Archives

10.20.2009
California’s Capitol Issues a Correction and Apology

California’s Capitol Issues a Correction and Apology

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 20, 2009

Contact for Senator DeSaulnier:  Eve Hightower (916-651-4007)

Contact for Assembly member Feuer:  Arianna Smith (916-319-2042)

 

**MEDIA ADVISORY** 

GOVERNMENTAL REFORM SOLUTIONS TO BE CONSIDERED IN JOINT HEARINGS

First Hearing Addresses Proposals to Enhance Policy and Budget Development 

SACRAMENTO – Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) and Assembly member Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) will convene the first joint hearing of each house’s Select Committee on Improving State Government.     Read more »

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10.19.2009
Lobbyists Sue to Remove June 2010 Ballot Measure

Lobbyists Sue to Remove June 2010 Ballot Measure

A group of lobbyists are suing to remove a measure from the June 2010 that would tax them to create a fund to help publicly finance candidates for the office of Secretary of State.

Plaintiffs, which include the tiny non-profit Jericho: A Voice for Justice and the massive California Professional Firefighters, argue that the tax unfairly singles out lobbyists and violates their right to freedom of political expression.    Read more »

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10.16.2009

Long-Time South Bay Senator Bob Beverly Dead at 84

Robert G. Beverly, a Manhattan Beach Republican who represented the South Bay in the state Senate for 20 years died October 16 after a long fight with Parkinson’s Disease. He was 84.

His stentorian voice, courtly demeanor and silver-white hair would have made him Central Casting’s choice to portray a senator were he not one from 1976 until forced out by term limits in 1996.    Read more »

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10.15.2009
Two Tests: One for Admission, One for Graduation

Two Tests: One for Admission, One for Graduation

(Below are two tests. One is an entrance examination; the other is California’s high school exit examination which is objected to by its critics as too difficult and an unfair condition of graduation.)

 1. Name four leading nations interested in the New World in exploring days. Name an explorer from each and give a good sketch of one of his explorations.    Read more »

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10.14.2009
Robbing Peter to Pay Paul on State School Funding

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul on State School Funding

 Among the 240 bills vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009 was a measure passed in the closing hours of the legislative session to prevent $400 million in cuts to districts containing the state’s lowest performing schools.

Democrats initially backed cutting schools — already the recipient of deepest cuts this year — as a way to lower the size of the GOP governor’s proposed reductions in health and welfare programs.    Read more »

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10.13.2009
How Often Do Governors Say No? The 2009 Edition

How Often Do Governors Say No? The 2009 Edition

(Editor’s Note: Each year, Peter Detwiler, the indefatigable chief consultant of the Senate Local Government Committee compiles a listing of bills signed and vetoed. This listing now stretches back to the first year of Ronald Reagan’s governship in 1967. Here are highlights of this year’s version. The complete listing is HERE.)       Read more »

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10.12.2009
Book Review: California in the Balance

Book Review: California in the Balance

Not many primers on California budget history, processes and strategies begin with a Foreward whose third sentence notes that in earlier times “priests scrutinized the entrails of recently deceased birds and mammals to inspire their analysis.”

They are also the words of State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, himself not a common feature of primers on California budget history, processes and strategies.    Read more »

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10.09.2009
Bad Budget News Ahead, Fiscal Year Short $1 Billion

Bad Budget News Ahead, Fiscal Year Short $1 Billion

SACRAMENTO, October 9 — For the first three months of the fiscal year, total state general fund revenue was nearly $1.1 billion below the estimates used in the recently amended 2009-10 budget, State Controller John Chiang reported today in his monthly accounting of California’s cash balance, receipts and disbursements in September.    Read more »

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10.09.2009
Republicans Are Socialists — At Least With Water

Republicans Are Socialists — At Least With Water

Republicans are socialists.

At least when it comes to water.

Uncharitable Democrats would likely call their Republican colleagues shameful hypocrites since, given some of the legislative proposals offered by the majority party, socialism isn’t as nasty a sobriquet as it might be to a GOP lawmaker.

But that’s what the Republicans are — socialists.    Read more »

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10.09.2009
“Thursday — The New Friday!”

“Thursday — The New Friday!”

                       — State worker-suggested promotional campaign for Friday furloughs.    Read more »

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