Editorials

The most sensible solution to the ocean and stream pollution caused by carry-out plastic bags would be to charge a small fee for them. People will do almost anything to avoid even a tiny levy - tote their own reusable bags, toss their loose groceries into the trunk. Unfortunately, none of the three bills in the Legislature to address the plastic bag problem would work that way. Consumers already pay for carry-out bags; they just don't realize it because the cost is rolled into the price of the goods they buy, creating the illusion that the bags are free.

Assembly Democrats may have hit on an ingenious way to make citizens take their jury summonses more seriously: Last week they passed a bill that would allow noncitizens to serve on juries. Suddenly, outraged commentators and bloggers who feared the loss of a key measure of citizenship were referring to "jury service" instead of "jury duty. " Although the news was generally reported accurately, some went overboard; at foxnews.com, for example, the headline said: "California bill would let illegal immigrants serve on juries.

The city officials who run Los Angeles International Airport have been trying for what seems like forever to move the north runway 260 feet closer to the boundary separating the airport from the community of Westchester. The move would put more space between the two main runways and allow pilots to use a central taxiway without risking collision. When the City Council takes up the matter this week, it should complete this chapter of the long, sorry saga of neighborhood versus airport and approve the north runway move.

California finds itself in an unaccustomed place these days: behind the curve. Another state, Rhode Island, and two more countries, France and New Zealand, were just added to the steadily growing list of places where same-sex marriage will receive full recognition and status. The roster now encompasses 14 nations and 10 states - as soon as the Rhode Island legislation is signed - as well as Washington, D.C. Missing from it is California. How could California, with its frontier live-and-let-live sensibility and a reputation for social progressiveness that verges on downright weirdness, have ended up in this situation?

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote next month on a bill that could require online retailers to collect sales taxes from customers in every state that imposes them. The measure has been bashed by opponents as a tax increase that would cripple small Web businesses. It's not, and it won't. Instead, the Marketplace Fairness Act would eliminate an outdated restriction that favors those who can shop online over those who can't or won't. That's reason enough for it to become law. For much of the last two decades, Internet retailers collected sales taxes only from customers in the states where they were headquartered or had employees.

On Monday, the Obama administration announced a new policy to provide legal help to mentally disabled immigrants awaiting deportation trials in federal detention centers. A day later, a federal judge in Los Angeles reached the same conclusion, ruling that the Department of Homeland Security is required to provide free legal assistance to immigrants in detention if they are not capable of representing themselves because of mental illness. Both decisions are welcome and could help bring more fairness to the system.

President Obama has followed a commendably restrained policy in refusing to intervene militarily in Syria's civil war. But if the U.S. confirms that the regime of President Bashar Assad has used chemical weapons, the president should adhere to his insistence last year that such conduct would be a "red line" justifying action by this country, alone or in concert with other nations. That doesn't mean the administration should accept uncritically suggestions by Israel, Britain and France that the regime has used chemical agents.

Bad news, apparently, for mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel: She has broad support from public employee unions in her race against Eric Garcetti. Let's run through that again. Greuel has the direct backing of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and the largest city civilian employee organization, the Service Employees International Union, Local 721, both of which can and do spend millions of dollars and mobilize thousands of members to support their candidates. She also has the backing of the union representing Department of Water and Power workers and of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents most city police officers.

As thoroughly awful as everyone knows cigarettes to be - still the No. 1 cause of premature death in this country - public officials walk a blurry line when they try to reduce smoking's terrible toll. As long as they lack the will to ban tobacco altogether, they face all sorts of ethical, legal and political problems in regulating a product that is, after all, perfectly legal. High tobacco taxes, critics say, unfairly punish smokers, who are disproportionately low income. Banning advertising of a legal product raises free-speech issues.

Nearly seven years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa launched a program to plant 1 million trees. Since then, the city has planted more than 400,000 trees - in fact, 407,000 and counting. So is the program a success or a failure? As Villaraigosa prepares to leave office, should we be thrilled to have 400,000 trees we otherwise wouldn't have had, or should we be disappointed that his campaign promise has gone less than half fulfilled? And here's another question: Should we care?