Jerry Brown

Abel Maldonado, in his first public move since announcing that he was considering a run for governor, on Wednesday attacked Gov. Jerry Brown's prison policy, arguing that Brown has made Californians unsafe by allowing certain criminals serve their sentences in county jails instead of state prison. Maldonado, the state's former lieutenant governor, will announce Wednesday morning that he is spearheading an effort to put an initiative on the 2014 ballot that would roll back a 2011 bill - AB 109, known as “public-safety realignment” -- which was designed to reduce overcrowding in state prisons.

SACRAMENTO -- For nearly six years, California finances were so weak that officials needed to constantly shuffle money between state accounts to ensure there was enough cash to pay bills on time. They would take money out of one fund, use it to cover costs and promise to pay it back later. But California has finally broken that cycle, the state controller's office announced  on Wednesday. April was the first month since around the time the recession started that officials did not need internal borrowing to pay the bills.

Conceding there is a "pretty good shot" he'll run for governor, Abel Maldonado on Wednesday kicked off a ballot drive that targets Gov. Jerry Brown's handling of prison crowding, labeling it the thing Brown's administration has worked hard to avoid: "early release. " "Today willl be the beginning [of the] end of early release," Maldonado declared at a news conference staged on the windy rooftop of a Sacramento parking garage, the state Capitol framed behind him. The former lieutenant governor is chairing a signature-gathering drive to put an initiative on the 2014 ballot that would roll back Brown's prison realignment plan, AB109.

SACRAMENTO - Responding to complaints from businesses, Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing an overhaul of California's 26-year-old landmark clean water and anti-toxins law that he said is being misused by "unscrupulous lawyers" filing lawsuits. At issue is the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, or Proposition 65, approved by voters in 1986. It requires product manufacturers, retailers and property owners to post signs warning the public if goods or premises contain chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer or birth defects.

Gov. Jerry Brown said on Tuesday that it was too early to be overly concerned about the safety of the new Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge scheduled to open later this year, and affirmed his confidence in the state's experts who are analyzing the bridge's safety. “Professional engineers are looking at this thing and when they're ready to give us their report, I think the public will be satisfied,” Brown told reporters in West Sacramento outside a memorial for fallen Highway Patrol officers.

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown put the state's early wildfire season in global terms Monday, saying the state would have to grow accustomed to more forest fires as a consequence of climate change. Brown's remarks at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's aviation management unit in Sacramento came as firefighters in Ventura County said they expected to have the 28,000-acre Springs fire fully contained by Tuesday. State firefighters have responded to about twice the average number of wildfires so far this year - more than 1,100 in all. “Our climate is changing, the weather is becoming more intense,” Brown said in an airplane hangar filled with trucks, airplanes and helicopters used by the state to fight fires.

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.

Gov. Jerry Brown's new proposal to ease prison crowding, which falls short of court-ordered population limits, would: • Move 1,722 inmates to housing now being built • Lease 1,600 beds in county jails • Send 1,300 inmates to state fire camps • Free 650 inmates who are elderly, frail or earn credit for good conduct. • Also, the governor would move 1,200 inmates to space being negotiated with various public and private entities. Source: U.S. District Court filings, Los Angeles Times reporting

SACRAMENTO -- Jeffrey Beard, secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the court-ordered plan filed by the Brown administration Thursday night to reduce prison crowding would force the state to take measures he and other officials do not support while still failing to meet the population cap demanded by federal judges. "The plan is ugly,” Beard said of the proposal filed late Thursday night, after Gov. Jerry Brown and other administration officials were threatened with contempt for not doing enough to reduce crowding.

Within 24 hours of giving federal judges a plan to further reduce prison crowding, Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday appealed for relief from court orders over prison conditions. The governor asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overrule U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton's orders leading up to and including denying the state's bid to end oversight of mental healthcare delivered to about 33,000 inmates. The appeal was expected. Brown has said he intends to challenge federal oversight of the state's prisons all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court , the same body that two years ago deemed time in California prisons akin to cruel and unusual punishment.