Bipartisan

SACRAMENTO - California may finally be free of deficits, but Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled a cautious budget Tuesday, saying the state's financial condition remains treacherously unstable. Brown put lawmakers on notice that he had no desire to ratchet up spending despite a multibillion-dollar windfall of tax receipts in recent months. Saying there is no evidence that the surge will last, he reduced his revenue estimates for the budget year that begins July 1. Only schools would get a substantial boost beyond what the governor proposed in January, before state income spiked.

What is it about presidents' second terms that makes them seem so scandal-ridden? Simple: The iron law of longevity. All governments make mistakes, and all governments try to hide those mistakes. But the longer an administration is in office, the more errors it makes, and the harder they are to conceal. Just ask Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, all of whom spent much of their second terms playing defense. The longevity rule caught up with Barack Obama last week as he wrestled clumsily with not one controversy but three: the Internal Revenue Service's treatment of "tea party" groups, the Benghazi killings and the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press telephone records.

WASHINGTON - Senators kept the bipartisan immigration bill largely unchanged Thursday after dispatching dozens of proposed amendments even as they punted many of the thorniest issues to next week. The day's session at the Senate Judiciary Committee revolved largely around the elusive issue of enforcement: how to prevent immigrants from remaining in this country after having entered illegally or overstaying their visas. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the eight authors of the sweeping bill, argued that a strict employment verification system would be among the best tools for clamping down on illegal immigration.

TONATICO, Mexico - Armando Guadarrama was navigating his taxi through the narrow streets of this central Mexico pueblo on a recent Saturday morning, some 2,000 miles from the Beltway. But like many here, Guadarrama was up-to-the-minute with the immigration reform push that is the talk of Washington. When he spoke of its odds, the 40-year-old could sound like a hard-bitten D.C. veteran, grumbling over a scotch at the Old Ebbitt Grill. He sniffed incredulously at President Obama's statement, a day earlier, that he was "absolutely convinced" that reforms would pass this year.

Eric Garcetti's lead in the Los Angeles mayor's race has narrowed to seven percentage points, but his strength among conservatives has blocked rival Wendy Greuel from securing a San Fernando Valley base that is vital to her chances, according to a new USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll. As the candidates and their partisans swarmed across the city in advance of Tuesday's runoff election, Garcetti, a city councilman from Silver Lake, held a 48% to 41% lead, the survey found. Voters in the Valley and every other key region of Los Angeles favored him over Greuel, the city controller.

TUCSON - Young people granted immigration relief and work permits under a new Obama administration program still won't be able to obtain driver's licenses in Arizona, a federal judge has ruled. Although the decision is a win for Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who issued the executive order denying driver's licenses to this particular group, it's just the first battle in a case that will probably be argued on constitutional grounds. U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell on Thursday turned down a request for a preliminary injunction blocking Brewer's order but stated that the plaintiffs - a contingent of immigrant rights groups - would probably prevail on their claim that the governor's order violates guarantees of equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.

WASHINGTON - The Senate gave strong bipartisan approval to landmark legislation that could largely lead to the end of the nation's decades-long Internet sales tax holiday. Now the issue shifts to the more skeptical, Republican-controlled House, where the debate will revolve around one fundamental question: Does helping governments collect an existing and owed tax constitute a tax increase? The Marketplace Fairness Act, approved 69-27 Monday by the Senate, gives states the authority to require larger online retailers with no physical presence in those states to collect sales taxes that residents already are obligated to pay. Many states, including California, are expected to jump at the chance to start collecting an estimated $23 billion in total sales tax revenue that is lost to online, catalog and other so-called remote sales each year.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown proclaimed last week that California, which now has enough cash to pay its day-to-day bills, can no longer be described by naysayers as a "failed state. " But even though it appears to be free of the deficit that dogged the Capitol in recent years, the state is no model of financial health. Sacramento is legally obligated to pay many billions of dollars withheld from schools, local governments and healthcare providers as lawmakers struggled repeatedly to balance the books.

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Wearing a 2010 vintage Marco Rubio campaign T-shirt and matching button, Cheryl Griffin spewed frustration that the man she helped win a long-shot conservative bid for Senate is now leading an immigration overhaul. An evening downpour was falling on this coastal town, less a city than a hodgepodge of new and old subdivisions. But the weather did not deter Griffin, a small, skeptical woman, or her husband, Mark, a friendly man twice her size with rain dripping from his straw cowboy hat. The Griffins, who came down from neighboring Fort Pierce, were protesting Rubio's appearance at the annual Republican Party dinner.

Just weeks before the national political conventions get underway, a crucial figure has yet to commit to the presidential race. Jason Sudeikis, who plays "Saturday Night Live's" Mitt Romney as a cheerfully button-down, out-of-touch, Ward Cleaver-like figure, said he has not yet decided whether to return to the sketch show when it resumes this fall. After nine years at "SNL" - the last few as the show's most valuable straight man - Sudeikis has been spending recent months focusing on his movie career.