Free Republic

For the first time, California would ask its contractors if they are gay under legislation passed Monday by the Assembly. The measure, Assembly Bill 1960, would enable the owners of businesses that contract with the state to identify themselves as gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual. It would not require them to do so. The Assembly vote was 47-24, with only one Republican supporting it. The Department of General Services currently is required to collect data on contractors by race, ethnicity and gender. AB 1960 would add LGBT-owned businesses to that list. The bill by Sacramento Democratic Assemblyman Roger Dickinson seeks...

The redrawn congressional district that stretches along the Pacific Ocean from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border is a political world like no other. The open seat vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey of Petaluma is one of the few places in the United States where all but the two Republican candidates are running to the left of President Obama.For the eight Democrats and two left-leaning candidates who decline to state a party preference, the district is a progressive sanctuary where longtime Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart headlines a fundraiser and campaign trail visits from liberal icons...

Did GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s political action committee violate state law by failing to report a $10,000 donation to the National Organization for Marriage just three weeks before the election to decide California’s Prop. 8? That’s the charge from the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights organization, which Friday released previously undisclosed IRS documents from the National Organization for Marriage documenting the donation from the Romney PAC. NOM, a group which – like Romney, believes “marriage is an institution between a man and a woman” – was a key player in backing...

Surf. Sun. Disneyland. What’s not to love about California? Well, apparently, a lot of things. In a poll released Tuesday by the Public Policy Polling, California was the least popular state in the United States. Only 27 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of the Golden State compared to the 44 percent who view it unfavorably. “There’s this arrogance about Californians,” said Patrick Dorinson, a radio host in California who refers to himself as the Cowboy Libertarian. “Californians still think it’s this great star. It’s a tarnished star at this point.” The gap of 17 points puts California far...

The new congressional, legislative and Board of Equalization districts drawn by an independent commission made a long-evident political reality official: California, once a Republican bastion, is now solidly, even overwhelmingly, Democratic. Democrats will control the Legislature – with two-thirds majorities in reach – and the congressional delegation. And while it may not be impossible for a Republican to win statewide office, as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Steve Poizner demonstrated, it's at best unlikely, even when lavishly self- financed, à la Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. California's most important political contests will either be over the state's biennial spate of ballot measures,...

Gov. Jerry Brown and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature were frustrated this year in seeking a few Republican votes to close the state's budget deficit by asking voters to approve billions of dollars in tax extensions. Support from at least two Republicans in both legislative houses was needed for the two-thirds majorities required to pass the special election constitutional amendment that Brown and Democrats sought. As the months-long talks collapsed, the Democrats said they'd try to pick up enough seats in the 2012 elections to secure two-thirds margins, thereby cutting the GOP out of future tax issues. And the...

Anti-plastic-bag forces got a boost today when the California Supreme Court ruled that an environmental impact report is not necessary before a city or county bans the use of plastic shopping bags. The decision strikes down rulings by trial and appellate courts in Los Angeles in the legal fight over an ordinance enacted in 2008 by the south coastal city of Manhattan Beach banning "point-of-sale plastic carry-out bags." Both courts said the city had to prepare an EIR before implementing its ban. "We disagree," a unanimous Supreme Court stated.

The state can go ahead with its plans to cap carbon emissions by California's largest refiners, utilities and other industrial companies, under a ruling by a state appellate court on Friday. The 1st District Court of Appeals in San Francisco overruled a lower court ruling in May that ordered the California Air Resources Board to halt all work on its cap and trade program. The cap and trade program was set to begin operating in January and ARB officials had been working to develop the program's enforcement rules, oversight procedures and reporting requirements for heavy polluters.

Felony hate crime allegations were dismissed Wednesday against two men accused of assaulting and robbing a transgender woman near San Francisco’s 16th Street BART station in April, but the pair were ordered by a judge to stand trial on other charges in the case. Lionel Jackson, 32, and Maurice Perry, 37, are accused of attacking the woman on April 1 outside the BART station at the intersection of Mission and 16th streets and taking her smartphone. When she demanded the phone back, the pair allegedly punched her, knocking her to the ground, where they also allegedly kicked her, police said....

Prison officials have decided that participation in a gay pride parade is not on par with "entering a tavern, gambling hall, or nightclub." They also seem to be saying that participating a gay pride parade isn't a political statement. That appears to be the takeaway, anyway, from an announcement prison officials made today in which they said that a prison guard will be allowed to wear his uniform in the annual gay pride parade in Los Angeles. A little background: Andrew Johnson, a correctional officer at the California Institution for Women in Chino, Calif. asked and was denied permission to...

Attorney General Kamala Harris and San Francisco city officials moved Thursday to derail a bid by backers of Proposition 8 to wipe out last year's ruling striking down the law because of the trial judge's same-sex relationship, calling it "tired," "meritless" and motivated by bias against gays. In court papers, Harris threw California's weight against Proposition 8 sponsors, who recently argued that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker should have removed himself from the legal battle over same-sex marriage because he has been in a long-term same-sex relationship. Walker last summer found that California's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional,...

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- California Democrats are in a joyful mood after sweeping all nine statewide offices last year and picking up a seat in the state Assembly, despite two bruising, expensive contests. So they can be expected to spend time patting themselves on the back at their annual convention in Sacramento this weekend, their first statewide meeting since the November elections. But governing has proven harder than winning elections. . . .

Less than three months on the job, and already Gavin Newsom is prepping to run for governor again. A city insider who asked not to be named tells us the new lieutenant governor approached him at a charity fundraiser the other day with a request for help to start raising money for a renewed gubernatorial bid. Newsom's inability to compete with the much-better-financed Jerry Brown was one of the reasons he withdrew from last year's Democratic race and ran instead for lieutenant governor. Newsom has opened a re-election campaign committee for 2014 - but there's nothing to stop him from...

LOS ANGELES -- An openly gay man was voted prom queen at Los Angeles' Fairfax High School in a campaign that began as a stunt but ended up spurring discussion on the campus about gender roles and teen popularity. Sergio Garcia, 18, was crowned queen Saturday night at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. "I feel invincible," Garcia said in his tiara and charcoal-gray tuxedo. A few days earlier, he gave a speech that won over some cynics and led to an ovation and his unlikely victory. "At one time, prom may have been a big popularity contest where the best-looking guy...

A majority of Californians favor more oil drilling off the coast, according to a statewide survey released today, the first time since oil prices spiked nearly three decades ago. The support by 51 percent of residents polled this month by the Public Policy Institute of California underscores a shift caused by renewed Republican advocacy for drilling, as well as motorists' reaction to soaring pump prices. With high oil prices and calls from both President Bush and Republican presidential aspirant Sen. John McCain to open coastal waters and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to domestic production, the support for drilling has...

One medical dictionary describes schizophrenia as "a mental disorder (whose) symptoms include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior. Schizophrenia is accompanied by marked impairment in social or occupational functioning." That's a pretty good description of political discourse in contemporary California, especially during this biennial exercise in reality-evasion we call a campaign.

Has anyone noticed the latest Your-too-stupid-to-take-care-of-yourself-so-we'll-do-it-for-you law? I have a very bad cold. Also the family that I work with have bad colds too. I went to Rite Aid after work to pick up some OTC cold and flu medications for myself and them.When I got to the counter to pay for them I was told by the clerk that they are only allowed to sell 2 medications at a time containing pseudoephedrine. I had 4 boxes, 2 for me and 2 for the family I work with. So I had to go to a different drug store to pick...

Those who created the American system of government, and encased it in the U.S. Constitution, were attempting to balance two equally insidious forces - tyranny and chaos. They had fought a revolution to escape the former, but had experienced the latter in the years following the war under the too-weak Articles of Confederation. The Constitution, therefore, embodied what were called "checks and balances," creating a stronger central government but diffusing its authority among two legislative branches, a separately elected presidency and an independent judiciary. The structure reflected the belief, as James Madison states it in the Federalist Papers, that "The...