Politics

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke publicly for the first time Monday about the breakup of his 20-year marriage, saying he was responsible for the split even as he refused to talk about what caused it. In a somber meeting with reporters at City Hall, Villaraigosa declined to answer questions about whether the break with his wife, Corina, was triggered by another romantic relationship.

WASHINGTON - In a contentious climax Wednesday to a series of congressional hearings, Lois Lerner, a key IRS manager, invoked her right to not testify about the agency's targeting of conservative groups, igniting howls from Republicans and sparking a threat to bring her back for another round. Deprived of a crucial witness, members of Congress from both parties alternately grilled and scolded former Commissioner Douglas Shulman about the Internal Revenue Service's improper screening of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects. But Obama's choice of venue for his remarks - a Baltimore company that makes mining and pumping equipment - provided fodder for Republicans. They noted that the company president had, just the day before, testified on Capitol Hill in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration has delayed for years over environmental concerns.

In the campaign for mayor, Eric Garcetti spoke grandly about a city with plentiful summer jobs for low-income teens, a tunnel under the traffic-clogged Sepulveda Pass and even an end to homelessness. But a day after winning office, the mayor-elect faced some immediate and less lofty challenges: potentially bruising battles over employee salaries, police overtime pay and how to reverse cuts to ambulance staffing, sidewalk repairs and other basic city services. On Thursday, the City Council - a body that Garcetti will remain part of until June 30 - is set to decide whether and how to pay for a scheduled 5.5% raise for many city workers, a payout portrayed by the city's top financial advisor as a long-term budget buster.

It's strange how "scandal" gets defined these days in Washington. At the moment, everyone is screaming about the "scandal" of the Internal Revenue Service scrutinizing conservative nonprofits before granting them tax-exempt status. Here are the genuine scandals in this affair: Political organizations are being allowed to masquerade as charities to avoid taxes and keep their donors secret, and the IRS has allowed them to do this for years. The bottom line first: The IRS hasn't done nearly enough over the years to rein in the subversion of the tax law by political groups claiming a tax exemption that is not legally permitted for campaign activity.

WASHINGTON - President Obama forced out the head of the IRS on Wednesday, seeking to restore the public's faith in the tax agency while asserting a measure of control over a rapidly growing political problem. Making a hastily scheduled statement at the White House, Obama denounced the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service as "inexcusable" and pledged to "do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. " "Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," he said.

After a contest for mayor of Los Angeles that has consumed the better part of two years, the two finalists, their staffs, the media and a largely disinterested electorate doubtless would welcome an end to the drama Tuesday, election day. But the large number of Angelenos voting by mail, the apparent tightness of the race and the peculiarities of the City Clerk's ballot-counting procedures open the possibility that the winner might not be known for...

WASHINGTON - The federal deficit is shrinking more quickly than expected, and the government's long-term debt has largely stabilized for the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday in a report that could strengthen the Obama administration's hand in the budget battles with congressional Republicans. The budget office continues to say the federal government faces a long-range budget problem - mostly caused by the costs of an aging population - but its new forecast pushes the crunch point for that problem off into a considerably more distant future: well after the 2020 presidential election.

WASHINGTON - Republican opposition in many statehouses to expanding Medicaid next year under President Obama's healthcare law - opposition that could leave millions of the nation's poorest residents without insurance coverage - will likely widen the divide between the nation's healthiest and sickest states. With nearly every GOP-leaning state on track to reject an expansion of the government health plan for the poor, the healthcare law's goal of guaranteed insurance will become a reality next year mostly in traditionally liberal and moderate states.

WASHINGTON - The ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for the agency's "foolish mistakes" in singling out conservative groups for intrusive and time-consuming scrutiny, but said that the effort was not driven by partisan motives. Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, whose tenure will end Wednesday after he resigned under pressure this week, said the agency staff's attempts to identify groups with political aims was not "targeting," as it was termed in an inspector general's audit.

Los Angeles voters took regulation of the city's medical marijuana shops into their own hands Tuesday, embracing a ballot measure to sharply reduce the number of dispensaries in the city. But as in all things related to pot policy, the future of the new law is hazy. Under the measure, only 135 dispensaries - those that were operating before a failed moratorium in 2007 - will be allowed to stay open. But enforcement could prove a monumental challenge as backers of a rival measure threaten lawsuits and city lawyers begin the long process of identifying all of the city's dispensaries and bringing them into compliance.

SACRAMENTO - Democrats took another seat in the state Assembly this week, but a conservative Republican won a Central Valley state Senate district in an upset victory. The San Diego-area Assembly seat was a sure bet for Democrats - both candidates were from the majority party. Community organizer Lorena Gonzalez won a special election in that race with 72.3% of the vote, defeating small-business owner Steve Castaneda in the 80th Assembly District. To the north, in another special election, Republican farmer Andy Vidak of Hanford won a Senate seat, besting three Democrats and a candidate from the Peace and Freedom Party with about 52% of the vote.

Smart and capable, City Controller Wendy Greuel has been a high-profile public servant who believes in Los Angeles and has devoted much of her career to improving it. But boy, did she run a lousy campaign for mayor. Eric Garcetti's sizable win might retroactively give his victory a glow of inevitability. But in fact it was Greuel who held the early advantage. She entered the race earlier, she held citywide office, and she ran the table with establishment endorsements, from former Democratic President Bill Clinton to former Republican Mayor Richard Riordan.

Two newly elected members of the Los Angeles City Council are veteran Sacramento lawmakers whose campaigns got large boosts from special interest contributions. Former state Assemblyman Gil Cedillo and state Sen. Curren Price (D-Los Angeles) won election Tuesday, beating candidates with more local experience because of their jobs as City Council aides. Cedillo and Price could be joined on the council by a third statehouse veteran if former Assemblywoman Cindy Montañez wins a runoff election July 23 against school board member Nury Martinez.

SACRAMENTO - State Capitol politicians may have an extra $3.2 billion to play with. Or they may not. It depends on whose figures you believe: nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor's or contrarian Gov. Jerry Brown's. I tend to have more confidence in Taylor, suspecting that Brown may be lowballing it to be on the safe side so legislators won't try to overspend and plunge the state back into a deficit hole. That's noble. But it may not be looking at the world as it really is and making wise use of the revenue that taxpayers are generating.

Eric Garcetti held a narrow lead over Wendy Greuel late Tuesday as the two longtime city officials battled each other - and voter apathy - in the race to become the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles. With more than half the vote still uncounted, the contest remained too close to call. Greuel, addressing supporters at a downtown club, said she expected the election to go into "overtime. " Garcetti, speaking just before midnight, told supporters in Hollywood, "The results aren't all in, but this is shaping up to be a great night.

WASHINGTON - Steven Miller, the top enforcement official at the Internal Revenue Service, thought he might have trouble on his hands. Election season was well underway in March 2012 when tea party organizations started to complain angrily of IRS harassment over their requests for tax-exempt status. The media was looking into it. Congress had picked up the scent. Miller dispatched an advisor to Cincinnati, where a field office handles applications from nonprofits, to figure out what was up. What he learned would blow up into a crisis that would damage the agency's reputation and lead to his ouster last week.

The Senate Judiciary Committee amended the sweeping immigration bill Tuesday to tighten student visa rules in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. The committee, which is trying to get through the 844-page bill by the end of the week, also fended off changes that threatened to derail the delicate compromise reached by a bipartisan group of eight senators who drafted the legislation. The lengthy meeting of the committee unfolded as a core group of House Republicans turned up the volume against the immigration overhaul.

WASHINGTON - A sweeping bipartisan plan to overhaul the nation's immigration system headed to the Senate floor after a key committee approved it Tuesday, setting the stage for a debate next month that could lead to the biggest victory for advocates of immigrant rights in a generation. The centerpiece of the legislation - a 13-year path to citizenship for many of the 11 million people now in the country without legal status - survived intact. But the bill's supporters accepted amendments that tilted it to the right to attract GOP backing, including some to toughen border security.

WASHINGTON - During the 2010 campaign, Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat from Sherman Oaks, joked, "Every time I try to encourage the White House to do more to help us elect Democrats to the House of Representatives, I send them a picture of Darrell Issa with the word 'subpoena' underneath. " Issa, who has headed the House's top investigative committee since his party won control of the chamber in 2010, has lived up to Sherman's expectations. The Republican from Vista in San Diego County has become the Obama administration's chief antagonist in Congress.