California Senate

The accounting practices of the nation's five largest music corporations will come under scrutiny during a July 23 hearing by the California Senate. State legislators are reviewing the contracts of recording artists and intend to probe allegations by music acts that record firms consistently cheat them out of royalty payments. The hearing was announced Tuesday by Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Whittier), chairwoman of the Judiciary Committee, and Sen.

The California Senate passed a bill this week that would prevent the state from seizing and reselling cars that repeatedly fail to pass the new Smog Check program. A 27-7 vote Thursday sent the bill by Assemblyman Larry Bowler (R-Sacramento) back to the Assembly for a vote on Senate amendments. Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco) said the state has yet to impound a single car under "Smog Check II." "It's been used as a red herring by critics," Kopp said of the provision.

SACRAMENTO -- California lawmakers will hold an oversight hearing next week to probe draft regulations for hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," the controversial drilling process driving the nation's oil and gas boom. Last year, oil regulators proposed rules that would for the first time require energy companies to disclose  the chemicals they inject deep into the ground to break apart rock and release oil. Lawmakers, however, have seized on a provision in the draft regulations that would allow oil companies to withhold disclosure of chemicals they claim to be proprietary.

SACRAMENTO -- The defeat of Rep. Howard Berman last fall marked the end of an era in California politics. Berman, a former state Assemblyman who lost a bitter fight for the speakership in 1980, went on to serve the San Fernando Valley for three decades in Congress. During that time, he and fellow Rep. Henry Waxman built a network of political allies that came to be known as the Waxman-Berman machine. The National Journal's Shane Goldmacher takes a look at the powerful political alliance and this history of the two men's friendship.

Kenneth Khachigian, while agonizing Nov. 8 over the defeat of his favorite candidates, bemoans the use of negative ads, in particular the ones used by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer's campaign. He alerts the GOP, "In the future, you must be equally relentless in portraying your opponents. . . . " One might deduce from his remarks that the GOP has been devoid of dirty politics. What dream world is he in? Does he not remember the dirty tricks of Watergate, or the "Willie Horton" ads used against Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988?

I wonder if Gov. George Deukmejian and the California Republican hierarchy have thought through the potential consequences of their efforts to eliminate all Democratic justices from the California Supreme Court. Have they forgotten that there are more Democrats than Republicans in California, and that the California Senate and Assembly are controlled by Democrats? If their current efforts should be successful, I would guess that the Democratic hierarchy would retaliate in numerous ways.

Sen. Rebecca Q. Morgan of Los Altos, a moderate Republican and one of six women in the California Senate, announced her surprise mid-term resignation Thursday to join a nonprofit Silicon Valley group. Morgan, who was reelected last year to a third term, said she will leave the Senate on Aug. 17, a move timed to enable Gov. Pete Wilson to call an election to fill the vacancy Nov. 2, which coincides with a statewide special election.