California Legislature

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown was explaining why 43 members of the California Legislature were in Washington this week. Some were lobbying Congress to spend more money on state programs, he told reporters. Others were meeting with officials of the Bush Administration. And candidly, he added, "We even have some members looking at land use on the golf courses." 30-Year Tradition In keeping with a 30-year tradition, the San Francisco Democrat led the delegation of state lawmakers on a Washington journey of lobbying, sightseeing, wining and dining.

A bill in the California Legislature would open jury duty to noncitizen legal residents, a risky experiment in fundamental U.S. law. The Assembly last week passed a bill that immediately drew nationwide attention - for all the wrong reasons. There goes that wacky Golden State again! Assembly Bill 1401, which now goes to the state Senate, would allow noncitizens who are legal residents to serve on juries. If this becomes law, California will be the only state that opens its jury pool to noncitizens.

A bill in the California Legislature would open jury duty to noncitizen legal residents, a risky experiment in fundamental U.S. law. The Assembly last week passed a bill that immediately drew nationwide attention - for all the wrong reasons. There goes that wacky Golden State again! Assembly Bill 1401, which now goes to the state Senate, would allow noncitizens who are legal residents to serve on juries. If this becomes law, California will be the only state that opens its jury pool to noncitizens.

Silicon Valley has wielded its growing political clout at the state Capitol to kill a digital privacy bill that would have given consumers access to information about them being collected online. Had the Right to Know Act become law, California would have been the first state to take direct aim at an online industry that stockpiles and trades in a wide range of personal data about nearly every adult in the United States. In a major defeat for consumer groups and privacy watchdogs, AB 1291 will instead become a two-year bill, effectively putting it into a deep freeze until next year.

Silicon Valley has wielded its growing political clout at the state Capitol to kill a digital privacy bill that would have given consumers access to information about them being collected online. Had the Right to Know Act become law, California would have been the first state to take direct aim at an online industry that stockpiles and trades in a wide range of personal data about nearly every adult in the United States. In a major defeat for consumer groups and privacy watchdogs, AB 1291 will instead become a two-year bill, effectively putting it into a deep freeze until next year.

Re George Skelton's "Legislature Should Be Cut Back to Part Time," Aug. 4: As soon as we are finished with the Gov. Gray Davis recall, I hope we will get a ballot measure to return to a part-time Legislature. We had one of the best state governments in the country until the public was foolish enough to vote for a full-time one and then compounded the problem by voting for term limits. It is time for true representation and doing away with politicians only interested in raising money to get reelected.

SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers narrowly met a constitutional deadline to pass a state budget Friday, but their work is not finished as they continue a tug-of-war with Gov. Jerry Brown over just how deeply to cut social services in the $92.1-billion plan.  The budget — pushed through the Legislature by Democrats without a single Republican vote — makes fewer cuts to welfare and child care than the governor had sought and funds those programs through...

SACRAMENTO -- A national study on government transparency has given the California Legislature a D grade for failing to shine adequate sunlight on its operations. The Sunlight Foundation issued the Transparency Report Card  to show how well state legislative information is made available to the public online, judging states on factors including timeliness of information, searchability and permanence. California was downgraded, in part, for the lack of detail provided on committee actions that would help the public understand who voted for and against bills.

SACRAMENTO — The state Legislature on Thursday pulled an $11-billion water bond measure off the fall ballot, delaying it until 2014. Democratic lawmakers said that asking voters in November to approve new debt to improve the state's water system would jeopardize Gov. Jerry Brown's $8-billion tax measure, which voters will consider then. "We are faced with a tax levy in November," said Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis). "It would be disastrous to have [the borrowing] on the ballot.

SACRAMENTO - It's the end of an era for California's much-maligned Legislature, thankfully, and the beginning of a more promising future. The lawmakers' core problems - polarization, paralysis - have had less to do with the politicians themselves than the system in which they've been elected and been operating. That system effectively ceased Friday night when the gavel fell on the Legislature's two-year session. The new system - the product of voter-approved reforms - hopefully will produce more pragmatic, less ideological legislators committed to negotiating long-term fixes to California's problems.

Fearing lawmakers may fail to pass a package of medical reform bills, a coalition of consumer groups and trial lawyers is mounting a campaign to put before voters an even more ambitious slate of initiatives aimed at curbing prescription drug abuse and holding doctors more accountable for misconduct. About two dozen state and national advocacy groups - including the Consumer Attorneys of California, California Nurses Assn., the Center for Public Interest Law, and Public Citizen - have been organizing privately since December and plan to unveil the campaign at the state Capitol on Thursday.

A bill before the California Legislature would restrict the number of payday loans to any one borrower - an attempt to break the "debt cycle" that ensnares some of the state's poorest residents. Senate Bill 515 would bar the high-cost, short-term lenders from making more than six loans a year to any borrower. The bill, set to go before the Senate Banking and Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, also extends the minimum term of a payday loan to 30 days from 15. "We need to recognize that these low-income families are desperate to get by, and they are particularly vulnerable to this type of debt trap," said state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara)

A bill before the California Legislature to address soaring student loan debt would require high school students to take a personal finance class.  ALSO: Photo gallery: Ted Rall cartoons Stumbling into another Korean war Schwarzenegger: California's silent disaster Follow Ted Rall on Twitter @TedRall

Finally, there's legislation that proposes reasonable solutions to the tortuous procedure for firing the worst teachers in California. The teachers who routinely screen movies instead of giving instruction, who denigrate their students, ignore them, harass them or even physically abuse them - yet who can appeal the firing process for years, during which the schools still must pay their salaries. Several reform-oriented bills went overboard to fix this. Under one, teachers suspected of abusive behavior would have had no avenue to appeal their dismissal.

If it's spring break for the California Legislature, that means lawmakers are putting their passports to use. This week, 15 legislators are off on fact-finding trips to Poland and Taiwan paid for by outside groups. The trip to Eastern Europe is sponsored by the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy, which is bankrolled by groups lobbying the Legislature, including PG&E, Chevron, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Southern California Edison, among others.

SACRAMENTO -- For most politicians, earning the support of one in three voters would be a red flag. But for the California Legislature, it's a sign of improvement. Thirty percent of California voters said they approve of the job being done by state lawmakers, according to a new poll conducted for the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles Times. It's the Legislature's highest ranking in four years, and an increase from 18% in March 2010. David Horne, 58, of Los Angeles is one of the few that gave the Legislature high marks.

With stringent new campaign fund-raising limits on the horizon, moneyed special interests have teamed up with top Republicans and Democrats in a last binge of unfettered campaign giving concentrated on a handful of critically important legislative races. In contests for three pivotal Assembly seats alone, opposing candidates have raised about $5 million, more than $1 million of which was contributed in the past two weeks.

SACRAMENTO -- A national study on government transparency has given the California Legislature a D grade for failing to shine adequate sunlight on its operations. The Sunlight Foundation issued the Transparency Report Card  to show how well state legislative information is made available to the public online, judging states on factors including timeliness of information, searchability and permanence. California was downgraded, in part, for the lack of detail provided on committee actions that would help the public understand who voted for and against bills.

Paul Priolo remembers the last time Democrats enjoyed a supermajority in the state Assembly. He was the Republican leader. And his strategy was simple. "I socialized with Democrats," he says. "That was my key to getting along and overcoming the handicap of their having a supermajority…. They were the leaders and the ones you tried to get next to. "We'd fight during the day and go out to dinner together at night. But that's a thing of the past. " Yes, that's largely history.