We join with our lefty counterpart Steve Maviglio in lamenting the decision by the Stockton Record to close its Sacramento Bureau, issuing a pink-slip to veteran Capitol reporter Hank Shaw. (See Steve’s blog post.)

Shaw is a superior reporter — who is thorough, objective, and passionate about his coverage. Hopefully he will "land" somewhere that will enable him to continue to write about California politics.

In the meantime, this trend is disturbing. As Maviglio points out, this is just the latest in a trend as newspapers try to figure out how to remain profitable in a changing economic scene.

Imagine a world where the only people covering politics are Maviglio and me. Ooohhh… A nightmare scenario.

P.S. One upshot is that we’re bound to see more great post’s on Hank’s personal blog — Hunter, Angler, Gardner, Cook.… Read More

With reckless abandon, Los Angeles city leaders gave payroll increases and lucrative compensation packages for city workers, which can be directly attributed to the $406 million budget deficit they are now facing for fiscal year beginning in July. Sadly, city leaders knew they were putting Los Angeles’ future into financial jeopardy by agreeing to the payroll raises last year—but did so anyhow. According to the L A Daily News, May 11, 2008, “As Los Angeles grapples with its largest budget deficit in history, lucrative compensation packages for thousands of city workers are driving much of the gap , and there’s little end in sight.” It is mind-boggling that, “In the past year alone, gross annual payroll costs have soared $120 million for nearly 48,000 city employees – $90 million of that going to 35,000 civilian and sworn workers- and bumped the total… Read More

The Assembly finished it’s work last night at about 6:30, getting through a deadline for settling the bills from the "House of Origin."[It is kind of strange finishing a deadline not at 3 AM] That means that a bill introduced by a member of the Assembly had until the end of business today to be voted off of our floor or the bill dies. [Win or go home as they say in the playoffs] The Senate faced the same deadline for their House ofOrigin and was finishing their work yesterday also.

There is one bill of note that passed jumps out that I haven’t reported on yet from yesterday. [I decided that it would be nice to get home at a decent hour while the kids are awake or not ‘make’ my staff stay late and write an analysis of the days work for me, I’ll have more later on some of the actions taken…we did stop a few bad bills or discourage some from even being taken up!]

The bill had to do with aerial spraying in the Bay Area. A pest known as the Light Brown Apple Moth has become enough of a problem that the Ca Dept of Food and Ag, with others had moved to eradicate the pest. This has touched off a… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…

Local Hero

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As if the liberals who run the State Legislature haven’t come up with enough things to prohibit, outlaw or ban, now in true "Liberal Grinch" style they have decided to outlaw balloons.

Yes, I am being serious. There is legislation (SB 1499) coursing through the legislature banning those cool mylar silver balloons because some brain surgeon says they get caught up in power lines. This legislation, authored by Democrat Senator Jack Scott, "…prohibits the sale or distribution of any balloon that is constructed of electrically conductive materials, and filled with gas lighter than air…"

Um — why don’t we also ban tennis shoes, since I seem to see a pair of those, tied at the laces, hanging off of power lines all of the time.

Anyways, Democrats banning fun isn’t really news.

But when a Republican participates in the process, you have to call them out on it.

Senator Abel Maldonado actually voted for this Nanny State legislation, can you believe it?

Perhaps… Read More

In another win for more chaos to bethrust upon employers to try to responsibly hire employees, AB 2076 passed off of our floor today 41-28.

It would prohibit the State from using any electronic employment verification system, and prohihit local governments from requring employers to use it and declares it state policy to discourage employers from using such a system unless required by federal law.… Read More

The writingdone now mail leaps shrieking like the bat hungry from a cave… Read More

Former longtime California State Legislator, Cathie Wright, has officially decided to poke a stick in the eye of her longtime local Congressman, Elton Gallegly.

Gallegly’s running for re-election this year, having served in Congress from that area since before people converted from LP to compact disk. Conventional wisdom is that Gallegly will easily win renomination as the Republican nominee in what is an overwhelmingly GOP district.

Those who know Cathie Wright (I used to work for her for a time) can visualize her smirk as she envisions Gallegly reading that she has endorsed Michael Tenenbaum against him. Tenenbaum, a local businessman, is in the midst of what will likely be his second Kamikaze run against this incumbent…

FR readers may recall that there was some drama two years ago when Gallegly participated in some political machinations, apparently desiring to retire but "softball" his seat to a friend. For a short period, it looked like Tenenbaum might be the only… Read More