Capitol Alert: AM Alert: The Legislature returns from summer recess

Legislators are back in Sacramento today after a month-long summer recess they last took in 2006.

Both the Senate and the Assembly have set floor sessions for noon. Committee hearings are cranking up as well, with the Senate Appropriations Committee meeting at 10 a.m. in the Capitol's Room 4203 to work through a long agenda, including these measures:

• Assembly Bill 376, by Assemblyman Paul Fong, D-Cupertino, which would ban the sale, transfer or possession of shark fins. The proposal pits a Chinese cooking tradition against preservation of a creature deemed crucial to the ocean culture. The bill sailed through the Assembly on a 65-8 vote.

• Senate Bill X1 3, by Sen. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, which would create a Help Our State Fund allowing taxpayers to contribute voluntarily to the state's general fund.

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission, meanwhile, is scheduled to vote yea or nay on final maps for new Assembly, Senate, Board of Equalization and U.S. House districts. Commission members will hold a news conference after the vote. Their meeting starts at 9 a.m. in the Capitol's Room 4202. Click here for the agenda.

The California Republican Party chairman, Tom Del Beccaro, who's been ripping on the commission at least since March, sent a letter late Friday to its executive director complaining that at 4 p.m. the "enacting document" hadn't been posted on the commission's website.

CHILDREN'S HEALTH: Assemblyman Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, joins other pediatricians and families to highlight his Assembly Bill 301, which would extend the sunset date on the California Children's Services program to 2016. The news conference starts at 10 a.m. at The Effort Oak Park Community Health Center, 3415 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., in Sacramento.

PHOTO CREDIT: The California state Capitol in Sacramento, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2008. Michael Allen Jones / Sacramento Bee file photo