Capitol Alert

The state's political watchdog arm warned Fish and Game Commission head Dan Richards that his guided mountain lion hunt in Idaho violated the state's gift laws, but it closed the case today without a penalty.

In a letter, the Fair Political Practices Commission said it decided to end its review with a warning because Richards recently paid the Flying B Ranch $6,812.50 for the hunting trip, albeit after the 30-day period prescribed in the state's Political Reform Act. The law limits gifts for certain public officials at $420 a year from any one donor.

Richards drew attention in February after the trip when a photo cropped up online depicting him holding a dead mountain lion. Killing a mountain lion is illegal in California, but legal in Idaho. Forty Assembly Democrats signed a letter calling for his resignation, but Richards refused to step down and defended his out-of-state actions as perfectly legal.

Former California Democratic Party head Kathy Bowler, who was copied on today's FPPC letter, filed the initial complaint with the state agency.

"Your actions violated the Act because you received a gift over the limit," wrote FPPC enforcement chief Gary S. Winuk. "However, because you did repay the donor relatively soon after receipt of the gift, although after the 30-day window for repayment prescribed by the Act, we have decided to close the case."

Winuk added that future violations by Richards would result in penalties up to $5,000 per violation.

Richards' attorney, Stephen Larson, said the commissioner paid for the hunting trip on March 5.

"We don't believe technically it was a gift, but be that as it may, we're happy to have this resolved," Larson said.

Editor's Note: This post has been updated to correct the amount Richards paid for the trip, due to incorrect information initially provided by the FPPC. Updated at 3:36 p.m. April 12, 2012. Also updated at 5:50 p.m. to include comments from Richards' attorney.

An email sent to a Bay Area newspaper purportedly by Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer alleges that her husband, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, provided her with drugs that led to her eventual downward spiral into addiction and sex scandal.

The Bay Area News Group's report includes a denial from Nadia Lockyer, who said her email account was hacked by former lover Steven Chikhani, and by Bill Lockyer's spokesman.

Read the full report here.

This year's California Roast will be no laughing matter for Capitol denizens in need of a chuckle.

That's because the California Center for Civic Participation's much-anticipated fund-raising dinner, known for delivering raunchy lines and lots of laughs, couldn't nail down a politician willing to take the heat. The center announced in a letter sent to supporters this week that it has postponed until 2013 what was set to be the 30th annual roast.

"We tried so hard and we just couldn't make it happen," Belen Flores, the center's executive assistant, said in an interview.

Flores said organizers extended invitations to multiple prominent politicians they wanted to be the "honoree" -- including Gov. Jerry Brown, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Kamala Harris -- but all had scheduling conflicts or declined for other reasons.

While Brown is among the politicians who will avoid the hot seat this spring, the now 74-year-old governor didn't escape the comedic crossfire last year.

"In his first race he ran against the original Tea Party.... No one's asking to see this governor's birth certificate because they're worried it would crumble if it was exposed to air," Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Woodland Hills, cracked at the time about the governor's senior status.

The stage has been shared by some of the state's top political names in recent years, including Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez . Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger got in on the action in 2010, exchanging jabs with Pérez and other politicians on hand for the festivities.

The roast, which attracts high-profile sponsors and hundreds of guests each year, is a major fundraising source for the center, which runs civic engagement and policy programs for the state's youth. Flores said while several grants, including one from The California Endowment, have allowed the center to "move things around and budget" for the coming year, the group is still seeking donations and sponsorships to make up for the revenue lost by postponing the roast.

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PHOTO CREDIT: Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, feels the hair of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, as he makes fun of his hairstyle as Steinberg was roasted at the annual California Roast on Tuesday, June 1, 2010 in Sacramento. The Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua

The Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau Thursday proposed a 4.1 percent overall increase in employer-paid premiums for insurance to cover work-related injuries and illnesses, thus adding another element to the Capitol's looming battle over the multi-billion-dollar program.

The "pure premium rate" proposal would raise average costs from $2.41 per $100 of payroll to $2.51, and is markedly smaller than increases proposed by the private agency in years past.

It's contained in a letter to Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, who will hold hearings on the issue before making his own recommendation. Insurers, however, are free to set their own rates.

Employers' workers' compensation premiums dropped sharply after the Legislature, under pressure from then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, enacted sweeping benefit and medical care reforms in 2004, but insurers have complained in recent years about rising costs, saying they were eroding profitability.

Schwarzenegger and Jones' predecessor, Steve Poizner, opposed the WCIRB's premium increase proposals, backing employers' contentions that they would retard economic recovery.

More recently, labor unions and attorneys who represent injured workers have been pressing the Legislature to undo some of the Schwarzenegger reforms, saying they are too harsh and deny legitimate compensation to disabled workers.

An experimental online poll of California voters by the University of Southern California's Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences has found strong support for Gov. Jerry Brown's tax increase ballot measure - almost identifical, in fact, to a simultaneous telephone poll.

The USC/Dornsife telephone poll last month found that 64 percent of the respondents supported Brown's package of sales and income taxes with 33 percent opposed. The online poll found a 63 percent-30 percent split.

Both surveys were based on a capsule description of Brown's plan. The online poll also tested the official ballot summary of Brown's plan and found 60 percent in support and 30 percent opposed.

Both polls found scant support for a rival income tax measure sponsored by civil rights attorney Molly Munger and the PTA. It was 32 percent in the telephone poll and 24 percent in the online survey.

Dan Schnur, the poll's director, said the online survey was an experiment to test methodology and ask more in-depth questions than the phone version asked. Other questions in the online poll dealt with President Barack Obama's approval rating, online privacy issues and Internet piracy.

California's budget process is in a holding pattern until Gov. Jerry Brown issues his revised plan next month, which depends largely on how much tax money the state receives in April.

With that in mind, Capitol insiders are watching personal income tax returns each day on Controller John Chiang's daily tracker. So far, the pace seems to be about the same as last year, when the state took in just over $7 billion for the month. As of April 11 last year, the state had received a hair over $1 billion; this year, the state has taken in $1.27 billion.

It remains too early in the month to determine a pattern, considering the bulk of revenues typically flow late in April, and especially so this year with a later-than-usual filing deadline.

A few things bear noting:

-- State income tax rates fell in 2011, which means that taxpayers had to generate more income in 2011, as well as earn more now in 2012, just to hit the same $7 billion revenue target as last April.

-- Brown is counting on $9.1 billion, according to Chiang. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office says Brown is counting on $9.4 billion under a different cash measurement.

-- That means Brown is projecting that the state will receive more than $2 billion above last year's April total. The governor has assumed that taxpayers saw a lot more capital gains in 2011 than in 2010.

-- The Analyst's Office has a more conservative view of revenues. Jason Sisney, the Analyst's chief forecaster, says his prediction was for roughly the same $7 billion the state received last year, which accounts for modest growth.

It's worth noting that Brown's May budget will assume a new tax initiative that he believes would raise an additional $2 billion through June 2013 (albeit using the same optimistic capital gains model). We'd also expect to see some reference explicitly or implicitly to Facebook's stock offering in the governor's May revenue section.

But it's clear that Brown's forecast has set a very high bar for income tax returns this month, considering it represents significant income tax growth year over year in a period when income tax rates were actually lower.

The use of the "R word" could soon be expelled from California laws.

The California Senate today unanimously approved a bill today that would strip the phrase "mentally retarded" from existing statutes, replacing that and related terms with "intellectual disability."

"Words do matter and the 'R word' is outdated and offensive to people with intellectual disabilities and their families," bill author Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, said today.

Pavley's office said it is difficult to track how many times the language is used in state code because it comes up in many contexts, including provisions related to education, social services and criminal justice. To avoid added costs, the changes dictated by the bill would be made as part of routine review or revisions to code. The federal government adopted a similar change in 2010.

Senate Bill 1381, which does not affect state services for people with such disabilities, now heads to the Assembly for consideration.

One of the Capitol's spring rituals is publication of a list of "job killer" bills by the state Chamber of Commerce.

The newest list was published this week, 23 bills that the chamber and other business groups say will discourage investment and hiring by private employers. And not surprisingly, every one of the targeted measures is carried by a Democrat, including the majority party's two leaders, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

Pérez's Assembly Bill 1532 is one of four on the list that would tap into revenues from the state's new "cap-and-trade" program of marketing carbon emissions, which the chamber calls an "illegal tax increase."

Steinberg's Senate Bill 1528, meanwhile, is sponsored by personal injury attorneys to overturn a state Supreme Court decision limiting recovery of medical costs in liability lawsuits.

Other measures on the list deal with regulatory costs, fuel price increases and workplace mandates.

Publication of the list, history indicates, is more than a rhetorical exercise. In past years, despite Democrats' control of the Legislature and their close ties to labor unions, environmental groups, attorneys and other sponsors of the bills, few of those labeled as "job killers" have reached the governor's desk and most of those that do are vetoed.

Last year, just five of 30 job-killers reached Gov. Jerry Brown's desk, and he vetoed four of them.

Although its economy was stagnant and its state budget was imbalanced, California saw one of the nation's sharpest increases in state tax revenues during the 2010-11 fiscal year, according to a new Census Bureau report.

California's 11.3 percent increase to $116.7 billion over the previous fiscal year was the sixth highest jump among the states. North Dakota (44.5 percent) and Alaska (22.4 percent) -- topped the list, likely because of increases in oil prices,. Oil severance taxes accounted for nearly half of North Dakota's state revenues and more than three-quarters of Alaska's.

California's increase, meanwhile, appears to have come mostly from some temporary sales and income taxes increases that were enacted in 2009 but since have expired. Gov. Jerry Brown is now proposing to restore those revenues with a plan on the November ballot to raise the sales tax by a quarter cent and increase income taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year.

The Census Bureau report covers all tax collections, regardless of source or destination, including vehicle and fuel taxes. Nearly half of the state's revenues -- $60.1 billion -- came from personal and corporate income taxes while sales taxes generated another $45.1 billion.

Editor's Note: This post has been updated to reflect corrected numbers for California provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. Updated 2:54 p.m., April 17, 2012.

With just weeks left to gather the signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot, civil rights attorney Molly Munger has poured another $2.15 million into her proposal to raise income taxes to fund schools.

Munger, president of The Advancement Project, is the sole financier of the "Our Children, Our Future Measure." The proposal would raise taxes on a sliding scale for almost all California earners, routing the revenues directly to school districts and early childhood development programs.

Supporters of Gov. Jerry Brown's rival tax measure, which would temporarily raise income taxes on high earners and increase the state sales tax by a quarter percent, have tried to persuade Munger to drop her measure to avoid confusion and mixed messaging that could arise with more than one tax hike in front of voters in November.

The Munger camp must collect roughly 504,000 valid voter signatures by to make it on the ballot. They likely need to submit those petitions signatures to elections officials by mid-May to be certified in time for the 2012 election.

The latest contributions were reported Wednesday in a campaign filing on the secretary of state website.

Nathan Ballard, the spokesman for the effort, said the latest investment "shows that we are serious about getting this measure on the ballot."

"The signature gathering is on track," he said. "We are meeting our goals every week."

Editor's note: This post was updated at 11:20 a.m. with a comment from Ballard.

PHOTO CREDIT: Molly Munger talks to reporters about her proposed ballot initiative on Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. Associated Press/Rich Pedroncelli

The Federal Election Commission on Thursday raised sharp questions but came to no firm conclusion over Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's bid for greater fundraising leeway in the wake of embezzlement by her former campaign treasurer.

The punt will give the FEC more time to consider whether California politicians ripped off by former treasurer Kinde Durkee can solicit additional funds from individuals who have already reached their contribution limit.

"We're all sympathetic to your client," FEC commissioner Ellen Weintraub told Feinstein's attorneys Thursday morning, "but it's still a hard question."

Though the commission's legal staff had recommended rejecting Feinstein's request, the commissioners during a two-hour hearing indicated they thought it was a close call. Several voiced concern over the potential "implications" for other campaigns of granting Feinstein's fundraising request.

"We have to do some special thinking," Commissioner Steven Walther said. "We're in a tight spot, and we need to think this one out."

VIDEO: Dan Walters says more municipal bankruptcies may be coming for other California cities.

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See other Dan Walters Daily clips here.

Read Dan Walters' columns here.

Dan Walters, in today's video report, looks at the possibility that more California cities will file for bankruptcy.

Both the Senate and the Assembly have set floor sessions for 9 a.m., after which committees take up subjects ranging from wine grapes to Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposals for K-12 education.

A Senate budget subcommittee looks at Brown's plan for child care, preschool, transitional kindergarten and child nutrition programs under the state Department of Education. That hearing starts at 9:30 a.m. in the Capitol's Room 3191 or upon adjournment.

Another Senate budget subcommittee meets at the same time in Room 4203 to review several agencies affected by Brown's proposal to reorganize mental health programs. Meanwhile, the grape takes center stage as no fewer than three select committees hear from growers, winery owners and a UC Davis enologist about sustainable wine growing. That hearing starts at 1:30 p.m. in Room 126.

Click here for the Senate's daily file, and click here for the Assembly's.

Down in the south state, Rep. Howard Berman is bringing out the law enforcement guns, including endorsements from the Police Protective League and Republican Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles district attorney who narrowly lost the attorney general race in 2010 to Democrat Kamala Harris.

Berman, of course, is slugging it out with fellow Democrat Brad Sherman in the San Fernando Valley-based 30th Congressional District race. The presser starts at 10:30 a.m. at Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in Los Angeles.

HIGH-SPEED RAIL: Members of the California High-Speed Rail Authority are meeting at 10 a.m. in San Francisco to review the project's revised $68 billion business plan unveiled by the Brown administration last month relies heavily on federal dollars. Click here to read the agenda.

POLICY & POLITICS: Sacramento State Alumni is kicking off its Hornets Policy & Politics Chapter with a reception at 5:30 p.m. at the Cafeteria 15 and L on 15th Street. Listed guests include Assemblyman Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, as well as Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna, Sacramento City Council members Kevin McCarty and Steve Cohn, Dublin Mayor Tim Sbranti and Elk Grove City Councilmember Gary Davis. To RSVP, click here.

NEW GIGS, NEW NAME: Now that Frank Schubert has left to work on conservative issues, Schubert Flint Public Affairs has a new name and two new partners. Its president, Jeff Flint, is now calling the firm he co-founded FSB Core Strategies, and long-time senior employees Kristy Babb and Cherri Spriggs-Hernandez are joining Flint as partners.