State & Regional Govt & Politics Stories for November 2012
Stories for Wednesday, November 28
SF officials, same-sex couple anticipate Supreme Court ruling on Prop 8
The nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are scheduled to meet behind closed doors Friday to decide if they will consider the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, but local resident may not learn their decision until Monday. In one scenario, the justices could allow the decision by the Nine Circuit ...
Ex-treasurer to Dem politicians sentenced to 8 years
A former Democratic campaign treasurer was sentenced Wednesday to more than eight years in federal prison for defrauding high-profile clients including Senator Dianne Feinstein in a case that a judge said tampered with the electoral process. Kinde Durkee, who has been described by prosecutors as the Bernie Madoff of campaign ...
Stories for Tuesday, November 27
Governor opposes pay raise for UC Berkeley leader
Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom voted Tuesday against giving the new chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley a $50,000 pay raise over what his predecessor earns, saying salary increases for public officials are inappropriate given the state's bleak financial condition. The two politicians said during a ...
Stories for Sunday, November 25
Benefits fight brings lesbian couple to high court
Like a lot of newlyweds, Karen Golinski was eager to enjoy the financial fruits of marriage. Within weeks of her wedding, she applied to add her spouse to her employer-sponsored health care plan, a move that would save the couple thousands of dollars a year. Her ordinarily routine request still ...
Stories for Wednesday, November 21
Brown names top administration aide to judgeship
Gov. Jerry Brown has appointed one of his top aides to serve on a state appeals court. Jim Humes has been Brown's executive secretary for legal affairs, administration and policy since the Democratic governor took office last year. He functioned as one of the administration's two chiefs of staff. No ...
Stories for Monday, November 19
California sells out of first pollution permits
California sold out of the first pollution permits issued as part of a landmark offensive against greenhouse gases at an inaugural auction that regulators said Monday went smoothly. The effort to curtail carbon emissions involved the sale of 23.1 million permits -- each allowing for the release of one ton ...
Local egg producers sue again over cage law
California's landmark Proposition 2 said chickens in cages must be able to stand up and stretch their wings without touching cage walls. Whether that means one chicken at a time or a bunch at once is the impetus behind the third lawsuit filed by egg farmers since passage of the ...
Stories for Saturday, November 17
Cal prosecutors seek to jump start death penalty
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Robert Fairbank's appeal of his death sentence for the 1985 rape and murder of college student Wendy Cheek. With that rejection, Fairbank joined at least 13 other death row inmates who have completed the decades-long capital punishment appeals process and are eligible ...
Stories for Thursday, November 15
Physician ousts GOP Rep. Dan Lungren in Sacramento
Republican Rep. Dan Lungren lost his re-election bid to Democratic challenger Ami Bera on Thursday in one of California's most hotly contested congressional contests. Voters from the Sacramento suburbs ousted the veteran lawmaker in the race for the state's newly redrawn 7th Congressional District. This was the second attempt for ...
Stories for Wednesday, November 14
State health board OKs plan for insurance exchange
The board overseeing California's efforts to establish an insurance marketplace for providing affordable health care approved its operational blueprint Wednesday, an essential step toward meeting a key deadline under the federal health care reform law. The governor's office is expected to forward the plan to the Obama administration on Friday, ...
State debuts landmark program to cap emissions
California began auctioning permits Wednesday for greenhouse gas emissions, launching one of the world's most ambitious efforts to cut heat-trapping gases from industrial sources. The California Air Resources Board said it began selling the pollution "allowances" in a closed, online auction expected to create the world's second-largest marketplace for carbon ...
State budget deficit shrinks to $1.9B with taxes
California's nonpartisan budget analyst says the state now faces a much smaller deficit of $1.9 billion through the end of the next fiscal year and could even see surpluses after that. The Legislative Analyst's Office released a positive but cautious forecast Wednesday in the state's first budget assessment since Californians ...
Stories for Tuesday, November 13
State's bullet train route will be engineering feat
A bullet train linking Northern and Southern California will be an audacious engineering feat because the line must cross two mountain ranges and a half-dozen earthquake faults, experts said. Planners foresee the 141-mile segment from Bakersfield to Los Angeles running through vast tunnels, delving through the Tehachapi and San Gabriel ...
Stories for Monday, November 12
Brown: Feds should recognize states' sovereignty with marijuana laws
Governor Jerry Brown this weekend said the federal government needs to back off as states make their own laws when it comes to addressing the legalization of marijuana. Those were welcome words for people in the medical marijuana industry like employees at Oakland's Harborside Health Center, an East Bay dispensary ...
Stories for Sunday, November 11
Food labels multiply, some confuse consumers
Want to avoid pesticides and antibiotics in your produce, meat, and dairy foods? Prefer to pay more to make sure farm animals were treated humanely, farmworkers got their lunch breaks, bees or birds were protected by the farmer and that ranchers didn't kill predators? Food labels claim to certify a ...
Young voters turned the tide for Brown's Prop 30
Gov. Jerry Brown secured a convincing win for his tax initiative on last week's ballot, thanks partly to voters who might not seem like a natural constituency for the 74-year-old, lifelong politician — young voters. Those under 30 helped Brown win relatively easy passage for his Proposition 30, which will ...
Stories for Saturday, November 10
GOP showing in Calif. worries party strategists
If the future happens first in California, the Republican Party has a problem. The nation's most populous state — home to 1 in 8 Americans — has entered a period of Democratic political control so far-reaching that the dwindling number of Republicans in the Legislature are in danger of becoming ...
GOP Rep. Bono Mack loses congressional seat
Longtime Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack lost her seat Friday to Democrat Raul Ruiz, a Harvard-educated physician who mobilized the district's growing swath of Hispanic voters. Democratic candidates also extended their leads in the state's two remaining unresolved U.S. House races, in San Diego and Sacramento, but those contests remained ...
Boies predicts SCOTUS will overturn Prop 8 by greater than 5-4 vote
David Boies, a lawyer for two couples challenging California's Proposition 8, predicted in San Francisco Friday that the US Supreme Court will take up the case and will eventually rule in his clients' favor by a greater than 5-4 majority. "I believe we will get more than five votes," said ...
Stories for Thursday, November 8
With Prop 30 win, Brown takes next step in pledge
California Gov. Jerry Brown took a big step toward delivering on a campaign promise he made two years ago to fix the state's perpetual budget deficits and to raise taxes to do it only if voters agreed. Brown said voters put their trust in his plan during Tuesday's election by ...
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