Governors

Re "School posts may be tough to fill," June 11 Regarding the search to replace three chancellors of public colleges and universities, The Times quotes Scott Himelstein, president of the community colleges Board of Governors, as saying, "I think the governor and Legislature are very clear in not wanting to consider any raises in executive compensation. " It's a great sentiment but I have zero confidence that it will happen. There will be extensive national searches, and when the final candidates are selected, the public statements will say that the salaries offered were justified and necessary to attract the best person for each of these exceedingly difficult and complex positions.

SACRAMENTO - It seemed like a fairly good idea at the time - the idea of Abel Maldonado running for governor. He wasn't going to win. But neither would he be a Republican embarrassment. There was no Republican in sight with even a faint chance of beating Gov. Jerry Brown next year. Amend that. There was no credible challenger preparing to take on the Democratic incumbent, period. The moderate Maldonado, 45, from Santa Maria - a former mayor, legislator and lieutenant governor - seemed credible.

SACRAMENTO -- Six governors, including those in Pennsylvania and Michigan, were paid more last year in annual salary than California Gov. Jerry Brown, but his state's Legislature receives the highest base pay in the nation, according to a survey released Monday by a state panel. The survey results will be used by the California Citizens Compensation Commission when it meets Thursday to begin deliberating on whether to grant pay raises to Gov. Brown, lawmakers and other California officials.

SACRAMENTO - California's financial picture is much brighter than Gov. Jerry Brown suggested in his latest spending plan, according to the Legislature's top budget advisor, who said the state will have $3.2 billion more at its disposal than the governor estimated. Improvements on Wall Street and in the state's housing market will mean about $4.4 billion in extra cash through the next budget year, rather than the $1.2 billion the governor has projected, nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor said in a report Friday.

* Designates incumbent DELAWARE (100%) *--* Party Candidate Vote D Thomas Carper* 69 R Janet Rzewnicki 31 *--* INDIANA (99%) *--* Party Candidate Vote D Frank O'Bannon 51 R Stephen Goldsmith 47 *--* MISSOURI (100%) *--* Party Candidate Vote D Mel Carnahan* 57 R Margaret Kelly 40 *--* MONTANA (99%) *--* Party Candidate Vote D Judy Jacobson 20 R Marc Racicot* 80 *--* NEW HAMPSHIRE (100%) *--* Party Candidate Vote D Jeanne Shaheen 57 R Ovide Lamontagne 40 *--* NORTH CAROLINA (100%) *--* Party

WASHINGTON - Some of the nation's most prominent Republican governors have moved to embrace a key feature of President Obama's healthcare law, providing a significant boost to the administration and highlighting a fissure inside the GOP on an emerging campaign issue. At stake is the goal of expanding health insurance under the Medicaid program, one of two main ways the law is to provide coverage to those who lack it. Starting in 2014, the law broadens Medicaid to cover people who earn up to about $15,500 a year, but under last year's Supreme Court decision upholding the law's constitutionality, states have the option of rejecting the expansion and the federal money that comes with it. Opponents wanted to unite all Republican governors against participating in the Medicaid expansion; they have lined up 15, including Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences announced Wednesday that screenwriter Robin Swicord ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") has been elected to the board of governors, representing the writers branch. She fills the seat vacated by Frank Pierson, who died in July. Swicord joins fellow writers branch governors  Bill Condon and Phil Robinson. She will remain on the board until the next election, scheduled for July 2013. Swicord earned an Oscar nomination in the adapted screenplay category for her work on "Benjamin Button.

Virginia boasts being one of the nation's top battlegrounds for both the presidency and the U.S. Senate, with two of the commonwealth's top political figures butting heads on the ballot. The Senate clash between Republican George Allen and his Democratic opponent, Tim Kaine, brings not only the careers of two former governors to bear against each other but also a wave of outside money. The race was expected to be close. FULL COVERAGE: Election 2012

Governors across the country have received letters from a quasi-religious, anti-government group ordering them to step down from office in three days, in what the group's website said was the first step to disband parts of the U.S. government. Homeland Security Department and FBI officials said Friday that there didn't appear to be an immediate threat, and they were investigating whether the message could be considered dangerous. The Guardians of the Free Republics describes its plan as a nonviolent and legal attempt to "restore the true Republic."

The race to be the next governor of New York became a two-man heat Monday. In one of those the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend moments, Rick Lazio, a former congressman from Long Island, took himself out of the running in order to give "tea party" favorite Carl Paladino a better shot at beating their Democratic rival, state Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo. This month, Lazio lost badly to Paladino for the Republican nomination, yet kept his name on the ballot for the November election as the Conservative Party candidate.

SACRAMENTO - The graduation rates of UC students came under more scrutiny Wednesday as Gov. Jerry Brown urged administrators and faculty to prod more undergraduates to earn a degree in four years, not six. Brown recently proposed giving UC and Cal State more funds if they increase their graduation rates by 10% by 2017. UC leaders have said that is an admirable but unreasonable goal and that such issues as students' outside employment and their desire to take double majors slow them down.

SACRAMENTO - Dynamics have shifted dramatically in California's Capitol since Gov. Jerry Brown returned two years ago - both fiscal and political dynamics. The two are intertwined. And Brown is the beneficiary. In short, because the state's fiscal health is being restored - in no small part because of Brown - he is in a much stronger position to deal with the Legislature. Essentially, the governor now needs the Legislature much less than it needs him. Brown referred to this ground-shifting in a comment toward the end of his budget news conference Tuesday.

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.

SACRAMENTO - With California's deficit wiped out and its economy starting to hum, this was to be a year when Gov. Jerry Brown was free of the budget logjams that have paralyzed the Capitol. But instead, the governor has a fight on his hands - with his fellow Democrats. He is on a collision course with them over how to reshape the state's sprawling, complicated healthcare system to conform with President Obama's national overhaul. The sticking points in extending public healthcare to more Californians include how many to add to state insurance rolls, how much to pay doctors and hospitals, and how much money to give counties for their care of the indigent.

WASHINGTON - Two years after Mark Sanford left the South Carolina governor's office tarred by an adultery scandal, he has completed an unlikely political comeback to win a special congressional election, holding the seat for Republicans. Sanford defeated Democratic neophyte Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of the late-night satirist Stephen Colbert, in the Republican-leaning 1st Congressional District on Tuesday. He reclaims a House seat he once held for three terms. The bitter race had been expected to be tight, but the Associated Press called it just 90 minutes after the polls closed.

Under threat of contempt of court, Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled a plan to ease prison crowding by releasing certain inmates early, sending others to county jails and relocating some to state fire camps -- but added that he doesn't support it. Although the plan would remove thousands of inmates from California's packed prisons, it would not meet court requirements to lower the population by more than 9,000. The jurists could order more inmates freed if they find the governor's plan unacceptable.

The Democratic gubernatorial primary in Illinois is a tossup between Gov. Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes as controversy over an inmate early-release program and an imploding state budget has cut into Quinn's once-sizable advantage, a Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll has found. On the Republican side, three candidates also are in a close battle ahead of the Feb. 2 primary. Former state GOP Chairman Andy McKenna, former Illinois Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan and state Sen. Kirk Dillard lead the field, but none had reached 20%, according to the new poll.

CHARLESTON, S.C. - At a harborside reception overlooking Ft. Sumter, where the Civil War began, Mark Sanford batted away a TV reporter's question about the latest insult to his comeback campaign: an unwanted endorsement from pornographer Larry Flynt. Hours earlier, the former governor had been asked about a billboard message on a South Carolina interstate from a marital infidelity website. Under a blowup of a grinning Sanford, the site advised him to use its online service to find his next "running mate.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown's office late Thursday produced a court-ordered plan to reduce prison crowding that includes the early release of thousands of inmates and the relocation of some prisoners to private lockups or state fire camps, among other measures. FOR THE RECORD: Prison plan: An article in the May 3 LATExtra section said that Gov. Jerry Brown's office produced a plan to reduce prison crowding by releasing thousands of inmates early. In fact, the plan proposes releasing hundreds, not thousands, of inmates.