Making the Rounds in the Capitol January 9 — Those Crazy Legislative Cut-Ups, What Wackiness Will They Dream Up Next?

The bill the lemon advertises — AB 1455 by Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, a Laguna Niguel Republican — would prohibit the issuance of unencumbered debt to construct a high speed rail project. Sen. Doug LaMalfa, a Butte Republican and ardent critic of the project has already signed on as principal co-author. Up to $9.96 billion in state debt is currently authorized by the 2008 bond measure approved by voters.    Read more »

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Gender Identity Versus Recorded Gender in Public Schools

Public school students would be allowed to participate in sex-segregated school activities based on their gender identity rather than the gender listed on their records, under legislation pending in the Assembly.

Following the logic, that means a  male pupil, whose gender identity is female, could then, potentially, play on the woman’s field hockey team.    Read more »

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A Rare Moment of Self-Awareness?

 “Never have so many gathered for so little.”

  — Gov. Jerry Brown, welcoming reporters to a Dec. 27, 2011 press availability

(It’s a riff, of course, on Winston Churchill’s line about the heroics of Royal Air Force pilots during the Battle of Britain in 1940.)

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Brown Hurriedly Unveils His New Budget Plan — Five Days Sooner Than Planned

Cuts – mainly in aid to the state’s poor – and a like amount of temporary tax increases would close a projected $9.2 billion budget hole under Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget plan released January 5.

The Democratic governor moved up the spending blueprint’s unveiling from January 10 after it was inadvertently posted on his Department of Finance’s website earlier in the day.    Read more »

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December Revenue Collections — Did They Hit the Mark?

State budget writers last June predicted California would take in more than $5.7 billion in income tax receipts and $1.4 billion in corporate taxes during the month of December.

That prediction came in a state budget enacted June 30, which the Brown administration and the Legislative Analyst say is already $2.2 billion to $3.7 billion short of revenue estimates, respectively.    Read more »

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It’s This Kind of Love the Capitol Missed the Most

The lonely hiatus is finally over.

At last, the grand and glorious day has arrived – the Legislature returns to the Capitol.

It’s been an excruciatingly long four months.

The doldrums of no committee hearings, no press conferences and no windy but pointless floor speeches are finally at an end.

Finally, dull inactivity replaced with tedious overactivity.    Read more »

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Happy Belated Birthday Governor Gage!

Christmas Day 1852 is the birthdate of California’s 20th governor, Henry Tifft Gage, whose one term at the turn of the 20th Century was overshadowed by a bubonic plague outbreak in San Francisco that the Los Angeles Republican spent most of his tenure denying. 

The political issues during his term straddled the two centuries, highlighting the state’s metamorphosis into a global power.    Read more »

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110-Year-Old Gubernatorial Advice on Legislating

“The evil of an individual, as a general rule, affects him alone, for his power of injuring the few around him can be summarily restrained.

“But the wrong of a bad law affects the whole community and its poison may spread before discovery and the injury may be irreparable, though afterward annulled by a decision of a court or repealed by an act of a future Legislature.    Read more »

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The Origin of California’s Great Seal

The state seal was approved during the constitutional convention convened September 4, 1849, one year prior to California’s 1850 admission as the 31st state.

Major Robert S. Garnett, a native of Virginia, was the designer. Twenty-seventh in his class at West Point and sent to California to deliver dispatches, Garnett became the academy’s commandant in 1852.    Read more »

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Another Lesson in Latin and Roman History From California’s Governor (Annotated)

California’s governor holds a 1961 degree in classics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Invariably, at some point during encounters with the press he offers some bit of Latin or allusion to Roman history in order to prove it.

(There has been some grumbling among the Greco-philes of the Capitol Press Corps about the Fairness Doctrine.)    Read more »

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