yee and Jackson defrauded "citizens of honest services" and were involved in a scheme to traffic firearms in exchange for thousands in campaign donations to the senator. SNIP...

The federal corruption and bribery charges leveled against state Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco mark the third embarrassing scandal this year for Senate Democrats and their party, which control both houses of the state Legislature and every statewide office in California.Coming on the heels of recent tangled legal troubles of two other high-profile Los Angeles County Democratic state senators - Ron Calderon of Montebello and Rod Wright of Baldwin Hills - Yee's arrest may now hand the beleaguered state Republican Party an opening in a midterm election year, political observers say.

SACRAMENTO, California — An ongoing federal investigation of a California senator is roiling the Democratic leadership in Sacramento and threatens to complicate relations in the majority party when lawmakers reconvene in January. FBI agents raided the offices of Sen. Ron Calderon in June, but the drama escalated within the past month when the Los Angeles-area lawmaker tried to tar his fellow Democrats after they stripped him of his committee assignments and one called for his resignation. Calderon has denied allegations he took money in return for promoting bills, but some analysts say the inquiry could affect the re-election chances for...