California Legislature

The award for the most cynical, mendacious, Orwellian campaign of the state election season goes to the opponents of Proposition 11, the redistricting reform initiative. Prop. 11 would strip away the Legislature's power to draw its own districts, which means the authority for lawmakers to select their own voters. It's a blatant conflict of interest. The once-a-decade chore would be turned over to a 14-member independent citizens commission.

The last time the Legislature drew California's voting districts, only a handful of people knew the unmarked offices where the mapmakers toiled. Why the secrecy? To separate those who were drawing the lines from fellow lawmakers' pleas to have a childhood home or a favorite parish included in their new district -- or to exclude the home of a potential challenger.

There they go again -- the governor and Legislature, standing by gawking as the state begins to roll off a cliff. No sign of the governor calling the Legislature into a special session to halt another runaway deficit, the latest projected initially at $3 billion for the current fiscal year.

California Democrats appear poised to expand their control of the Legislature, which could alter the dynamics of the next budget battle, already predicted for next year. Between Sept. 5 and Oct. 15, Democrats registered 215,000 voters, almost twice as many as Republicans, according to county voter registration data. In several Assembly districts held by Republicans, Democrats have nearly closed the gap or even surpassed Republican registration. Democratic gains of even a couple of seats on Nov.

Democratic hopes of ending budget gridlock in Sacramento by winning a super majority in the state Legislature fell short Wednesday even though their presidential candidate, Barack Obama, took more than 60% of California's vote. With some votes still uncounted, the party appears to have gained two seats in the Assembly. It needed six to reach the two-thirds majority required to pass a state spending plan.

Amid accusations that it would give comfort to America's enemies, the California Senate approved a resolution Tuesday calling for a halt to boosting the number of troops in Iraq or spending any more taxpayer dollars on the war without explicit approval from Congress. The resolution was introduced by state Sen. Carole Midgen (D-San Francisco). She said she would amend the resolution, approved 22 to 14, before it reached the state Assembly to include a stronger message of support for the troops.

Special interests with close ties to lawmakers launched a ballot initiative Thursday that would allow current legislators to stay in office up to six years longer than term limits now permit. The proposed measure, which was filed Thursday with the state attorney general, would do what the Legislature's leaders have advocated with increasing urgency as their 2008 ousters approach: Cut the number of years a lawmaker can hold office from 14 to 12, but allow them to be served in one house.

As the 2007 Legislature dives into another session of lawmaking, business lobbyists are on alert. They have new lawmakers to meet, of course, along with new committee chairs to brief, new legislation to push and bills to kill. But this year, California businesses have another challenge: an activist second-term governor with an ambitious -- some call it overextended -- agenda. Gov.

Five lawmakers with state mental hospitals in their districts called on the Legislature's budget chairs Tuesday to address an accelerating staffing shortage at the institutions, calling it "a crisis of meltdown proportions." The urgently worded letter came in the wake of a Times report that two Atascadero State Hospital patients had killed themselves and four others had attempted suicide since early February -- an alarming increase that some have tied directly to the staffing shortage.

The Legislature on Thursday passed a sweeping spending package to ease overcrowding in California prisons but did not tackle several problems that experts say are driving the long-running crisis. While lawmakers celebrated their vote to add 53,000 beds to the state corrections system and boost rehabilitation for inmates, critics beyond the Capitol worried that other ideas left out of the $7.4-billion deal might be sidelined for good.