Gray Davis

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, launching an overhaul of his administration, is poised to hire a former Democratic Party activist and high-ranking aide to Gray Davis as his new chief of staff, sources familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday. The hiring of Susan P.

The state Constitution gives governors the power to reduce and commute sentences, and to pardon prisoners. No one on death row has received clemency since 1967. Here are recent pardons: Arnold Schwarzenegger, 2003-present 3 -- Gray Davis, 1999-2003 0 -- Pete Wilson, 1991-1999 13 -- George Deukmejian, 1983-1991 328 -- Jerry Brown, 1975-1983 403 -- Ronald Reagan, 1967-1975 575

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a misty-eyed former Gov. Gray Davis unveiled the ousted chief executive's official portrait in the Capitol on Wednesday, and it was as if there had never been a recall. Davis was his old self: He delivered a campaign speech a little too long, touching on bond measures and bills passed long ago.

BACK IN 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger vilified Gov. Gray Davis as an incompetent tax-and-spend chief executive who needed to be booted from office. Everything that was wrong with California was laid at Davis' feet. The Republican Schwarzenegger won the recall election, and Democrat Davis suffered the ignominy of being the first California governor to be recalled from office.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce agreed to pay $496,958 to settle U.S. allegations it broke the law by underwriting municipal securities for the state of California after paying for campaign donations to former Gov. Gray Davis and five other politicians, regulators said Monday. CIBC World Markets Corp.

Four senior administration officials named to state jobs in the days before Gov. Gray Davis left office in November won quick bipartisan approval Wednesday from the Senate Rules Committee. The appointments now move to the full Senate for expected approval. Daniel Zingale, former Davis cabinet secretary, and Michael Bustamante, former deputy chief of staff, were confirmed as members of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, with annual salaries of $114,191.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is collecting money to promote his March 2 ballot measures at a clip of $121,313 a day -- far outpacing Gray Davis at the height of the former governor's fundraising. Schwarzenegger has raised $5.2 million since the start of the year, much of it in five- and six-figure chunks, to campaign for Proposition 57, a $15-billion bond issue that would allow the state to restructure its debt, and Proposition 58, to limit future debt.

On Feb. 28, 2003, facing intense pressure to squeeze concessions from California's Indian gaming tribes, then-Gov. Gray Davis invoked the state's one and only chance to force each of the 61 tribes to address environmental problems their casinos raise in surrounding communities. On Nov. 14, on his last day of work before being replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Davis quietly reversed himself and abandoned the negotiations he had opened almost nine months earlier.

The narrow figure walking in a night rain seemed to fade into the gloom, his black mackintosh and umbrella blending with the darkness. He paused with his wife at a street corner in Santa Monica. They would have to wade through ankle-deep puddles and trudge down an alley to a parking garage, where their Toyota Prius waited. They stepped slowly; they have little reason to rush these days.

A mid-level assistant to former Gov. Gray Davis was charged Tuesday with falsifying evidence in a nearly two-year investigation into a state $95-million no-bid software contract with Oracle Corp. Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer filed 12 felony counts against Kari Dohn, 40, in Superior Court, but said he had found no evidence of other alleged crimes and expected no one else, neither government officials nor Oracle Corp. executives, to be charged.