Capitol Alert

More than two dozen Democratic state legislators have contributed thousands of dollars apiece to help pass Gov. Jerry Brown's multibillion-dollar tax initiative, according to disclosure documents filed Tuesday.

Twenty-eight legislators donated amounts ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 from their campaign or ballot measure committees between April and June 30 to bolster prospects for Brown's Proposition 30, which would raise sales taxes slightly on everyone and income taxes sharply on high-income Californians.

The lawmakers' contributions were garnered by a committee named Californians Working Together to Restore and Protect Public Schools, Universities and Public Safety, sponsored in part by Assembly Speaker John A. Perez, teachers and labor unions.

"This is an important priority for California to protect our schools and local public safety, and (Perez) has actively encouraged people to contribute to support the governor's campaign," said Doug Herman, Perez's political strategist.

Californians Working Together collected $6.5 million in cash or in-kind contributions during the three-month period, and about $3.3 million earlier in the year, bringing its grand total to $9.7 million in 2012, records show.

The November tax initiative backed by civil rights lawyer Molly Munger spent $8.2 million in the first half of the year, including more than $2 million on early television advertising, the campaign reported today.

Munger, whose initiative rivals one proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown, contributed $7.8 million to the campaign through June. The measure was left with just $130,235 in cash on hand, though Munger's self-funding of the effort has made replenishment relatively easy.

"This is just a snapshot in time," spokesman Joe Arellano said. "We intend to build a competitive campaign that gives us the best chance of winning in November, and we expect to have the resources we need to do that."

Munger's Proposition 38, supported by the state PTA, would raise income taxes on all but California's lowest income earners. It lags in public opinion polls behind Brown's Proposition 30, which raises the state sales tax and income taxes on the state's highest earners.

Brown's campaign raised $6.3 million in the first half of the year and had $5 million left in cash on hand.

California's unemployment rate - currently 10.7 percent - has been the nation's third highest for months but ranks second worst in a broader measure of employment distress by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It's called "U-6" and it includes not only unemployment, but "marginally attached workers," and those employed only part-time for economic reasons.

By that measure, 20.3 percent of California's workforce was distressed from the third quarter of 2011 through the second quarter of 2012, the new BLS report says. And that was second only to neighboring Nevada's 22.1 percent.

California is also tied for the top spot with Rhode Island in the "U-4" category - unemployed workers plus discouraged workers - at 11.8 percent.

Merced County, one of four California counties in which election practices have been under federal Voting Rights Act scrutiny, has apparently won its years-long battle to escape federal oversight.

Merced has spent at least $1 million on legal fees and other costs of its campaign to persuade the U.S. Department of Justice to release it from VRA oversight and as notified Monday that it had succeeded, the
Merced Sun-Star reports.

The Justice Department decision must be ratified by the federal court for the District of Columbia after a hearing, but county officials expect that to be just a formality.

Gov. Jerry Brown's November ballot initiative to raise taxes collected $6.3 million in the first half of the year, with $5 million in cash hand at the end of June, the campaign reported today.

Donors giving $100,000 or more include the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the California Cable & Telecommunications Association, Disney Worldwide Services Inc., Warner Bros., and a California School Employees Association political action committee.

Brown is in Las Vegas today to speak at the school employees associations' annual conference. Brown's Proposition 30 would raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California's highest earners.

Meanwhile, Brown reported raising $823,810 for his 2014 re-election bid so far this year, bringing his cash balance to $6.1 million.

The 74-year-old, third-term governor, has not yet said if he will run for re-election, but his top political adviser, Steve Glazer, has said he expects him to.

Supporters of California's Prop. 8 ban on same-sex marriage filed their long-expected petition Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court, in hopes of overturning lower-court rulings.

The petition filed by attorney Charles Cooper and his legal allies, including Folsom-based attorney Andrew P. Pugno, called the same-sex marriage issue "exceedingly important," and spelled out multiple arguments in support of Prop. 8.

"The profoundly important question whether the ancient and vital institution of marriage should be fundamentally redefined to include same-sex couples is currently a matter of great debate in our nation," the brief states.

The Prop. 8 forces' brief warns of "widespread and immediate negative consequences" if the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision striking down Prop. 8 is allowed to stand. More pointedly, from a practical standpoint, the brief cites ways in which the Ninth Circuit ruling differs from other courts that have considered the same-sex marriage issue; the Supreme Court will often take cases precisely in order to resolve these kind of judicial splits.

Backers of a November initiative to raise taxes on out-of-state firms suggested Monday that the state stop doing business with four companies that officially opposed a similar tax change in the Capitol this year.

The Proposition 39 campaign has targeted Chrysler, General Motors, International Paper and Kimberly-Clark for opposing Assembly Bill 1500, which would require companies to base tax calculations solely on their proportion of sales in California.

The tax change would have the effect of hiking taxes by $1 billion for mostly non-California companies that currently use a different formula based on sales, property and payroll, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

AB 1500 would use the money to lower tuition costs at state universities. The same tax change is contained in Proposition 39, with half of the money initially going toward alternative energy projects and the other half going to the state general fund budget.

In a paper issued Monday, the Proposition 39 campaign said the four companies have received $42.4 million from contracts with the state since 2006, including $23 million in Chrysler vehicle sales. Campaign spokesman Chris Lehane said the state should consider ending contracts with the firms. The latest call comes after the Proposition 39 campaign threatened to attack the companies in a Bee advertisement unless they renounced their opposition to AB 1500.

Dan Walters says there is more slavery, or human trafficking, than one would think in California, something Proposition 35 hopes to do something about.

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VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters says slavery still exists in California.

Gov. Jerry Brown is scheduled to speak at a California School Employees Association Conference today at 10 a.m. The conference will be held at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. The 86th annual event will run through August. 2.

The White House will honor California High-Speed Rail Authority Chairman Dan Richard as a "Transportation Innovator Champion of Change." Watch the event online beginning at 8 a.m.

Back in California, a drunken driving trial for Assemblyman Roger Hernández, D-West Covina, scheduled for today has been continued until August 7 due to a lawyer's scheduling conflict.

Monday, the lawmaker asked a judge to suppress evidence in the case, including a blood test. Hernández argues that his constitutional rights were violated by unreasonable search.

CAKE AND CANDLES: Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, turns 68 today, while State Controller John Chiang turns 50.

California's borrowing from special fund accounts has reached nearly $4.3 billion, more than five times the amount from June 2008, according to a semi-annual report issued today by the Department of Finance.

Since the depths of the recession, state leaders have relied heavily on borrowing from special fund accounts that generate money from user fees and regulated industries, among the many patchwork solutions to avoid deeper program cuts in the general fund budget.

Special fund accounts have drawn greater scrutiny in the past two weeks after the Resources Agency revealed that the Department of Parks and Recreation had hidden nearly $54 million in two such funds for more than a decade. The Department of Finance is auditing 560 special fund accounts to determine whether other money has been inappropriately shielded from view and expects to issue a report later this week.

Sen. Elaine Alquist of Santa Clara is jumping into a fight between the 49ers football team and education leaders in her Bay Area community by writing a bill that would allocate $30 million in disputed redevelopment funds toward building a new NFL stadium.

The bill marks the third time in recent years that California lawmakers have written custom legislation at the end of session to advance football stadium projects. Last year, the Legislature approved a bill that provided a speedy environmental review process for a new stadium in Los Angeles. A 2009 bill protected a proposed stadium in the City of Industry from environmental lawsuits.

Alquist's bill is fallout from Gov. Jerry Brown's decision last year to dissolve redevelopment agencies. Santa Clara's redevelopment agency had planned to give $30 million toward the $1.2 billion effort to build a new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers. A county oversight committee created after the redevelopment agency folded decided last month not to use the money for the stadium and instead give it to schools.

The White House on Tuesday will lavish a little love on California's politically controversial high-speed rail project, with the recognition of California High-Speed Rail Authority Chairman Dan Richard.

The White House is naming Richard as a "Transportation Innovator Champion of Change." Each week, Obama administration officials are designating champions in fields ranging from education to business.

The White House event can be watched live starting at 11 a.m. EST/8 a.m. PST via the www.whitehouse.gov website.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has released a radio advertisement aimed at undermining Gov. Jerry Brown's November ballot initiative to raise taxes, attacking "Sacramento politicians" for their approval of California's $68 billion high-speed rail project.

"Sacramento politicians have turned their backs on education and public safety and voted to waste billions on the largest boondoggle in American history," Jon Coupal, president of the association, says in the minute-long ad. "These same politicians are using scare tactics to force tax increases on the working people of California. While they push for more taxes, frivolous spending and political cronyism, they ignore desperately needed reforms to education, pensions and spending."

The taxpayers group described the spot as an issue-advocacy ad against high-speed rail. It said the ad is running statewide, but it declined to say how much money is behind it.

Public support for the rail project has waned since voters approved it in 2008, and a Field Poll this month suggested it could be a liability for Brown's tax measure. The Democratic governor is proposing to raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California's highest earners.

Dan Walters says Gov. Jerry Brown's use of the S-word was out of character for a governor more known for throwing around "snippets of Latin."

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VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters ponders Gov. Jerry Brown's use last week of the S-word and what it might mean for a California governor more given to tossing out Latin.

It's still five weeks until Labor Day, but the Yes on Proposition 39 campaign has already thrown down the gauntlet.

Proposition 39 is one of the three tax measures on the November ballot. Hedge fund manager Tom Steyer's proposal would change the state's corporate tax formula by making most companies calculate their liability based on their share of sales in California. Its shorthand moniker is "single-sales factor."

The Yes campaign ran a full-page ad in The Bee last week calling on four companies -- Chrysler, General Motors, Kimberly-Clark and International Paper -- to reverse course and pledge not to oppose the measure.

Deadline: "high noon" today. Otherwise, the ad says, "we will launch the big four tax dodgers campaign" with the first report listing the corporations' current contracts paid with Californians' tax dollars.

Click here to view the Yes campaign's website. You'll find a press release at this link. The ad itself is can be viewed here.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles election officials were expected to wrap up their recount of Proposition 29 tobacco-tax votes in 191 precincts last Friday and will post the results today on this website, lavote.net.

The recount has cost about $81,000 so far, officials say, and John Maa, the doctor who requested it, will be on the hook for the bill if the recount doesn't change the election outcome. Official results showed the ballot measure losing by 24,076 votes out of more than 5.1 million cast.

Speaking of propositions, today's the last day for the Secretary of State's Office to respond to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association appeal of how the November ballot measures were numbered.

Alert readers may recall that Molly Munger, whose tax ballot measure rivals Gov. Jerry Brown's, challenged a legislative change that resulted in Brown's measure appearing before Munger's. Munger lost and decided not to appeal, but Howard Jarvis -- which had joined her in the challenge -- has taken up the mantle.

California's official voter information guide is due at the state printer on Aug. 13.

Torey Van Oot contributed to this report.

The California Democratic Party has made its support of Gov. Jerry Brown's tax initiative official.

The party's executive board voted to endorse Proposition 30 at a weekend meeting in Anaheim. The measure would generate an estimated $8.5 billion in revenues assumed in the current state budget by temporarily raising income taxes on high earners and enacting a quarter percent hike in the state sales tax.

The board voted to oppose a rival tax initiative backed by civil rights attorney Molly Munger and the California State PTA. Proposition 38 would raise income taxes on a sliding scale for most Californians, sending the bulk of the revenues to schools and early childhood development programs.

It took no position on Proposition 39, a third tax measure that would raise about $1 billion annually by changing the state's corporate tax formula. The initiative, proposed by hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, would use revenues to fund clean energy projects and provide state budget relief. Speaker John A. Perez has introduced legislation that would make the same change and use the revenues to help California families pay for college.

See the full list of endorsements after the jump.

After $54 million in surplus parks funds were discovered last week, the Department of Finance said it will release findings next week on whether similar pockets of special fund money are hiding elsewhere in state coffers.

The parks money was found in part because state controller's data showed tens of millions more dollars than the Department of Finance reported in its own figures. Finance, which is responsible for building Gov. Jerry Brown's budgets, is now examining all 560 special fund accounts to determine if similar differences exist.

But finance officials have cautioned against a straight comparison between data provided by the Controller's Office and those issued by the Finance Department on their websites.

In many cases, the controller's numbers differ from finance's for legitimate reasons, Finance Chief Deputy Director Michael Cohen said last week. Finance uses budget accounting, which counts money received and spent at different times of the year than the controller does. In a basic example, if a department buys supplies in May but does not pay its bill until August, Finance and the controller may account for the same purchase in different fiscal years.

Dan Walters talks about a lawsuit brought by UCLA's retired chancellor Charles Young challenging California's Proposition 13.

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VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters talks about the latest legal chapter in the ongoing saga of California's Proposition 13.

Will the California Democratic Party's executive board endorse Gov. Jerry Brown's tax measure? What about Molly Munger's or Tom Steyer's?

Board members are meeting in Anaheim today through Sunday to consider, among other things, their endorsements for propositions that voters are considering in November. They'll also be electing 19 members of the Democratic National Committee. Click here for more information.

(For the record: Brown's measure is Proposition 30, Munger's is Proposition 38, and Steyer's is Proposition 39. It may take Capitol Alert a while to learn this, what with 11 propositions on the ballot.)

Back in Sacramento, more than 50 African American high school juniors and seniors are taking part in an annual youth leadership training conference, complete with a mock committee hearing from 10 a.m. to noon in the Capitol's Room 3191 as well as a mock legislative session in Senate chambers from 2:30 to 5 p.m.

The students will even be arguing about and voting on their own version of the state budget. The California Black Legislative Caucus is hosting the event.

Meanwhile, the Judicial Council of California is meeting in San Francisco to discuss this year's budget cuts to the state Supreme Court, its appellate courts and other judicial bodies. Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye is scheduled to give a report at 10 a.m. as the meeting starts. Click here to read the agenda.

ELECTION 2012: The California NAACP's Alice Huffman and gay rights activist Zoe Dunning, a retired U.S. Navy commander, are helping kick off the state's "It Takes One" campaign to re-elect President Barack Obama, with events in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

CAKE AND CANDLES: Assemblyman Roger Hernández, D-West Covina, turns 37 on Sunday.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will travel to Sacramento County next month to raise money for Mitt Romney.

Tickets to the Aug. 9 luncheon, at the Wilton home of Dave Lucchetti of Pacific Coast Building Products, start at $1,000, according to an invitation.

It recommends casual attire.

Christie, a conservative favorite, is considered a potential, if longshot, contender for vice president.

Assemblyman Roger Hernández will ask a judge to throw out a blood analysis and other evidence against him Monday, the eve of his trial in Walnut Creek on suspicion of drunken driving.

The West Covina Democrat filed court documents claiming that his constitutional rights were violated by an unreasonable search and, therefore, evidence that includes the blood test, his statements, and observations of witnesses and police officers should not be accepted by a judge, prosecutor Dana Filkowski said.

Peter Johnson, Hernández's attorney, could not be reached for comment this afternoon.

Hernández was charged with driving under the influence after he was stopped March 27 in Concord, where police say the state car he was driving was weaving inside a lane on Concord Avenue.

Lab tests concluded his blood-alcohol level was 0.08 percent, the level at which a motorist can be charged with drunken driving. Hernández has apologized for any embarrassment he may have caused others, but he said that he drank only two glasses of wine between 9 p.m. and the time of his arrest, about 2 a.m.

Filkowski characterized the court papers filed by Hernández as standard in such cases, with largely boilerplate language that does not make specific accusations of wrongdoing against a particular officer.

"What they do is put the burden on us to justify it," Filkowski said of Hernández's treatment by officers.

Hernández's trial is scheduled for Tuesday in Contra Costa Superior Court in Walnut Creek.

PHOTO CREDIT: Assemblyman Roger Hernandez, D-West Covina, talks on the Assembly floor on Thursday, May 17, 2012. (Associated Press / Rich Pedroncelli)

Critics of California's high-speed rail project have put the brakes on an effort to ask voters to freeze funding for the planned bullet train.

Sen. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, and former Republican Rep. George Radanovich announced this week that they are suspending their campaign to qualify a measure on the matter for the 2014 ballot.

Initiative backers have decided to focus for now on derailing the project through litigation but have not ruled out the possibility of pursuing another initiative, according to a statement released by the campaign Wednesday.

"We're still committed to it in the future, but I think it's just easier to let the legal matters roll by first and get those resolved, and we can reassess the depth of support and the necessity for the repeal," LaMalfa said Thursday in an interview.

The measure would block the California High-Speed Rail Authority from issuing voter-approved bonds to pay for the project and cancel any existing contracts. Proponents have until mid-August to collect the 504,760 valid voter signatures needed to secure a spot on the ballot.

The campaign has raised at least $135,000, according to campaign finance reports filed on the Secretary of State website. The cost of hiring paid petition circulators to collect signatures typically exceeds $1 million.

"It takes a lot more than that to be successful statewide,
LaMalfa said of the money raised so far, "So I want to conserve the resources we have and conserve and respect the volunteers we have out there."

State lawmakers have already authorized spending $5.8 billion, including $2.6 billion in state rail bond funds, to begin construction of the line in the Central Valley.

Editor's note: This post was updated with quotes from LaMalfa.

PHOTO CREDIT: A view of the interior of a station in the proposed high speed rail network. Rendering by Newlands and Company Inc., 2008.

A handful of aides to members of California's congressional delegation apparently are turning heads on the Hill.

Six staffers for California representatives won recognition this week not for their work ethic or professional achievements, but for their good looks.

The aides were included in The Hill newspaper's annual roundup of Washington's "50 most beautiful people".

The Beltway publication's beauty list included Ryan Hanretty, a Sacramento native and former state legislative staffer who now works as a legislative assistant for Republican Rep. Jeff Denham.

Other aides to California members who made the cut were Bay Area transplants Allison Rose and Dan Lindner, who both work for Democratic Rep. Judy Chu; Amanda Muñoz, another Denham aide; Melissa Medina, a staff assistant and legislative correspondent for Republican Rep. Ed Royce; and Yvonne Hsu, a legislative assistant for Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff. Several others on the list hailed from the Golden State.

See write ups -- and glamour shots -- of all 50 honorees at this link.

Dan Walters says the famous "whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting" quote -- supposedly uttered by Mark Twain -- is still accurate in California.

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VIDEO: Maybe Mark Twain said it, maybe not, but Dan Walters says in today's report that the old "whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting" quote still holds true in California.

Fresh off the official announcement Wednesday that federal officials are backing a proposal to build two tunnels to divert water from the Delta, Gov. Jerry Brown is heading to San Diego County for another official event, this one having to do with renewable energy.

Brown will join local, state and federal officials to dedicate a transmission line at the Suncrest substation in Alpine. The 117-mile line has a name -- Sunrise Powerlink -- and its dedication ceremony is attracting protesters opposed to industrial energy users tapping into the line as turbines are built in the desert.

San Diego Gas & Electric cranked up the line last month, which this news release describes as "a 500,000-volt transmission line linking San Diego to the Imperial Valley, one of the most renewable-rich regions in California." The event starts at 9:30 a.m., but protesters are expected to show up earlier.

Meanwhile, the nationwide Latino outreach effort called "¡Todos a Votar!" ("Let's Vote!") makes its first stop in Stockton, where the Roman Catholic Diocese is working with Valley leaders, Eliseo Medina of SEIU and others to register Latino voters.

The presser starts at 10 a.m. at La Comision Honorifica Mexicana, 609 S. Lincoln St. Organizers will hold similar events later this week in San Diego, Riverside and Gardena, and also plan stops in Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Colorado and Texas.

CAPITOL STEPS: The 21st annual California Youth Leadership Forum for Students with Disabilities has scheduled a photo shoot on the Capitol's west steps, then a luncheon for participants at the Sacramento Convention Center, 1400 J St.

The final weeks of this year's legislative session are almost upon us, and for influence peddlers in California's Capitol, that means a calendar full of fundraising events.

During the week of Aug. 6 alone, legislative candidates have scheduled four fundraisers on Monday, 10 on Tuesday and five on Wednesday.

Enter ContributionTrack.com. a website aimed at lobbyists.

Wavelength Automation Inc., the West Sacramento company behind the site, is marketing a new version that allows customers to see fundraising event fliers, add events to their personal calendars, suggest where their clients direct campaign contributions and manage how close those donations are getting to FPPC limits.

"ContributionTrack was designed for California's Third House," an ad says. A subscription costs $159 a month.

A sales team is pitching the product during two sessions Aug. 2, just before the Legislature returns from its summer recess. Click here for more information.

The firm also runs the website CapitolTrack.com.

In his first public remarks about the California state parks scandal, Gov. Jerry Brown downplayed its significance this morning, suggesting it was better to find nearly $54 million in apparently hidden money than to discover money missing.

"This is the first problem I've ever seen where actually people in government saved money, and that's good, because we have the money and we can use it," Brown told reporters in Sacramento. "How the heck it happened, we're trying to figure it out. And we will figure it out. We're looking at all the special funds."

The Brown administration revealed Friday that the Department of Parks and Recreation had been sitting on a surplus even as the state moved to close parks. Brown that day called for an investigation.

This morning, the Democratic governor said California's larger problem is reducing state debt.

"When somebody comes and says, 'Hey, guess what, we have some money over here,' well, that's better than saying, 'Whoops, we don't have the money,' " he said.

The state usually concerns itself with controlling misspending and overspending, not departments failing to spend money they have, he added.

"That's a new one," Brown said, "and we'll work on it."

But, he added, "More money is better than less money."

Gov. Jerry Brown, announcing a controversial, $14 billion plan this morning to build a pair of tunnels to move water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to the south, said he will not be hindered by "analysis paralysis."

"Analysis paralysis is not why I came back 30 years later to handle some of the same issues," the 74-year-old former governor said. "At this stage, as I see many of my friends dying -- I went to the funeral of my best friend a couple of weeks ago -- I want to get s--- done."

The Democratic governor has been seeking a way to move water through or around the Delta since he was governor before. He persuaded the Legislature three decades ago to approve a peripheral canal, but the measure was defeated in a referendum in 1982.

Brown's remark had newspaper reporters chuckling and television reporters wondering whether they could air it on the evening news.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made note of it, too. He said officials are "moving forward" with the project, a point he said Brown made "without any degree of ambiguity."

The "realignment" of California's criminal justice system, implemented in response to a Supreme Court decree to reduce overcrowding in state prisons, has shifted 38,000 felons from the state to local authorities so far, according to an initial study.

The study, conducted by the Chief Probation Officers of California with a foundation grant, says that 23,000 prison inmates have been released into supervision by local probation officers, rather than by state parole agents, and an additional 15,000 felons have been diverted into local jails and probation rather than being sent to state prison.

The underlying concept of the program is to reduce the number of felons deemed to have little propensity for violent crime in the state prison system. So far, the study says, the prison population, once over 160,000, has dropped to under 140,000.

Dan Walters says that "you can't make this stuff up" -- being the history behind a Alameda County Board of Supervisors seat. Think Nadia Lockyer and Mary Hayashi.

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VIDEO: Dan Walters says, in today's report, "It's time for Jerry Springer" to weigh in on the Nadia Lockyer-Mary Hayashi saga unfolding in California's Alameda County.

It's the moment that California water wonks have been anticipating: This morning, Gov. Jerry Brown and federal officials are officially announcing a controversial federal-state deal on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, known as the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will join Brown in Sacramento, as will Eric Schwaab, who's the assistant administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service. The presser starts at 10:30 a.m. at the Natural Resources Agency, 1416 Ninth St.

The Bee's editorial board took a look earlier this week at the plan, which would include a pair of 35-mile-long tunnels moving water from the Sacramento River to pumps south of Tracy. The editorial, which you can read here, notes that the deal has shaky support.

That shakiness will be in evidence at another presser at 12:30 p.m. on the Capitol's west steps, where Democratic Rep. John Garamendi, Democratic Sen. Lois Wolk of Davis and Republican Assemblyman Bill Berryhill of Ceres join farm bureau representatives and fishermen as well as consumer and environmental advocates worried that the deal could put Northern California water rights and the Delta itself at risk.

Meanwhile, nearly half of California registered voters delayed getting medical care in the past year because of costs, according to the latest Field Poll, with dental care was most frequently postponed. Cynthia Craft has more details in today's Bee. For more numbers, click here to read the publicly released poll. You'll find the statistical tabulations compiled exclusively for Capitol Alert at this link.

YOUTH: The Chicano Latino Youth Leadership Project is holding its 30th Capitol Day, with 120 student leaders meeting with Capitol denizens and conducting mock legislative hearings. Anna Caballero, the secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency, is listed to speak at a 10:30 a.m. news conference on the Capitol's north steps.

CITY EMPLOYEES: California's largest cities have shed about 10,000 jobs in the past few years. The Bee's Phillip Reese runs the numbers at this link.

PHOTO CREDIT: Aerial view of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the islands separated by the Franks Tract in the foreground; San Joaquin river in the middle and the Sacramento River in the background. Bradford Island, center, is flanked by Jersey Island on the left and Sherman Island in the background. Nov. 11, 2008. Manny Crisostomo / Sacramento Bee

As it slowly recovers from its worst recession since the Great Depression, where does California's economy fit into the global marketplace?

A massive new economic forecast from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. confirms that were California a nation, it would place No. 9 among the globe's economies, just behind No. 8 Italy and just ahead of Russia.

The data-filled report, to be unveiled today in Los Angeles, pegs California's economy at just under $2 trillion a year (2011 numbers) and implies that it could move up or down in the rankings, depending on what happens to the volatile European economy. The state once ranked as high as sixth.

California's economy saw an inflation-adjusted 2 percent growth from 2010 to 2011, while Italy's grew at just one-fifth of that rate. Among the economies larger than California's, only China, Germany and Brazil, which leaped into sixth place, had higher rates of growth than the state. But Russia's economy grew twice as fast as California's from 2010 to 2011, so it could push California down to 10th place.

The report says that Los Angeles and four surrounding Southern California counties would rank 16th among the world's economies at over $900 billion a year, just behind South Korea. Los Angeles County by itself, at $557.5 billion, would be 21st, lodged between No. 20 Saudi Arabia and Sweden.

Overall, the forecast is for California to recover from recession "slowly but steadily," albeit with double-digit unemployment rates for at least another year.

By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com

Multistate corporations scored a major victory Tuesday in their long-running legal battle with California tax authorities over how they are to be taxed, one that could cost the state treasury hundreds of millions of dollars.

The 1st District Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that California must abide by a long-standing multistate compact that apportioned corporate taxable income on the basis of three equally weighted factors: payroll, sales and property. To do otherwise, it said, would, in effect, violate a contract.

The decision gives the corporations relief from a 1993 state law that gave double weight to sales, thereby increasing corporate income taxes on out-of-state corporations doing business in California while giving those based in the state some tax relief.

More recently, in fact, state officials have sought to eliminate the three-factor system altogether and go to a "single-sales" system that would, they believe, raise revenues from out-of-state corporations by more than a billion dollars a year.

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez has proposed such a change to expand college aid, while a pending November ballot measure, Proposition 39, would do the same for energy efficiency.

The lawsuit before the court, brought by a group of corporations headed by the Gillette consumer products company, had been rejected by a lower court. The Franchise Tax Board, which defended the state's position, now must decide whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Proposition 13, the landmark property tax limitation passed by California voters in 1978, has survived another legal assault.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles on Tuesday denied, without comment, an appeal of a lower court decision rejecting a challenge to the measure from Charles Young, the former chancellor of the UCLA campus.

Although Proposition 13 was upheld by the state Supreme Court shortly after its passage, Young contended that by requiring a two-thirds legislative vote for imposing new taxes, the measure constituited a "revision" of the state constitution that could not be enacted by voters.

RENO - In a withering indictment of President Barack Obama's foreign policy record, Republican Mitt Romney accused the administration Tuesday of leaking national security secrets for political gain, weakening the U.S. military and the nation's stature abroad.

"Sadly, this president has diminished American leadership, and we are reaping the consequences," Romney said in a high-profile speech to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "The world is dangerous, destructive, chaotic."

Romney said at the gathering in Reno that Obama has failed to prevent or explain leaks of national security secrets involving the killing of Osama bin Laden and other military operations, including in Iran.

"This isn't a partisan issue; it's a national security crisis," Romney said. "This conduct is contemptible. It betrays our national interest. It compromises our men and women in the field."

RENO - Mark Block, the campaign strategist who became a minor Internet sensation when the Herman Cain campaign last year released an online-only advertisement featuring Block smoking a cigarette, was watching Cain at a rally in Reno on Monday afternoon, a Marlboro Light in hand.

The famous ad was shot outside a Las Vegas hotel when Cain was still a Republican candidate for president. The film crew was supposed to be filming Cain, Block said, but the candidate was busy.

Instead, Block was filmed speaking directly to the camera, then taking a drag and leisurely exhaling.

"I still can't go anywhere without anybody asking for an autograph on a cigarette," he said.

Cain spoke Monday at an anti-Obama rally hours after the president delivered remarks here. Cain called supporters of the president "the stupid people" and vowed to help defeat Obama.

Speaking with reporters after the rally, Cain defended Republican Mitt Romney from calls for him to release more than two years of tax returns. He said people only want to see them to nitpick.

Besides, Cain said, "I love the fact that the guy is rich."

VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters says the money the Parks and Recreation Department has been squirreling away could making it harder for Gov. Jerry Brown to pass his tax measure.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is scheduled to speak at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Reno today. President Barack Obama spoke at the same convention yesterday, as David Siders reported. Obama is now in Portland for a new round of fundraisers.

Romney is estimated to have raised $10 million in California Sunday and Monday. He'll continue seeking campaign funds in the states today, before heading overseas for a tour of several countries, including Poland and Israel.

MINIMUM WAGE: Thousands are expected to march in more than 30 events today in cities nationwide to lobby for better pay for low-wage workers. Sacramento participants will march on the Chamber of Commerce, asking for an increase in the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 an hour. The march begins with a noon press conference on the north steps of the state Capitol. Then participants will rally at the Chamber of Commerce offices at 1215 K Street.

Dan Walters says Gov. Jerry Brown's November ballot measure has a 50-50 chance of passing.

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RENO - In a sweeping defense of his foreign policy record, President Barack Obama said this afternoon that the United States is "safer and stronger and more respected in the world" than when he took office.

"Four years ago, I made you a promise," Obama told the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "I pledged to take the fight to our enemies, and renew our leadership in the world. As president, that's what I've done."

The Democratic president defended the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq and the draw-down in Afghanistan, and his mention of the killing of Osama bin Laden drew applause from several thousand veterans gathered in Reno. Obama said the sanctions his administration has applied to Iran and North Korea are the strictest ever.

"Because we're leading around the world, people have a new attitude toward America. There's more confidence in our leadership," he said. "So this is the progress that we've made. Thanks to the extraordinary service of our men and women in uniform, we're winding down a decade of war; we're destroying the terrorist network that attacked us; we're strengthening the alliances that extend our values. And today, every American can be proud that the United States is safer and stronger and more respected in the world."

Obama's remarks came on one of the bloodiest days in Iraq in recent years, with a series of coordinated bombings and shootings killing more than 100 people in the country Monday.

Obama did not address the violence, but he defended his withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, fulfilling a campaign promise he made in 2008.

David M. Howard, the political director for the California Association of Realtors, died Saturday, three weeks after being diagnosed with lung cancer. He was 64.

"I'll remember how smart he was politically, and his shoot-from-the-hip style," said lobbyist Bob Giroux, a close friend of Howard's.

"He was very savvy. He knew everything about campaigns, from reading the polls to figuring out the messaging."

Howard served on the national advisory council of UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies and on the editorial board of the California Target Book, which handicaps elections. At the realtors association, he managed federal, state and local political action committees.

Prior to joining the California Association of Realtors in 2000, Howard worked for the California Association of Health Plans and AARP.

He is survived by his wife Deborah.

Dan Walters says that while California's unemployment rate has gone down, it's still high.

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VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters applauds last week's job-growth report but says Californians are still looking at "a long row to hoe."

President Barack Obama is scheduled for two Bay Area fundraisers today, as David Siders reported here -- a dinner in Piedmont and a reception at Oakland's Fox Theatre.

Obama has also accepted an invitation to speak today at the national Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who was raising funds Sunday in the Bay Area for his own campaign, is to speak at the VFW convention on Tuesday.

Back in Sacramento, California Highway Patrol Commissioner Joe Farrow, Board of Equalization Member George Runner and others mark the 10th anniversary of the Amber Alert system. That event starts at 10 a.m. at CHP headquarters, 601 N. 7th St.

Meanwhile, the No on Proposition 32 campaign is holding a presser to highlight opposition to the November ballot measure on campaign finance.

Listed speakers include Derek Cressman of California Common Cause, Trudy Schafer of the state League of Women Voters, Davis Fire Capt. Emily Lo, and Auburn teacher Lysa Sassman. The event starts at 10 a.m. at the League of Women Voters office at 1107 Ninth St. in Sacramento.

Unions have ponied up nearly $9 million so far to defeat the measure, which would ban payroll deductions from being used for political purposes, as Jon Ortiz reported in this State Worker blog post, and business sources have donated a little over $4 million in support.

Gov. Jerry Brown has appointed Natural Resources Agency Undersecretary Janelle Beland acting interim director of the California Parks and Recreation Department, after officials learned the department sat on nearly $54 million in surplus money for as long as 12 years, even as state park closures were ordered.

State Parks Director Ruth Coleman resigned this morning, and her second in command, acting chief deputy director Michael Harris, was fired.

The Natural Resources Agency sought in a release to shift blame from the Brown administration, saying underreporting occurred "over the course of two prior gubernatorial administrations." It said the state Attorney General's Office is investigating, while Brown has ordered reviews be conducted by the Department of Finance and Natural Resources Agency John Laird.

"I welcome Governor Brown's swift action to address these hidden assets," Laird said in a prepared statement. "We will get to the bottom of this situation and work with the Attorney General, the Legislature and the Department of Finance to make sure nothing like this ever happens again."

He added, "We will also work with the Legislature to see how this money can be used to mitigate park closures."

Andy Pugno is raising money for an Assembly campaign he once vowed not to run -- and now is undecided about.

Pugno's name will appear on the November ballot for a 6th Assembly District seat, based in Placer County, but he has not yet announced whether he will honor a pledge made months ago to step aside if Assemblywoman Beth Gaines, a fellow Republican from Rocklin, beat him in the primary.

In a fundraising solicitation after last month's voting, Pugno celebrated his razor-thin second-place finish to Gaines and said that "we refuse to surrender to the liberal agenda of forcing conservatives to abandon our core values!" He also asked for contributions to "help support this important effort."

"Now we have to start thinking about the November runoff election," Pugno's solicitation said. "No doubt, the ultra-liberal special interests will come out again in force. Will regular people like you who stood with me in the primary election continue to stand strong and help us finish the job?"

Dan Walters says Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's announcement of a Senate employee salary pay freeze may have backfired because of recent raises.

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Update: The press conference call featuring Boxer and Harris has been canceled in light of the shooting at a Colorado movie theater overnight.

VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters says that Senate leader Darrell Steinberg won't get any brownie points for his pay-freeze announcement.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is heading back to California in the next few days to pick up some campaign cash, as is President Barack Obama, which David Siders details in this Capitol Alert post.

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and state Attorney General Kamala Harris are making use of those Bay Area appearances, hosting a press conference call today that's billed as highlighting the contrasts between Romney's and Obama's economic policies.

Among the words that Capitol Alert expects them to utter: "Bain Capital," "offshore" and "tax returns."

In other news, Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Rocklin, is crossing the state line to host a fundraiser today at the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship being held at the Edgewood Tahoe Golf Club in Stateline, Nevada.

Tee-off is at 8:30 a.m, and tickets run $1,500 apiece. Proceeds go toward Gaines' re-election campaign this year.

By Torey Van Oot and Jim Sanders

At least 93 California legislative employees making more than $100,000 received raises this year, a review of newly released payroll records showed.

While six-figure wage earners represent just a fraction of total legislative staff, the Capitol now has more than 300 employees making more than $100,000.

Forty-seven Senate employees with six-figure salaries received raises between Jan. 31 and June 30 of this year. Six additional employees in that pay range received raises but were promoted or assigned to a new job. Records released to The Bee under the Legislative Open Records Act show that at least 189 employees in the upper house now make six figures or more, a net increase of 15 since Jan. 31.

Dan Walters wonders whether Gov. Jerry Brown has just signed a "death warrant" for his November tax measure.

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VIDEO: Dan Walters wonders, in today's report, whether Gov. Jerry Brown signed a "death warrant" for his November tax measure while signing legislation to fund construction on California's high-speed rail project.

The U.S. Navy comes to the Capitol today.

Rear Admiral Dixon Smith, the commander of Navy Region Southwest, joins Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Sen. Fran Pavley and California Energy Commission Chairman Robert B. Weisenmiller to highlight clean-tech partnerships at California's naval installations.

The Navy recently announced five energy goals, including cutting its power consumption in half by 2020, and started running a Great Green Fleet demonstration Tuesday as part of this year's Rim of the Pacific exercise. Think combat capability as well as energy security untethered to oil prices.

Today, California companies will showcase projects with the Navy that use biofuels, solar power, energy efficiency and waste-to-energy technology to meet the Navy's goals. The event runs from 10 a.m. to noon on the Capitol's west steps.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is also coming to Sacramento for the second of its two public hearings nationwide on proposed revisions to its standards on fine particle pollution, also called soot.

The American Lung Association says the proposed standards don't go far enough to protect public health, this Bee editorial notes. Clean air advocates will be holding a rally and news conference during the hearing's lunch break, starting at 12:30 p.m. at Cesar Chavez Park at 10th and I streets.

Listed speakers include Dr. Harry Wang, president of the Sacramento Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility; Vickie Simmons of the Moapa Band of Paiutes, whose tribal lands border a Southern Nevada coal-burning power plant; and representatives of the American Lung Association.

The hearing itself runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the California Air Resources Board, 1001 I St. Click here to see a list of registered speakers.

Back at the Capitol, the Board of Chiropractic Examiners meets in Room 113 starting at 11 a.m. On the agenda are new regulations on the use of lasers. Alert readers will recall that Republican Sen. Bob Huff dropped his Senate Bill 352 to ban chiropractors from treating allergies with lasers after the board adopted new regulations that barred laser use for that reason.

CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST: "Ahnuld" in a pink tutu? Vote for your favorite reader-suggested caption for Steve Greenberg's cartoon of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at this link.

CAKE AND CANDLES: State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson turns 63 today.

SAN FRANCISCO -- It wasn't the first time Gov. Jerry Brown has addressed the potentially harmful impact of high-speed rail on his November ballot initiative to raise taxes, but it was perhaps his most direct response yet.

"First of all, I don't really believe in the Field Poll," Brown said when asked this afternoon about a poll that showed many voters could lose their appetite for higher taxes if the state approved high-speed rail funds. "And I'll tell you one reason I don't: High-speed rail is more popular than I am right now. So if I believe that, I might pack my bags and head back to the monastery."

The nonpartisan Field Poll found recently that a fifth of likely voters who support Brown's proposal to raise taxes say they would be less likely to support it if the Legislature appropriated money for California's $68 billion high-speed rail project.

The Legislature did just that, and Brown signed legislation today authorizing initial construction.

"A poll here and a poll there," he said. "I got 10 polls in my back pocket that tell me everything I want to know and don't want to know, so don't worry about the Field Poll."

Brown described controversy about the rail project as one between "doers" and "fearful men."

"We are in a culture of immediate gratification -- me, now, easy," he said. "This is about us, long and difficult."

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg announced plans Wednesday for a one-year pay freeze for Senate employees, but the move comes in the wake of a recent pay hike for hundreds of the chamber's aides.

The proposed Senate pay freeze also comes as most state workers are taking a nearly 5 percent pay cut as part of budget cuts designed to save the cash-starved state government billions of dollars.

Steinberg plans to ask the Senate Rules Committee to approve the pay freeze at its next meeting Aug. 1, said Rhys Williams, Steinberg spokesman. The action would take effect immediately. The freeze would not affect pay raises tied to promotions.

Assembly administrator Jon Waldie said that his chamber has no plans to announce a pay freeze, but it will continue to respond to California's budget crisis by trimming and transferring 15 percent of its budget to other state agencies. This year, $22 million will be sent, Waldie said.

The Senate was not alone in awarding merit increases to legislative employees this year. The Assembly has done so, too, with hundreds of employees seeing salary hikes ranging from 3.6 percent to 5 percent. Employees were eligible if they had not received a raise in three years.

The total number of Assembly aides who saw their pay rise in the past year was not immediately available Wednesday.

University of California's governing board today approved higher fees for 57 graduate professional schools while freezing tuition for undergraduates.

UC regents, meeting in San Francisco, voted to freeze tuition at $12,192 for the coming school year pending the outcome of the November election. If voters reject Proposition 30 - Gov. Jerry Brown's tax increase - UC will likely raise tuition mid-year. The resolution they approved also gives UC's formal endorsement of the ballot measure.

"This tax initiative affects us. It deeply affects us," said Sherry Lansing, chair of the board of regents. "I enthusiastically endorse support for this."

Regent Russell Gould cast the only vote against endorsing Proposition 30.

Two regents - Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and student regent Jonathan Stein - voted against raising fees at UC professional schools. The proposal calls for steep increases at some UC business, law and nursing schools, and expanding the number of programs that charge professional school fees.

UC's endorsement of Proposition 30 follows a similar move Tuesday by the California State University's board of trustees.

PHOTO CREDIT: University of California President Mark Yudof gestures during a news conference at a UC Regents meeting in San Francisco, Wednesday. AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation this morning authorizing initial construction of California's $68 billion high-speed rail line.

The signature comes less than two weeks after Brown and the California High-Speed Rail Authority pushed the project through the Legislature by a bare majority, a major victory for the Democratic governor.

The bill authorizes $5.8 billion to start construction of a high-speed rail line in the Central Valley, including $2.6 billion in state rail bond funds and $3.2 billion in federal aid. To gain political support for the project in the state's most densely populated areas, the administration also included $1.9 billion in state rail bond proceeds to improve urban rail systems and connect them to high-speed rail.

"This legislation will help put thousands of people in California back to work," Brown said in a prepared statement. "By improving regional transportation systems, we are investing in the future of our state and making California a better place to live and work."

Brown signed the rail bill at an event at Los Angeles' Union Station, his office said. He is scheduled to fly this afternoon to San Francisco, where he will hold a similar event at the construction site of the city's new Transbay Transit Center.

The appearances will keep Brown conspicuously away from the Central Valley, where opposition to the project remains fierce. Farmers and other groups there are suing to block the project.

The National Journal has included 10 California districts in its new ranking of congressional seats most likely to change partisan control in the November election.

The rematch between Republican Rep. Dan Lungren and Democrat Ami Bera in East Sacramento County's 7th Congressional District was ranked the most competitive California seat, coming in 15th out of 75 hot races on the Washington, D.C.-based publication's list.

Other area races to make the most likely-to-flip list include the 9th Congressional District battle between Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney and Republican Ricky Gill and Democratic Rep. John Garamendi's re-election bid against Republican Kim Vann in the 3rd Congressional District.

Click here to see the full list.

Dan Walters lays out the tax-measure battle between California Gov. Jerry Brown and wealthy civil rights attorney Molly Munger.

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VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters talks about California's ballot fight over taxes.

Gov. Jerry Brown will be in Los Angeles this morning and in San Francisco this afternoon as he signs legislation authorizing funding to start construction of the state's controversial high-speed rail project.

The Los Angeles ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. at Union Station, 800 N. Alameda St., and the San Francisco event is set for 2 p.m. at Transbay Transit Center construction site on Howard Street between First and Second streets.

Senate Bill 1029 squeaked out of the Senate earlier this month with the bare minimum of votes to authorize $5.8 billion to begin construction in the Central Valley.

That money includes $2.6 billion in bond funds with the rest coming from the federal government, David Siders reported, noting that lawmakers tied that money to nearly $2 billion slated to spruce up regional rail systems and connect them to the high-speed rail project.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles County elections officials in 191 precincts could start a manual recount as early as today of votes for Proposition 29, the tobacco-tax measure on the June 5 ballot.

Alert readers will recall that Prop. 29 was losing by less than 30,000 votes out of more than 5 million cast. Torey Van Oot reported last week that those 191 precincts account for about 48,000 of the votes cast on the measure.

Gov. Jerry Brown has appointed Sacramento Municipal Utility District Director Bill Slaton to the California Public Employees' Retirement System's Board of Administration, the governor's office said this afternoon.

Slaton, 64, was an early contender to challenge Republican Rep. Dan Lungren in an east Sacramento County congressional race in 2010. He dropped out before the primary, however, and endorsed fellow Democrat Ami Bera.

Slaton, of Carmichael, was bank director at Placer Sierra Bancshares from 2002 to 2007 and bank director at Sacramento Commercial Bank before that, according to the governor's office.

The CalPERS position, for which Senate confirmation is not required, pays $100 per diem.

Yes, California Assemblyman Henry T. Perea knows that 2 + 2 = 4.

But you wouldn't know it by looking at the Fresno Democrat's flier for an October campaign fundraising event, which promises to give donors one custom-made men's suit for chipping in $2,000 -- or two of what the flier called "suites" for $5,000.

Here's the kicker: Perea chairs the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee.

The unusual give-and-ye-shall-receive political event will raise money for Perea's re-election campaign and for a ballot measure committee he controls. A Sacramento clothing firm, R. Douglas, will fit each participating donor.

Julie Sandino, coordinator of Perea's event, called the faulty math a simple typographical error. The correct figure is two suits for $4,000, she said, adding with a laugh: "Unless you really like Henry or want to be very generous."

Perea's flier also misspelled the name of the participating clothier, listing him as Ryan Douglas Hammond.

His last name is Hammonds.

The Republican National Committee has released a new Web-only ad hammering President Barack Obama for his ties to former California State Controller Steve Westly, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist.

"Meet Steve Westly," the ad says. "He raised over $500,000 for Obama's campaign. With Obama in office, Westly Group investments have received $500 million taxpayer dollars. Westly was even appointed to a top advisory role, influencing how taxpayer money was spent."

The ad comes as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney continues to defend against criticism of his time at Bain Capital.

"Obama's friends are doing fine," the ad says, "but the middle class isn't."

Westly is a bundler, or major fundraiser, for the Democratic president. His company, The Westly Group, had investments in companies helped by the Obama administration, including electric car maker Tesla Motors and green building company CalStar Products.

The companies were among scores of firms granted tax credits through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and Westly spokesman Joel Berman said Westly's portfolio did not benefit from his campaign activities.

"The ad implies a political payoff that never happened," Berman said. "We have taken every single step along the way to be as transparent as possible, to be above board and do this all the right way."

Editor's note, 1:12 p.m.: A previous version of this post said incorrectly that Joel Berman is a spokesman for The Westly Group. Berman is a spokesman for Steve Westly.

Combatants in three closely-watched congressional races in the Sacramento region are starting the general election campaign with relatively even campaign bank accounts, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

In Eastern Sacramento County's CD 7, Republican Rep. Dan Lungren and Democratic challenger Ami Bera are launching the campaign with about $1.2 million each.

In CD 3, which stretches into Yolo County, Democratic Rep. John Garamendi and Republican Kim Vann each have about $200,000 in the bank.

And in San Joaquin's CD 9, Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney and Republican Ricky Gill each reported more than $1 million in cash, but Gill has $153,000 in debt to pay off.

Dan Walters says CalPERS' low earnings could help Gov. Jerry Brown change the pension system.

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VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters says bad news for CalPERS may be good news for Gov. Jerry Brown.

Brown's tax initiative - aka Proposition 30 - will be top of mind for California State University trustees as they gather for their board meeting today in Long Beach. On the agenda is a major discussion about what CSU will do if voters reject the tax measure in November, triggering a $250 million cut to the university system.

Two contingency plans are on the table. The first raises student tuition by $150 in January and trims employee pay and benefits by 2.5 percent. The second option keeps tuition level but cuts enrollment by 6,000 students and trims employee compensation by 5.25 percent.

"Nothing but difficult trade-offs" was how Assistant Vice Chancellor Robert Turnage described the situation Monday.

CSU is also looking at saving money by having professors spend less time on research and committee work (and more time in the classroom), increasing tuition by $1,000 for out-of-state and international students, and charging students more for any class they repeat more than once or take beyond 16 credits each semester.

A decision on the contingency cuts is expected in September. Read all the details here.

CSU trustees are also voting today on compensation packages for seven campus presidents, including three who will make more than their predecessors because they're in line for salary supplements from campus foundations.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer filed for divorce Friday, months after his wife's affair with a methamphetamine addict and her own substance abuse problems became public.

Lockyer, 71, cited "irreconcilable differences" in his filing in Alameda County Superior Court, said spokesman Tom Dresslar. The veteran Democratic politician has been married to Nadia Lockyer since April 2003, and they have a 9-year-old son.

Their troubles became known in February when she said she was injured in a violent assault at the hands of her former boyfriend, Stephen Chikhani, a methamphetamine user she met in an addiction treatment program. The California Department of Justice, which took over the assault inquiry from Alameda County, declined to pursue charges against Chikhani.

Nadia Lockyer, 41, resigned in April as Alameda County supervisor, a post she won in 2010 thanks in part to $1.5 million in contributions from her husband's war chest. She said in her resignation statement that she could no longer balance her duties as a mother and supervisor while recovering from addiction and dealing with the "aftermath of interpersonal violence," a reference to the Chikhani incident.

"(Bill) Lockyer wants two things," Dresslar said. "Above all, he wants the matter resolved in a way that serves the best interests of his son. Two, he wants it handled as privately and amicably as possible."

PHOTO CREDIT: State Treasurer Bill Lockyer holds his child, Diego, as he enters the Democratic Donvention in San Jose with his wife Nadia on Saturday, January 17, 2004. Sacramento Bee/ John Decker

Can centrist politicians survive and thrive in today's political climate?

Former California Gov. Gray Davis doesn't think so.

"Those people are toast today," the California Democrat said in a taped interview that first aired yesterday, describing his own ideological score as governor as "left of center, maybe a moderate liberal."

Davis made his comments in an interview that aired at the end of "Chasing the Hill," a Web-based series that debuted Sunday. The political drama chronicles a fictional California congresswoman's tough re-election fight in the primary.

Davis, who has been active in California politics since the 1970s, said he's seen partisan gridlock get worse over the years, saying the "the heightened partisan divide has made governing extraordinarily difficult."

"You have to either be on the left or the right or else you end up with both sides shooting arrows at you," he said.

The twice-elected governor said that dynamic was also apparent in the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor-turned-Republican politician voters picked to replace him in a 2003 recall election.

"Arnold started off with good intentions and probably ended up with good intentions, but 85 percent of what he did, I would have done and, you know, he had a difficult time as well," Davis said. "It's very hard to be in the center in today's environment, which is a shame because people are paying the salaries of elected officials ostensibly to help those people live a better life, and what it's gotten down to is just both sides blaming the other and nothing getting done."

The interview was part of a segment called "Chasing Chasing The Hill" that adds insights from real political figures to the scripted show. The premiere can be downloaded online for $1.99.

PHOTO CREDIT: Former Gov. Gray Davis laughs with then-Gov. Arnold in the Capitol rutunda, Wednesday Dec. 7, 2005. Sacramento Bee//Brian Baer

President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney will return to the Bay Area on Sunday and Monday -- back to buck-rake once again in donor-rich California.

Romney will appear at two $50,000-per-plate events on Sunday, according to campaign invitations, one at the San Francisco home of Shaklee Corp.'s Roger Barnett and his wife, Sloan, and one at the Woodside home of Tom Siebel.

The former Massachusetts governor is also expected to attend a less exclusive event at a San Francisco hotel before heading south for a batch of high-dollar fundraisers on Monday in the Los Angeles area.

Obama is scheduled Monday to raise money at a dinner at the Piedmont home of developer and real estate investor Wayne Jordan and his wife, activist Quinn Delaney. Tickets were listed at $35,800 per person.

Obama is also scheduled Monday to attend a larger fundraising reception at the Fox Theater in downtown Oakland.

One might assume that California, the cradle of the global technology revolution, would have the highest penetration of Internet access of any state.

But that assumption would be very wrong, according to data in a new Census Bureau report.

In fact, the proportion of Californians over the age of 3 living in homes with Internet access, 78.2 percent, is only fractionally higher than the national average of 75.9 percent, and 21 states have higher rates, the Census Bureau study, based on its periodic national surveys, shows.

New Hampshire tops the list at 86.2 percent, and other New England states are also high. New Mexico is at the bottom at 64.1 percent. The study breaks down Internet access and usage not only by state but by ethnicity, gender, age and other factors.

In its first online ad, Gov. Jerry Brown's campaign to raise taxes heaps praise on Brown for spending reductions he has enacted, while including a direct appeal by Brown for higher taxes.

Though running online only, the spot suggests a campaign slogan - "Take a Stand" - and its willingness to prominently feature the Democratic governor with only a mediocre public approval rating.

"After a decade of gimmicks and deficit spending, California was on the brink of fiscal insolvency," Mary Jane Burke, Marin County's superintendent of schools, says in the ad's opening scene.

"Then, Gov. Jerry Brown took office," says Dean Murakami, a faculty member at American River College and president of the Los Rios College Federation of Teachers. "He cut phones, cars, travel budgets and state commissions."

Brown's Proposition 30 would raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California's highest earners.

"We've made progress, but we still have very serious budget problems in California," Brown says. "We simply have to take a stand against further budget cuts for schools or for our public safety. To do that, we're going to the people."

The California Democratic Party is poised to take sides in a handful of same-party runoffs on the November ballot.

Democratic delegates throughout the state met over the weekend and last week to cast endorsement votes in a number of districts where no Democrat won the party's official backing ahead of the June 5 primary.

Here are the unofficial results of those votes, which CDP spokesman Tenoch Flores said will be certified as early as Friday if no challenges to the vote are filed.

Assembly District 18:Rob Bonta endorsed over Abel Guillen.

Assembly District 47: Joe Baca, Jr. endorsed over Cheryl Brown.

Senate District 13: Jerry Hill endorsed over Sally Lieber.

Senate District 15: Jim Beall endorsed over Joe Coto.

The party won't be taking a side in the heated 30th Congressional District battle between Democratic Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman. Berman won support of a majority of delegates at the weekend vote -- a reversal from a spring convention vote that put Sherman in the lead -- but failed to hit the 60 percent threshold needed to secure an endorsement.

The party automatically backs candidates who are the sole Democrat on the November ballot, unless a successful attempt to challenge that endorsement is filed. A list of pre-primary endorsements made at the party's spring convention is posted here.

RELATED POSTS:

Endorsement wars heat up at California Democratic Party confab

California is home to more military veterans than any other state - about 2 million - but it doesn't have a particularly high proportion of veterans, according to a new Census Bureau "infographic."

The state has about 12 percent of the nation's population but only about 9 percent of its veterans, the graphic display of data indicates. Nor do any California cities emerge as having relatively high proportions of veterans in their population.

Killeen, TX, with 28.9 percent of its population as veterans, is tops on that list. It's home to Fort Hood, one of the Army's largest installations. Overall, Texas and Florida have the nation's second largest populations of veterans, 1.6 million each.

For anyone who thinks it's OK for police officers to have sex with offenders they're driving to jail, state law now says it's not.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 2078 last Friday to close what its author, Republican Assemblyman Jim Nielsen of Gerber, called a legal loophole that surfaced in the case of an Anderson police officer initially charged with raping a woman he was transporting. The new law takes effect Jan. 1, 2013.

The accused police officer, Bryan Benson, ultimately pleaded guilty to lesser offenses in a plea deal offered by prosecutors who were wary that the loophole could have allowed Benson to argue that the sex in 2010 was consensual, according to news accounts at the time.

State law bans officers from having sex with confined inmates in a jail or prison, or while they are being transported to one. In the Anderson case, however, the woman arguably was not yet confined - she had been taken into custody on suspicion of drunken driving and was headed to jail for booking.

If AB 2078 had been in effect when Officer Benson was arrested, and he had been convicted of rape and kidnapping charges initially filed, he could have been sentenced to life in prison.

The plea deal promised Benson no more than one year in jail - and he does not have to register as a sex offender.

Dan Walters says that California's chronic budget troubles have set it apart from other states.

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VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters talks about a distinction that California could do without -- how its credit rating stacks up against those of other states.

The Nov. 6 election is still some five months away, but the campaign cash is already flowing.

Sunday was the deadline for congressional campaigns, PACs and party committees to file their quarterly reports with the Federal Election Commission covering April 1 through June 30.

At least one California candidate didn't wait until the last minute.

The campaign of Democratic Rep. Lois Capps -- who faces Republican Abel Maldonado in the 24th Congressional District -- released her numbers late last week, noting that she took in more than $577,000 during the quarter and ended it with more than $1.2 million in cash on hand.

As of late Friday, Maldonado had yet to file. Neither had Republican Rep. Dan Lungren or Democrat Ami Bera, who's challenging Lungren in the 7th Congressional District.

Come back later -- Capitol Alert will be sifting through reports in those and other races.

California's election turnout last month set a record low for a presidential primary in the state, with more than two of every three registered voters opting not to cast ballots.

Turnout statewide was 31.1 percent, shattering the previous record low of 41.9 percent for a presidential primary, recorded in 1996, according to state statistics tracking balloting since 1914.

The Secretary of State's office also reported that 65 percent of votes were cast by mail, surpassing the previous record of 62 percent in the 2009 special election.

The dismal turnout was expected because there were few fireworks on the ballot: California was insignificant to the Republican presidential contest, President Barack Obama had no challenger among Democrats, and there was a dearth of hot-button issues statewide.

Neither Proposition 28, involving changes to legislative term limits, nor Proposition 29, a proposed tax on cigarettes, was likely to drive up turnout significantly, said Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo days before ballots were cast.

Under legislation that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law today, California motorists can dictate, send or listen to text-based messages while they're behind the wheel if they're using voice-activated, hands-free devices.

Brown's signing of Assembly Bill 1536 alters state law to treat texting much as it does wireless telephone calls now: Motorists can engage in such activities provided that they are not holding cellular phones or other electronic devices.

Assemblyman Jeff Miller, R-Corona, paints AB 1536, which takes effect Jan. 1, as allowing drivers to use the "most modern communications systems and devices while maintaining the safety of hands-free operation," according to a legislative committee analysis.

Miller contends that Americans spend an average of 64 minutes per day commuting to and from work, and that it is "unfair to require them to be out of touch while behind the wheel as long as they are abiding by the law," the analysis said.

Other bills Brown signed today included Assembly Bill 1047, to prohibit law enforcement from conducting motorcycle-only checkpoints, and Assembly Bill 1854 to bar the rewiring of an airbag safety system to indicate it is functional when it is not.

California has the worst credit rating of any state now and the nation's worst credit rating record over the past 11 years, according to a new nationwide compilation by the Pew Center on the States.

The compilation is based on Standard and Poor's credit ratings and covers every year since 2001. Thirteen states sit atop the Pew chart with AAA credit ratings while California is alone at the bottom at A-minus and is the only state to dip to the worst possible rating, BBB, during the 11-year period.

That happened in 2003, during a state budget crisis so severe that then-Gov. Gray Davis was recalled. The highest rating California achieved during the period, A-plus, came in 2006.

"The states with the lowest grades typically have trouble keeping their spending in line with their tax revenues." Pew's Stephen C. Fehr writes in an explanation of the research. That observation applies to California, which has struggled to balance its budget for the past decade and whose current budget assumes that voters will approve sales and income tax increases in November.

Credit ratings affect the interest that states and other public entities must pay on their bonds. California politicians have tended to downplay their significance, however, citing a provision of the state constitution that gives high priority to bond service, the state's unblemished record of making bond payments, and the apparent willingness of lenders to buy the state's debt offerings, albeit at somewhat higher interest rates than those paid by other states.

Four states - Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia and Utah - have held AAA credit ratings for 46 years or more, Pew noted.

Dan Walters says that backers of this fall's ballot measures will be hitting up against Californians' pessimism about the economy and the direction of the state.

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VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters says that proponents of November's ballot measures will be hitting up against Californians' pessimism about the state.

Should Californians be able to gamble on sports events in their own state? Bring it on, say 58 percent of registered voters surveyed in the latest Field Poll.

More men than women back the idea, and younger voters are more enthusiastic than older ones.

Think office pools and betting among friends. "If they're going to do that anyway, you might as well legalize it and have the state reap some tax revenue from it," Mark DiCamillo, poll director, told The Bee's Jim Sanders in today's Bee. "I think that's the reason for the support."

Voters aren't so sure about legalizing online poker -- 49 percent favor it, and 45 percent say no dice.

Click here to read the publicly released poll. You'll find the statistical tabulations, compiled exclusively for Capitol Alert, at this link.

SCHOOL-BUS SMACKDOWN: Six California school bus drivers are heading to Wisconsin to take part in a two-day bus driving competition. The National School Transportation Association is hosting the 42nd annual event Saturday and Sunday in Milwaukee. The Golden State drivers will be competing in all three categories: conventional bus, small bus and transit bus.

PRESSER: Assemblyman Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, joins members of the California Faculty Association and others to urge the California State University trustees to stop holding closed door meetings on the selection of a new chancellor. Pan will also discuss his plans to introduce an Assembly resolution calling for transparency. The event starts at 10:30 a.m. at 3020 State University Drive E. on the Sacramento State campus in Modoc Hall, Suite 1009.

The likelihood of open warfare between Gov. Jerry Brown and civil rights attorney Molly Munger, who have rival tax increase measures on the November ballot, has increased with the formation by Brown's supporters of a committee to oppose Munger.

Stop the Middle-Class Income Tax Hike--No on Prop. 38 has filed a statement of organization with the secretary of state's office, with political consultant Jason Kinney as treasurer and Dr. James Hay, president of the California Medical Association, as its "principal officer." The CMA supports Brown's Proposition 30.

Proposition 30 would raise sales taxes slightly but would derive most of its revenue from hefty increases in income taxes on taxpayers with taxable incomes of $250,000 or more. Although billed as a measure to support schools, its proceeds would generally close a chronic deficit in the state budget.

Munger's measure, which is backed by the PTA, would raise income taxes on all but the lowest income taxpayers and its proceeds would boost school spending.

Brown attempted to persuade Munger to drop her measure but she refused. As part of the state budget, the Legislature passed a bill to elevate Brown's measure to the top of the ballot and Munger attempted, in vain, to block the shift with a lawsuit.

While polls indicate that Brown's measure has bare majority support, Proposition 38 falls below 50 percent, largely because it would hike income taxes on a wider segment of socety. And that appears to be the focus of the new anti-Munger committee.

The anti-Proposition 38 group has also submitted ballot pamphlet arguments against the measure signed by Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, and officlals from the California State Sheriffs' Association and the California Faculty Association.

Munger has criticized Brown's measure for purporting to bolster school spending while giving little or no new money to education, but has not indicated yet whether she'll finance an opposition campaign to Proposition 30.

Weeks after conceding defeat in the June 5 primary, supporters of an initiative to increase the tobacco tax to fund cancer research have requested a recount in parts of Los Angeles County.

Proposition 29 is losing 49.7 percent to 50.3 percent - a margin of just 29,565 votes out of more than 5 million cast statewide - according to unofficial results posted by the Secretary of State. Proponents of the measure conceded June 22, saying the gap remained too large to overcome as the final ballots were counted.

But a recount was requested in some Los Angeles County precincts Monday, the deadline for submitting such a request, Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan confirmed today. He said 191 precincts were selected for a recount by supporters.

The request was filed by John Maa, according to the Secretary of State's office. A doctor and member of the American Heart Association, Western States Affiliate by that same name was featured in press releases and an advertisement aired by the Proposition 29 campaign. The filer's attorney, Bradley W. Hertz of the Sutton Law Firm, was not immediately available for comment.

The formal Proposition 29 campaign denied involvement in the recount. Spokesman Tim Douglas wrote in an email that "no one with any official connection to the campaign made such a request."

Logan said his department will begin the recount process on Monday, tallying the ballots electronically before starting a manual count midweek. He said he expects the cost of the recount, which could take more than a week, to break down to about $5,700 a day. The campaign requesting the recount must cover that amount in daily deposits, though taxpayers pick up the tab if the process changes the outcome of the election.

The precincts selected by the campaign accounted for about 48,000 of the roughly 900,000 votes cast for and against the measure throughout the county. The campaign can add more precincts or pull the plug on the process at any time, Logan said.

Proposition 29, which would increase the cigarette tax by $1 a pack to pay for cancer research and smoking cessation programs, was sponsored by the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and American Lung Association.

The opposition campaign, fueled with tens of millions of dollars from tobacco companies, argued that the revenue could be put to better use during bad budget times and that the panel created by the measure to oversee the spending lacked accountability and would create more bureaucracy in state government.

Editor's note: This post was updated at 5:05 p.m. to include a response from the Yes on 29 campaign. This post was updated at 5:31 p.m. with the name of the filer.

San Francisco's political cognoscenti are buzzing over a lengthy article in the current issue of Washington Monthly that details how Willie Brown, the city's former mayor, continues to pull strings on behalf of his favored politicians and, apparently, his legal clients.

Or as the magazine itself describes the article's premise: "San Francisco's ex-mayor Willie Brown has pioneered a new way to control a city without breaking a sweat -- or running for office, or getting elected, or disclosing his clients, or making anyone particularly mad."

The article's writer, Elizabeth Lesly Stevens, says Brown, who also was the longest-serving speaker of the state Assembly, refused to be interviewed and keeps his list of legal clients a secret. She describes how Brown pulled strings to make an obscure city bureaucrat, Ed Lee, San Francisco's mayor after Gavin Newsom - another Brown protégé - resigned to become lieutenant governor.

Leaders of a Republican-led drive that qualified a referendum for the November ballot to overturn California's newly drawn state Senate districts have decided not to seek its passage.

Dave Gilliard, a Republican political strategist who led the signature-gathering drive to place Proposition 40 before voters, said that sponsors have filed a ballot statement concluding that a California Supreme Court ruling has eliminated the need for their measure.

Proposition 40 will remain on the November ballot, but sponsors will not raise money to campaign for the referendum, Gilliard said. A "no" vote on Proposition 40 supports overturning the state's 40 newly drawn state Senate districts.

"As the official sponsors of Proposition 40, our intention was to make sure its qualification for the ballot would stop the current Senate lines from being implemented in 2012. The Supreme Court intervened to keep the district lines in place," the sponsors' ballot statement said.

"With the court's action, we are no longer asking for a no vote," said the statement, signed by Julie Vandermost, an Orange County businesswoman and chairwoman of Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting, or FAIR.

Jason Kinney, spokesman for the Senate Democratic Caucus that opposed the referendum, said he was not surprised that GOP sponsors have decided not to bankroll a Proposition 40 campaign.

"This was a highly partisan, high-risk gambit by a handful of Republican Party establishment members -- and it's clearly backfired," Kinney said of the referendum.

The measure targeted new Senate district boundaries that many political analysts predicted would give Democrats at least two additional seats this year, assuring the party of the two-thirds majority needed to approve tax or fee increases in that house.

For the first time ever, the state's legislative districts were drawn last year by a 14-member citizens commission, consisting of five Democrats, five Republicans and four independent or minor-party voters. At least three yes votes from each bloc were required to pass new district maps.

By challenging the new districts through a referendum, sponsors of Proposition 40 were counting on the state Supreme Court to suspend use of the new boundaries and perhaps set temporary districts pending the November vote. Twenty of the Senate's 40 seats are up for grabs this year.

The high court threw the campaign a curve ball by ruling that the challenged Senate district boundaries could be used for the June primary and November general elections, after which Proposition 40's fate would determine whether lines would be redrawn next year.

The court ruling meant that if the Republican-backed referendum succeeds in November, newly elected senators would serve only four years in those districts. Any future campaigns would be for newly drawn seats.

* Updated at 10:20 a.m. Thursday to add quote from Jason Kinney.

Dan Walters says that with San Bernardino being the latest California city to approve filing for bankruptcy, the common factor is that elected officials and managers spent too much.

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VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters looks at "the common denominator" among the California cities lining up to file for bankruptcy.

This won't stop the presses: California voters aren't fans of Congress, according to the latest Field Poll -- but there's growing support among Democrats and independents for one-party control of Congress and the White House.

More than half of likely voters registered as Democrats, members of minor parties or having no party preference say the president's party should also control Washington's Capitol building.

Likely Republican voters are moving in the opposite direction, with only 28 percent agreeing with that sentiment. Instead, split-party control gets the nod from 45 percent of those GOP voters.

Dan Smith has more details in today's Bee. You'll find the publicly released poll here and the statistical tabulations, compiled exclusively for Capitol Alert, at this link.

CAKE AND CANDLES: Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina Carter, D-Rialto, turns 71 today.

The House Republicans' most dogged investigator of Obama administration doings, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Temecula, now faces his own ethics complaint.

On Wednesday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed complaints against Issa with the Justice Department and the Office of Congressional Ethics. Both complaints revolve around allegations that Issa violated federal law by including material from a sealed wiretap application in the Congressional Record.

Issa chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and led the charge to secure a House vote holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. As part of the June 28 debate over the contempt charge, Issa placed in the Congressional Record information from a 2010 wiretap application that included specific details "concerning operational tactics and individual targets" of the law enforcement operation called Fast and Furious, according to the complaint filed with the Office of Congressional Ethics.

For the average Joe, revealing wiretap information is typically against the law. By placing the document in the Congressional Record, though, Issa can claim protection under the Constitution's Speech and Debate Clause, which shields congressional speech from prosecution. The CREW complaint asserts that Issa should nonetheless be disciplined for his actions.

"It is shameful that an organization purporting to support good and transparent government is instead making itself complicit in an effort to cover-up a reckless government effort that contributed to the death of a Border Patrol agent," Issa's spokesman Frederick Hill told Roll Call newspaper.

PHOTO CREDIT: Darrell Issa, 2010. The Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua

California State University trustees will vote next week on compensation packages for seven campus presidents, including three who would make more than their predecessors because they're slated to receive salary supplements from campus foundations.

The pay packages meet the terms of CSU's new executive compensation policy, but have angered the faculty union, which is planning to protest at Tuesday's meeting. The policy was established after public outcry last year when CSU hired a new president for San Diego State and paid him $100,000 more than his predecessor. It calls for paying new presidents a base salary no more than that of the person they are replacing, and allows for a supplement of up to 10 percent paid from campus foundations.

The board is voting on compensation for these campus presidents whose base salaries would be the same as their predecessors but who would receive additional boosts from foundations:

• Dianne F. Harrison, president of CSU Northridge: Annual salary of $295,000 and annual foundation supplement of $29,500.
• Tomás D. Morales, president of CSU San Bernardino; Annual salary of $290,000 and annual foundation supplement of $29,000.
• Leslie E. Wong, president of San Francisco State University: Annual salary of $298,749 and annual foundation supplement of $26,251.

A fourth new president -- Admiral Thomas A. Cropper of the California Maritime Academy -- would receive a salary of $250,000 and no supplement. That salary is $8,600 less than his predecessor's, said CSU spokeswoman Claudia Keith.

The board is also voting on compensation for the following interim presidents, who are in line to receive the same pay as the presidents they are replacing:

• Willie J. Hagan, interim president of CSU Dominguez Hills, $295,000
• Joseph F. Sheley, interim president of CSU Stanislaus, $270,000
• Eduardo M. Ochoa, interim president of CSU Monterey Bay, $270,315

The California Faculty Association, which represents CSU professors and is in contentious negotiations with the university for a new contract, criticized the salary proposals.

"This latest round of pay hikes will come despite months of public outcry from students, faculty and lawmakers about the merits of such pay increase at a time when student fees have skyrocketed, faculty and staff are being laid off and state funding for the CSU has been slashed by nearly a billion dollars," said a statement from the union.

Read the details of the compensation proposals here.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed into law legislation aimed at increasing protections for California homeowners facing the possibility of foreclosure.

The legislation seeks to curb "dual tracking" by prohibiting lenders from starting the foreclosure process while a loan modification is being negotiated, expands notice requirements as part of the foreclosure process and requires large institutions to give borrowers a single point of contact for dealing with their loan issues. It also gives borrowers opportunities to go to court if they are wrongly foreclosed upon and the bank does not correct its mistakes.

"Californians should not have to suffer the abusive tactics of those who would push foreclosure behind the back of an unsuspecting homeowner," Brown said in a statement. "These new rules make the foreclosure process more transparent so that loan servicers cannot promise one thing while doing the exact opposite."

The law stems from a legislative package that Attorney General Kamala Harris pushed for in the wake of a national mortgage settlement reached with 49 states and major lenders. Harris, who appeared with Brown at the bill-signing ceremony, said in a statement that the legislation will "give struggling homeowners a fighting shot to keep their home."

Brown signed two identical bills containing the language, Assembly Bill 278 and Senate Bill 900, which were drafted by a two-house conference committee controlled by legislative Democrats. The Legislature approved the legislation last week.

The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, makes California the first state to put into law and expand to other borrowers major provisions contained in the national mortgage settlement. California was awarded $18 billion as part of that agreement.

RELATED POSTS:
California lawmakers approve homeowner-rights mortgage legislation
Stalled mortgage bills headed for joint conference committee
Senate GOP cries foul over procedural move on mortgage bills
Barack Obama pushes mortgage relief in Reno

Editor's note: This post was updated at 5:22 p.m. with a statement from Harris.

Changes are coming to a state board that pays members $128,000 per year and has been a haven in years past for termed-out legislators appointed by the governor or legislative leaders.

Gov. Jerry Brown's signing of budget-related legislation last month included a provision that will trim the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board from seven members to five, eliminating two governor-appointed positions that currently are vacant.

Members now include former Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, and former Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Modesto. Former San Diego Republican Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia's seat expired two weeks ago.

Other former lawmakers who served on the board recently include George Plescia, R-La Jolla; Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta; and Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego.

The legislation signed recently by Brown, Senate Bill 1038, also will require that members of the board be attorneys with at least five years practicing law or one year conducting judicial proceedings.

Two of the four current members - Kathleen Howard and Ashburn - are not attorneys, according to Alberto Roldan, executive director. Garcia also was not a lawyer.

Dan Walters says the role of California community colleges is about to change.

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VIDEO: In today's report, Dan Walters offers a history lesson on California community colleges and lays out how their role is about to change.

Gov. Jerry Brown heads to Los Angeles to sign the homeowner-rights mortgage legislation that lawmakers approved last week before going on summer recess.

Attorney General Kamala Harris, who pushed for the bill as part of foreclosure relief legislation, will join Brown at the signing ceremony, scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Ronald Reagan State Building, 300 S. Spring St. A news conference follows at 2 p.m. -- in San Francisco, at the State Building, 455 Golden Gate Ave.

Speaking of foreclosures, this Bee interactive graphic shows how foreclosures gutted three Sacramento-area communities -- Elk Grove, North Natomas and Lincoln -- from 2006 to the present.

California voters, meanwhile, are still feeling gloomy about the economy, according to the latest Field Poll. Those supporting Democratic President Barack Obama are more sunny about the future than those supporting Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Even so, most Californians don't buy into "the official numbers about how the economy is performing," poll director Mark DiCamillo told reporter Dale Kasler. Find more in today's Bee. You can also read the publicly released poll at this link. Want even more numbers? Click here for the statistical tabulations compiled exclusively for Capitol Alert.

PROTEST: Health Access and other backers of the federal health care law are rallying at Sacramento County Republican Party headquarters, 9851 Horn Road, at 1 p.m. to urge Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River, and his House colleagues to stop trying to repeal the law.

PRESS CLUB: The executive director of California's health benefit exchange, Peter Lee, is talking at the Sacramento Press Club luncheon about the state's implementation of the federal health care law, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld it. The RSVP deadline has passed, but you can click here to learn more.

A California appellate court will examine whether Democratic lawmakers violated the state constitution by using a majority-vote budget bill to move Gov. Jerry Brown's tax initiative to the top of the November ballot.

A day after Secretary of State Debra Bowen assigned numbers to 11 November ballot measures, the Third District Court of Appeal asked Bowen and lawmakers to show by July 30 why those numbers should stand in response to a lawsuit filed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. The court, however, did not ask Bowen to rescind those numbers for now.

Dan Walters says even though the Legislature is in summer recess, there is no break from politics.

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Dan Walters Daily: The Legislature may be taking a break, but Dan says in today's video that there's no vacation for California politics.

Jon Ortiz reports today that California voters are a little less likely than a year ago to think state and local government pensions are too generous, according to a new Field Poll. But a strong majority still wants to see some specific benefit reforms.

Find the poll here and the tabulations prepared exclusively for Capitol Alert here.

With the November initiative ballot taking shape, today's the day that ballot arguments are due at the Secretary of State's Office.

The water bond has been put off, and Gov. Jerry Brown won a Monday court ruling on whether his measure will appear atop the ballot in a position engineered to avoid the dreaded dropoff of votes for measures farther down the list.

Nathan Ballard, spokesman for Molly Munger's rival tax campaign, said their side wouldn't appeal.

"We're moving on," he said in a statement. "No matter where we end up on the ballot, the fact remains that our measure will reboot California's public schools by sending $10 billion a year into a separate trust fund for education that can't be touched by the governor or the legislature. We look forward to a spirited campaign on the merits."

But the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is still fighting.

Wonder how November's crop of 11 initiatives - on subjects from the death penalty to sex trafficking and genetic engineering - might fare based on outcomes in previous years?

A listing of ballot measures titled each year, prepared by the Secretary of State's Office, shows that roughly two-thirds of measures were rejected by voters in the last 100 years.

Find their fun initiative facts here, along with a full list of initiatives and their outcomes.

WILLIAMSON ACT: The California State Board of Food and Agriculture plans to talk about agricultural land preservation and the Williamson Act at its meeting today, 10 a.m. at 1220 N Street. Scheduled speakers include Heather Fargo of the Strategic Growth Council, Billy Gatlin of the California Cattlemen's Association and David Shabazian of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. Follow the board on Twitter @CaFood_AgBoard.

Two minutes after a restraining order ended Monday, Secretary of State Debra Bowen issued numbers to 11 measures on the November ballot, with Gov. Jerry Brown's tax proposal topping the list as Proposition 30.

The Democratic governor is asking voters to hike the sales tax by a quarter-cent on the dollar and to raise income taxes starting with individuals making more than $250,000 a year. Brown and Democratic lawmakers passed a budget bill last month that moved his initiative to the top of the November ballot.

The governor survived a court challenge Monday after rival tax proponent Molly Munger alleged that her income-tax hike deserved a higher placement than Brown's. Munger's "Our Children, Our Future" initiative landed on the ballot as Proposition 38.

Bowen, a Democrat, issued the ballot numbers at 5:02 p.m., two minutes after a court stay imposed at Munger's request had ended. She released the numbers despite a last-minute challenge by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which asked the Sacramento-based 3rd District Court of Appeal to block Bowen from proceeding.

The anti-tax group believes that the budget legislation giving Brown the top spot, Assembly Bill 1499, is unconstitutional. HJTA President Jon Coupal said that the court can still require the secretary of state to reassign initiative numbers if it rules in his group's favor.

See the full list of initiative numbers after the jump:

Students and local residents will no longer be able to repeat recreational courses at California Community Colleges in fall 2013 under a final change passed today by the system's Board of Governors.

In the wake of recessionary budget cuts, the new rule is designed to shift resources away from courses such as tennis and painting in order to free up funds for more basic academic classes.

Students and community members had been able to repeat a class as many as four times under previous rules governing the system's 112 colleges. Supporters of recreational courses have suggested the change would undermine student health and eliminate access to campus offerings that motivate students to remain in college. We wrote about the change in May.

The new restriction exempts students repeating courses to fulfill University of California or California State University transfer requirements, such as performing arts students who need to take theater classes each semester. It also exempts student-athletes taking courses for intercollegiate competition and those who need to repeat professional courses mandated by law.

The board also initially approved policies that starting in 2014 would give enrollment priority to students who establish an education plan, participate in orientation, take assessment tests and have not accumulated more than 100 units. The changes are designed to move students through the community college system on a quicker pace, though some critics have raised concerns that some less-prepared students will fall through the cracks. We wrote about the proposal in January.

In a statement, Chancellor Jack Scott said the changes will "ensure the system is intelligently rationing classes at a time of scarce resources to provide more students with the opportunity to achieve their goals on time."

The board will take a final vote on prioritizing enrollment in September.

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association filed its own appeal today challenging newly enacted budget legislation that gives Gov. Jerry Brown's tax initiative the top spot on the November ballot.

The group believes Assembly Bill 1499 violates the constitution by changing the ballot order through a majority-vote budget bill, said the group's president, Jon Coupal. By using budget legislation, Democrats were able to change the ballot priority now rather than next year - an expedited schedule that normally would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.

"I think the broader issue here is of the electoral process, and this bill was designed to give one specific measure preference on the ballot," said Coupal, part of a coalition fighting Brown's tax initiative. "I think voters are going to react very negatively to that, no matter how one views additional tax hikes."

HJTA has asked California's 3rd District Court of Appeal to stop the Secretary of State from assigning numbers to initiatives, which could occur as soon as today. A Sacramento Superior Court judge delayed the ballot numbering earlier this month after a tax initiative campaign backed by wealthy civil rights attorney Molly Munger alleged that improprieties had occurred in the signature gathering process and that AB 1499 was unconstitutional.

A separate judge this morning rejected Munger's challenge, though he did not consider the constitutional question after lawyers on both sides focused on the signature verification process. Munger's "Our Children, Our Future" campaign declined to appeal.

If the HJTA suit proceeds, it could have implications beyond the November ballot by potentially narrowing the types of changes that state leaders can pass on a majority vote.

Brown tax initiative spokesman Dan Newman responded in an email, "Anti-education extremists will do everything possible to defeat this Initiative, but the court has spoken and voters are ready to do the right thing for our schools, public safety, and budget."

It isn't surprising to see the Sacramento County Republican Central Committee write a big check to Peter Tateishi's Assembly campaign.

The Carmichael Republican is running in the 8th Assembly District, a local seat that's expected to be one of November's most competitive legislative contests.

But the Sacramento County GOP, which contributed $30,000 to the campaign, isn't the only Republican central committee sending money Tateishi's way.

His campaign committee reported receiving $70,000 from the Republican Party of San Luis Obispo County over the weekend.

Unlike candidate-controlled accounts, party central committees are not subject to campaign contribution limits under state law. That means they can accept large contributions and give state candidates sums greater than the $7,800-per-election cycle cap set for individual donors.

Campaign finance filings show that the San Luis Obispo central committee, which also recently gave $100,000 to a Republican running for a Riverside County Assembly seat, has received major contributions from the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, BNSF Railway Company, the California Apartment Association Political Action Committee and Time Warner Cable, since June 1.

A representative for the county party, which received the donations through a committee called the California Republican Leadership Fund, was not immediately available for comment.

Tateishi is running against Democrat Ken Cooley, a Rancho Cordova councilman, for the open seat. Democrats have a less than one percent voter registration advantage over Republicans in the newly drawn district.

A Sacramento judge ruled this morning that election officials appropriately verified signatures for the November ballot, a decision that should allow Gov. Jerry Brown's tax initiative to take the top spot unless opponents file another challenge today.

Attorneys for wealthy civil rights lawyer Molly Munger argued today that Los Angeles County should have alerted the California Secretary of State's Office immediately when her initiative qualified, rather than waiting to include her measure in a group with three other proposals, including Brown's. But Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael P. Kenny determined that the county did nothing wrong.

Munger's campaign announced this afternoon it would not appeal the ruling. But Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said he is considering a separate appeal that focuses on whether Brown and lawmakers illegally passed a majority-vote bill to move the governor's measure to the top of the November ballot, an issue that was barely mentioned in this morning's hearing.

"The governor's initiative leapfrogged above ours, which gave his initiative an unfair advantage," said Nathan Ballard, spokesman for the Munger initiative. "Look, the deck may be stacked against us, but we've got a good ballot measure here that's actually going to help California schools."

Dan Newman, a spokesman for the Brown tax initiative, responded in an e-mail, "The Court rightly rejected this frivolous lawsuit. Now it's time for the Munger-Jarvis coalition to cease its scorched-earth attack on the electoral process."

An upcoming U.S. House of Representatives vote to repeal the federal health care law is fueling a new round of political ads in a heated East Sacramento County congressional race.

House Republicans announced plans for vote shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 2010 law backed by President Barack Obama. The Wednesday vote is seen largely as a political maneuver meant to energize voters opposed to the law, as any effort to repeal the health care overhaul has no chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate.

But supporters of the law are also seeking to capitalize on the effort in the 7th Congressional District, where Democrat Ami Bera is challenging Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River, for the second time.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched a series of robocalls to independent voters last week, alleging that the Gold River Republican "wants to put insurance companies back in charge of our health care" by getting rid of the law. It followed up this week with a paid Web ad on YouTube highlighting provisions mandating preventative care and coverage for preexisting conditions that would be eliminated if that law is repealed.

Meanwhile, the American Action Network, a nonprofit advocacy group that does not have to disclose its donors, announced that it is sending voters in the district a mail piece urging Lungren to continue to fight for repeal. The group, which is spending $1.2 million on an "issue advocacy" campaign calling for repeal across the country, also ran an ad in Sunday's edition of The Sacramento Bee.

"The Supreme Court has upheld Obamacare. Congress has only one option: Repeal the President's government takeover of your healthcare," read both pieces, which contend the law will lead to new taxes and cuts to Medicare.

Dan Walters questions whether California's "water wars" will ever end.

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VIDEO: Dan Walters, in today's report, asks: Will California's "water wars" ever end?

Molly Munger's lawsuit challenging the new ballot-ordering law for propositions comes up for a hearing at 9 a.m. today in Sacramento Superior Court.

Munger's lawyers asked to delay the hearing until July 18 but weren't successful, Kevin Yamamura reported in this post last Friday.

Will the proposition numbers for the 11 measures on the Nov. 6 ballot be soon to follow?

Speaking of propositions, the Secretary of State's Office is looking for a few good arguments.

Californians who want to submit arguments for or against the November measures have until 5 p.m. Tuesday to get them to that office. They'll be considered for the state's official voter guide.

Official proponents get priority. Next up are what a news release calls "bona fide citizen associations" and then individuals. Arguments have a 500-word limit.

You can hand-deliver the double-spaced documents to the Elections Division, 1500 11th St., fifth floor, in Sacramento. They may also be faxed to (916) 653-3214 or emailed to VIGarguments@sos.ca.gov. If faxed or emailed, the originals must be received within 72 hours.

Rebuttals have their own deadline of July 19 at 5 p.m. Their limit is 250 words.

California's senior U.S. senator, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, is well-known to voters.

Her Republican rival, businesswoman Elizabeth Emken, doesn't have the same name recognition statewide - only one in three likely voters offered an opinion of her, according to the latest Field Poll.

Torey Van Oot reports in today's Bee that Feinstein leads Emken among likely voters surveyed.

Click here for the statistical tabulations compiled exclusively for Capitol Alert. You can find the publicly released poll at this link.

In a court case that could define how broadly lawmakers can use their majority-vote powers, the California Legislature asserted this week that it has the authority to determine for itself whether certain bills are budget-related and thus qualify for a lower vote threshold.

Gov. Jerry Brown last week signed urgency legislation designed to move his tax initiative to the top of the November ballot even though it was among the last to qualify. Lawmakers sent Assembly Bill 1499 to Brown on a majority vote after they drafted it as a special budget bill, which allows it to take effect immediately.

But civil rights attorney Molly Munger, who has a rival tax initiative on the November ballot, alleges in a lawsuit that lawmakers manipulated the constitution by claiming it as a budget bill. If AB 1499 were not budget related, lawmakers would have needed a two-thirds vote to have it take effect in time for the November election.

The state Senate voted by a bare majority today to fund initial construction of California's $68 billion high-speed rail project.

The approval was uncertain as recently as hours before the vote. With all 15 Republican senators opposed to the measure and several Democratic lawmakers wavering, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg scrambled to muster at least 21 of 25 Democratic votes.

Twenty-one Democratic senators voted 'Yes.'

The approval was a major legislative victory for Gov. Jerry Brown. Steinberg said the Democratic governor "talked to a couple members" ahead of the vote, while Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, reminded colleagues that the project not only had Brown's attention, but also that of President Barack Obama and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

The bill approved by the Senate authorizes $5.8 billion to start construction in the Central Valley, including $2.6 billion in rail bond funds and $3.2 billion from the federal government. Lawmakers tied that funding to nearly $2 billion to improve regional rail systems and connect them to high-speed rail. That regional money was considered necessary to lobby hesitant senators about the project's potential significance to their districts.

"Members, this is a big vote," Steinberg said as he opened floor debate on the bill this afternoon. "In the era of term limits, how many chances do we have to vote for something this important and long-lasting?"

Steinberg and other Democrats said the project would create thousands of jobs and make necessary improvements to the state's transportation infrastructure. Republicans said it is too expensive and relies on uncertain future funding. They criticized starting construction in the sparsely populated Central Valley.

Among Republicans in opposition was Sen. Tony Strickland, who criticized a willingness by the Legislature to reduce spending elsewhere while finding money for high-speed rail.

"I think this is a colossal fiscal train wreck for California," he said.

Sen. Joe Simitian, of Palo Alto, was one of four Democrats to break ranks with his colleagues. Simitian said he supports the vision of high-speed rail, but not the current plan. He said there are "billions of reasons" to oppose it.

Other Democratic senators opposing the measure were Mark DeSaulnier, of Concord, Alan Lowenthal, of Long Beach, and Fran Pavley, of Agoura Hills.

Gov. Jerry Brown has appointed two people to the California State University board of trustees, according to the Governor's Office.

Lupe Garcia, 43, from Alameda, has been a lawyer for Gap Inc. since 1999. She is a member of the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. She earned a law degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law. Garcia is registered to vote without a party preference.

Hugo Morales, 63, of Fresno, has been executive director at Radio Bilingüe Inc. since 1980. He served as an adjunct lecturer of the La Raza Studies Program at Cal State Fresno from 1976 to 1979. Morales earned a law degree from Harvard Law School. Morales is a Democrat.

Both appointees must be confirmed by the Senate. Compensation for CSU board members is $100 per diem.

The CSU board still has five vacancies, including one student position.

Dan Walters says that while the California Assembly has voted "yes" on funding the high-speed rail project, proponents may be short a few votes in the Senate.

Have a question you'd like Dan to answer? Post it on our Facebook page.

See other Dan Walters Daily clips here.

VIDEO: Dan Walters says in his latest report that high-speed rail proponents may not get what they want from the California Senate.

The Assembly has adjourned until Aug. 6, but members of the Senate are still in town, facing a crucial vote on initial funding for the state's controversial high-speed rail project.

As David Siders reported Thursday, the Assembly's approval was expected. But which way will the Senate go? There's speculation that backers are a few votes short for passage.

"This is a very tight and tough vote," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg acknowledged Thursday, "but I've had tight and tough votes before."

After members of the upper house finish up their business, they're expected to adjourn until Aug. 6 as well.

Meanwhile, the latest Field Poll reports that likely voters in California are extremely polarized over this year's presidential choices, with Democrats preferring President Barack Obama and Republicans preferring former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by pretty much the same wide margin of 9 to 1.

Those Republicans have Obama on their minds, as Torey Van Oot reports in today's Bee. Sixty percent of them say they back Romney because they're against the president, not because they're for the GOP candidate.

Even so, there isn't much chance of California going red in November, with Obama leading 55 percent to 37 percent over Romney among likely voters. Click here to read statistical tabulations compiled exclusively for Capitol Alert. You'll find the publicly released poll at this link.

The Bee's Torey Van Oot contributed to this report.

The state Assembly voted this afternoon to approve initial funding for California's $68 billion high-speed rail project, setting up a crucial vote in the Senate on Friday.

The bill passed by the Assembly includes $5.8 billion for construction in the Central Valley, as well as nearly $2 billion to improve regional rail systems in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas and to connect them to high-speed rail.

The Assembly's approval, on a 51-27 vote, was widely expected. A much closer vote is expected in the Senate. It remains unclear if the project has enough votes in the upper house to proceed. Senators were debating the bill in committee this afternoon.

Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, urged lawmakers to recall the work of previous generations of Californians, who built the state water project and its highway and university systems.

"We have issues, in terms of budget problems," he said. "Does that mean that we stop looking to the future?"

Republicans argued the state does not have money to invest in rail.

Citing recent polling showing high-speed rail has become unpopular since voters approved it in 2008, Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills, urged the Assembly to put the project back to a public vote.

"Let them help us prioritize what's important," Hagman said.

A Democratic state senator has watered down his legislation aimed at improving the treatment of student athletes at four California universities.

Sen. Alex Padilla, of Los Angeles, agreed to amend Senate Bill 1525 amid opposition from Stanford, UC-Berkeley, UCLA and the University of Southern California.

This bill now requires the four schools to continue scholarships for injured athletes and athletes who have exhausted their athletic eligibility, but have not finished their degree. The schools would also have to pay for health insurance for low-income individuals and tell a student athlete within seven days whether it will grant the athlete's request to speak to another school about transferring.

Previous versions of the measure required the four schools to give equivalent scholarships to all athletes whose scholarships weren't renewed for non-disciplinary reasons, including those dropped for athletic performance reasons.

The earlier version of Padilla's bill also required the schools to allow athletes to transfer to other schools without restrictions, including the rule that they sit out a year before competing.

Padilla said his bill, despite the changes, would have a positive affect.

"At the end of the day, if it's part of what helps a bill to advance through the Legislature and get signed by the governor, it's still, the bill as a whole, is tremendous progress for student athletes in the state," Padilla said.

All the schools but Stanford removed their opposition after Padilla made the changes, and the bill cleared the Assembly Higher Education Committee this week.

Stanford lobbyist Robert Naylor said the bill does not cover enough student athletes and should apply to more schools.

"Stanford takes pride in the way it treats its student athletes, but we object to this bill in principle because it is labeled as a student athlete's bill of rights, (but) applies only to schools that don't have a problem," Naylor said.

The Legislature voted today to take an $11 billion water bond off the November ballot, delaying a statewide vote on the issue until 2014.

The bond measure, which was crafted by the Legislature in 2009 , was expected to face long odds on the ballot this year. Critics -- and even some legislators who voted for the bond -- say it is too large and contains too many appropriations not directly related to water infrastructure development and conversation.

But even members who spoke against the bill in the Senate voted for Assembly Bill 1422, the legislation to move the bond to 2014. The bill cleared the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 34-2 and passed the Assembly 69-6.

Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, cited a long list of issues with the bond in its current form on the floor, saying it should be repealed entirely. But the Davis Democrat said she decided to support the move because keeping it on this year's ballot would be "disastrous" for Gov. Jerry Brown's tax measure, which will also be up for in November.

This is the second time the Legislature has postponed a vote on the bond, which was originally slated for the 2010 ballot.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said while the bond itself is being delayed, work on a deal to trim the size of the current bond should happen "sooner rather than later."

"If we're really serious about passing a bond measure in 2014, which I fully support, if we're serious about it, get to work now," the Sacramento Democrat said. "With human nature, inertia and politics being what they are now, this is merely a band aid and we need the water investment, that's the key. We need to pass a bond. Let's get to it."

Dan Richard, chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority board, said this afternoon that if the Legislature does not approve funding for the project today and Friday, it is essentially dead.

"If the Legislature doesn't move forward with the project this week, then the secretary of transportation has made it very clear that they need to look at withdrawing the money from California and putting it some place else," Richard told reporters ahead of a likely floor vote in the Assembly this afternoon. "Without that federal match, we're not going to be able to go forward. So, effectively, yes, this is the time when California decides, 'Do we want to move forward with this rail modernization or don't we?'"

The Assembly is expected to approve funding for the project, but support in the Senate, which is expected to vote tomorrow, is uncertain. Richard declined to say if he believes the rail authority has the necessary Senate votes.

"I don't make those predictions," he said. "I'm not a member of the Legislature, and the thing that I've found is that people who make those predictions are either presumptuous or stupid. So I'm going to decline to be either."

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood urged lawmakers in May to vote on the rail project before the Legislature's summer recess. The controversial project now polls poorly among California voters, and some Democratic senators have criticized the project's oversight and cost.

The Legislature is expected to vote on a bill that ties $5.8 billion in funding for construction in the Central Valley to nearly $2 billion in funds to improve regional rail systems and connect them to high-speed rail. Rail advocates have used the promise of regional investment to lobby senators in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas.

"I think the one thing that is most important to emphasize is that while over the last couple of years people have really talked about this as the high-speed rail program, the fact of the matter is that what our new business plan is all about is an integrated rail modernization program for the state," Richard said. "It's not just high speed rail."

He said, "We have really put the best plan forward that we could put forward."

The Senate Judiciary Committee has rejected legislation that would have adopted a federal standard allowing manufacturers to label their products as "Made in USA" as long as it is "entirely or substantially" produced in the United States.

The measure, Assembly Bill 858, was introduced by Assemblyman Brian Jones, R-Santee, at the request of several California firms and cleared the Assembly on a 68-0 vote.

The chief sponsor was the Southern California company that manufactures Maglite flashlights.

However, after reaching the Senate, the bill attracted heavyweight opposition from consumer groups and personal injury attorneys, who said that adopting a federal standard instead of California's strict law on using the "Made in USA" label would mislead consumers.

The Senate Judiciary Committee rejected the measure this week with its majority Democrats opposing it.

Steve Kamp has a pretty good track record when it comes to California elections.

The Sacramento resident is a two-time winner ... of Capitol Alert's election contest, that is.

Kamp, a tax attorney at the Board of Equalization who dabbles in election law, was the top scorer in the June 5 primary quiz, correctly answering eight out of 10 trivia questions and election predictions.

Kamp tied another Alert reader for the top spot in November 2010, but he gets the latest prize -- a coffee shop gift card -- all to himself.

One other reader also scored 80 percent but failed to answer the tie-breaker query to compete for a win.

That was good news for Kamp, who predicted in the tie-breaker that U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein would win 60 percent of the primary vote.

That was a bit optimistic. Feinstein got 49 percent.

"I overpredicted her," he acknowledged Tuesday, saying that he should have given more consideration to the size of the 24-candidate field.

Still, given his interest and skill in trivia, has he ever considered making a run as a "Jeopardy!" contestant?

"I'm actually pretty good," Kamp said. "I actually may do that someday."

See the questions and the winning answers to this year's quiz after the jump:

Dan Walters says, in response to a reader's question, that the rumored death of the Brown Act -- California's sunshine law named for former Assembly Speaker Ralph M. Brown back in 1953 -- has been greatly exaggerated.

Have a question you'd like Dan to answer? Post it on our Facebook page.

See other Dan Walters Daily clips here.

VIDEO: Dan Walters says in today's report that the rumored death of California's Brown Act, which covers local agencies and open meetings, has been greatly exaggerated.

With pension reform appearing to be off the table for now, the Legislature has one more high-profile item on its agenda this week: whether to authorize the funding necessary to start constructing the state's controversial high-speed rail project.

The latest Field Poll may give pause to even its staunchest proponents.

David Siders reports in today's Bee that support for Gov. Jerry Brown's November tax initiative drops significantly if lawmakers vote to fund construction.

Even so, Brown's initiative is polling better than the other two tax proposals on the November ballot: attorney Molly Munger's, which would raise personal income taxes on most Californians, and hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer's, which would increase taxes on multistate businesses operating in the state.

Click here for the statistical tabulations compiled exclusively for Capitol Alert. You'll find the publicly released poll at this link.

Just two days remain before the Legislature is expected to adjourn by Friday for its summer recess. Floor sessions are scheduled in both houses today at 1 p.m.

A joint committee also holds an oversight hearing on the city of Vernon's prospects for financial stability. Look for it starting at 11:30 a.m. in the Capitol's Room 444.

PRESSER: U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer is joining Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the City of Angels this morning to talk about what's in store for California under the transportation bill Congress recently passed -- a political achievement for Boxer, as Michael Doyle notes in this Capitol Alert post. Boxer is also expected to opine about the Supreme Court's decision last week on the federal health care law. The event starts at 10:15 a.m. at the I-405 North on-ramp at Skirball Center Drive.

Lawmakers preparing for a crucial vote this week on high-speed rail will see a bill tailored to include funding for regional transportation improvements in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas, as well as language designed to address longstanding concerns about the California High-Speed Rail Authority's oversight of the project.

Lawmakers expect to consider the $68 billion project in committee on Thursday, before a floor vote in the Senate on Friday.

Draft bill language for initial funding of the project ties $5.8 billion for construction in the Central Valley - including $2.6 billion in rail bond funds and $3.2 billion from the federal government - to nearly $2 billion in funds to improve regional rail systems and connect them to high-speed rail.

The controversial project is a priority for Gov. Jerry Brown, and supporters have scrambled in recent days to lobby hesitant Democrats in the Legislature.

Even among supporters, the authority has been criticized in recent years for its changing cost estimates and public relations blunders.

Draft bill language would require the authority to outline financial risks of the project and produce a management plan "to ensure adequate oversight and management of contractors." The bill would also require the authority to fill the positions of chief executive officer, risk manager, chief program manager and chief financial officer before awarding construction contracts.

The authority would be required within a year to provide an analysis of the project's impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

Happy Independence Day!

Here's a holiday subject for true political junkies: the latest Field Poll.

David Siders reports in today's Bee that California voters aren't too happy about state budget cuts that would kick in automatically if Gov. Jerry Brown's tax initiative fails in November.

Opposition crosses party lines, with 79 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of the independents surveyed saying they're against automatic trigger cuts.

The poll also looked at voters' views of how the governor and the Legislature are doing.

Click here to read the statistical tabulations prepared exclusively for Capitol Alert. You'll find the publicly prepared poll at this link.

As lawmakers prepare for a contentious vote later this week over billions of dollars in funding for high speed rail, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's office distributed a chart that shows the potential benefit of the project to each member of the upper house.

Rail

After Gov. Jerry Brown's office described a divide in negotiations over cutting public pensions, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg suggested Tuesday that the California governor had been slow to propose bill language on a crucial piece of the package.

Steinberg said Democrats drafted a plan that caps the pension share for new public workers at roughly $110,000, giving them a less lucrative retirement benefit for income above that amount. But he challenged Brown for not providing specifics on his own "hybrid" idea that could shift some retirement risk onto workers.

"The governor has a hybrid concept but does not have a fleshed-out proposal," Steinberg said. "Even if he wanted us to take up his hybrid concept today, we couldn't because the proposal has not yet been developed."

Brown spokesman Gil Duran said in a statement this morning that Brown could not agree on some of the ideas in the Democrats' pension plan and that a legislative vote would have to wait until after this month's summer recess.

Steinberg said Democratic lawmakers are in "common agreement" with Brown on most items, including changes intended to curb spiking of pension benefits and eliminating the option to purchase service credit for years not worked, commonly referred to as "air time."

Based on Steinberg's characterization, Brown and lawmakers must still figure out two major components that would change pension calculations for new employees. One has to do with the hybrid concept, which would reduce pension promises to high-income employees. A $110,000 cap would apply generally, while a higher cap around $130,000 would apply to public-safety workers.

Another has to do with raising the retirement age for new employees. The Democratic plan would hike the starting age for non-public safety workers from 50 to 52, while it would delay full benefits until age 67. Public safety workers would have lower qualifying ages.

"We will do more of a gradation," Steinberg said. "Ultimately, 67 will be the retirement age for the highest level of benefits for 'miscellaneous' employees," referring to non-safety workers.

The changes would go beyond state employees and affect public sector workers in local government, Steinberg said. He said the Democrats' plan would save about $40 billion over 30 years, according to a projection run by CalPERS, but detailed information about that calculation was not available Tuesday.

Gov. Jerry Brown and Democrats in the California Legislature have failed to reach a deal on pension changes, Brown's office said today.

Brown spokesman Gil Duran said in an email that Brown could not agree to pension changes proposed by lawmakers Sunday. The Democratic governor had proposed further-reaching benefit reductions.

The statement suggests the Legislature is unlikely to deliver a pension package this week before leaving for summer recess.

Duran said Brown asked lawmakers "to continue to work with him over the recess to resolve the substantial differences."

California timber companies and other major landowners would pay significantly less money when found liable for wildfire damage under draft legislation that resurfaced Monday in the Capitol.

The proposed bill, written at Gov. Jerry Brown's request, would only apply to cases filed after the new law is enacted, according to a copy obtained by The Bee. That seems intended to address one concern of Sacramento-based U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner, who said in May that Brown's original proposal was "a fairly cynical attempt" by Sierra Pacific Industries to reduce damages in a pending wildfire case that goes to trial next week.

The legislation prevents courts from issuing double or triple awards for causing wildfires if it otherwise calculates damages based on environmental harm. It also requires that damages be based on fair market value.

Dan Walters says the Legislature has a lot going on this week.

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See other Dan Walters Daily clips here.

DAN WALTERS DAILY: Dan's video appearance today describes the Legislature's short but busy week.

No floor sessions today, but those closely following the California Legislature will be looking for more details about a pension proposal in the works.

Democratic legislators have been crafting legislation on the subject intended to address Gov. Jerry Brown's call for pension reductions. They don't appear to want to implement Brown's own proposal without changes, however, and there's still no sign of a deal.

That's only one of the remaining items on Democratic lawmaker's to-do list before the legislative recess begins on Friday. Legislators are scrambling to move dozens of bills through committee before they leave for summer break.

Pending in the Assembly are measures by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg to create a free digital textbook library for the state's college students and a push to curb frivolous lawsuits filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

On Monday, lawmakers moved legislation aimed at providing relief to California homeowners facing foreclosure to Brown's desk.

Find more bills on the Senate committee lineups here and Assembly committee agendas here.

CAKE & CANDLES: Assemblyman Richard Gordon, D-Menlo Park, turns 64 today. Sen. Rod Wright, D-Inglewood, celebrates his 60th.

Bee Capitol Bureau reporters Torey Van Oot and Kevin Yamamura contributed to this report.

By Cathy Locke

Efforts to correct a problem in a piece of equipment involved in electrical service to the state Capitol could result in a brief power outage for about 650 Sacramento Municipal Utility District customers early Tuesday morning.

Read the rest of the story here.

A controversial bill that would ban dogs from being used to hunt bobcats and bears in California made it out of one Assembly committee today on its second try, but still faces fierce opposition from the California Houndsmen for Conservation.

About 200 opponents gathered at the Capitol today to urge members of the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee to vote against Senate Bill 1221 by Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance. It passed 8-4, and now heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee

Josh Brones, president of the houndsmen group, noted that the bill also allows the Department of Fish and Game to kill dogs who are in pursuit of a bear or bobcat.

Laurie Jones, a member of the Humane Society, said she supported the bill because it protected dogs, bobcats and bears from being treated poorly.

"It doesn't keep (hunters) from killing the bears, it just doesn't allow them to use the hounds, to use them in which way is seen as in an inhumane way," Jones said.

The houndsmen carried bright orange signs that read "HSUS is killing our wildlife one bill at a time. Vote no on SB 1221." And sported pins that said "revenge is not the answer. Vote no on SB 1221."

Many supporters of the bill, like Jones, have argued that the use of hounds in hunting is unfair and takes the sport out of it. Brones disagrees.

"It is anything but unfair," he said. "It does not rely on technology of any kind. It relies on the training you gave the dog."

If the bill becomes law, Brones said he and an estimated 3,000 people would move out of California in order to preserve their way of life.

The bill failed to make it through the committee last week but was reconsidered today. Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, did not previously vote, but voted in favor of the bill today. Assemblyman Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, who was not present for the previous vote, also voted in favor of the bill.

PHOTO CREDIT: The Sacramento Bee Hannah Madans

State Controller John Chiang will appeal a judge's ruling that he does not have authority to withhold lawmakers' pay in cases in which the Legislature passes a budget Chiang finds unbalanced.

The appeal, to be filed with the 3rd District Court of Appeal, re-opens a dispute between Chiang and Democratic legislative leaders, who sued Chiang after he blocked their pay for 12 days last year. The Democratic controller filed a notice of appeal in Sacramento Superior Court this afternoon.

At issue is an interpretation of voter-approved Proposition 25, which requires lawmakers to pass a budget by June 15 or go unpaid. Sacramento Superior Court Judge David I. Brown ruled it was within the Legislature's power - not Chiang's - to determine whether the budget it passed is balanced.

Chiang spokeswoman Hallye Jordan said Brown's ruling "flies in the face of the voters' will, which was to hold lawmakers accountable for late, unbalanced budgets by docking their pay when they miss the Constitutional deadline."

Legislation that would shift an $11 billion water bond from the November ballot to 2014 cleared the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee Monday on a bipartisan, 5-0 vote.

The measure, Assembly Bill 1422 by Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno, won support from virtually every stakeholder in the state's notoriously fractious water issue.

If passed, it would be the second time that the measure had been delayed and would indirectly help Gov. Jerry Brown win voter approval of his sales and income tax measure in November. Brown has called for delay and changes in the water bond, fearing that its size would make voters less likely to approve taxes.

Brown has already signed legislation that would move his measure, a constitutional amendment, to near the top of November's ballot, just behind bond issues, and if AB 1422 is enacted, the tax measure then would top the ballot. However, Molly Munger, who's sponsoring a rival income tax measure, has sued, claiming that legislators and Brown are manipulating the election process. A Sacramento judge last week issued an order to temporarily block the numbering of ballot measures pending further hearings.

The contents of Senate Bill 1528 are scant but lobbyists for personal injury attorneys and business and insurance industry groups assume that the final language will spark political war and the contending factions are arming for battle over its high financial stakes.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg introduced the bill and moved it through the Senate as virtually an empty shell to be filled in later with language that would completely or partially overturn a 2011 state Supreme Court decision. The case (Howell vs. Hamilton Meats) limited recovery of medical damages in personal injury cases to amounts actually paid, rather than medical providers' bills. Insurers say the decision saved them $3 billion a year in lawsuit payouts.

The lobby for personal injury attorneys, Consumer Attorneys of California, has declared legislation to overturn the decision as its highest legislative priority this year. In response, insurance and business groups have formed a coalition to oppose the bill and with its initial hearing in the Assembly Judiciary Committee scheduled for Tuesday, both sides are ramping up lobbying and public relations campaigns.

Steinberg amended the bill last week, but it still pertains only to recovery of medical costs by counties, which is only tangentially connected to the Howell decision. Opponents, therefore, contend that Steinberg and the lawyer group are planning "phantom amendments" and have posted a You Tube video (above) making fun of the process.

California lawmakers approved today legislation aimed at strengthening the rights of homeowners facing foreclosure, leaving the fate of the heavily debated proposal in the hands of Gov. Jerry Brown.

The proposal, approved over opposition from banking and business interests, would make California the first state to put into state law several significant provisions contained in a national settlement with five large banks. It is part of a package of bills backed by state Attorney General Kamala Harris.

"I think we all should feel very good that we have done something that was just the right thing to do," Harris said at a press conference following the vote.

The legislation, contained in Assembly Bill 278 and Senate Bill 900, cleared both houses this afternoon. The Assembly easily approved the majority-vote measure, 53-25, with one Republican and one independent joining Democrats in voting yes, and cleared the Senate on a party-line vote of 25-13.

The bill targets "dual tracking" by prohibiting lenders from starting the home foreclosure process while a loan modification is being negotiated and seeks to curb the use of robo-signed, unverified documents that can speed up the foreclosure process. It also provides homeowners with some legal recourse, such as the ability to seek an injunction blocking the sale of their foreclosed home, and requires that large financial institutions give borrowers negotiating a loan modification a single point of contact for dealing with their home financing issue. Institutions that foreclosed on fewer than 175 homes the previous year would be exempt from some parts of the law.

The provisions in the bill that were part of the national settlement, which already apply to the five banks involved in that agreement, would take effect for other institutions Jan. 1, 2013, with some provisions sunsetting after five years.

Language approved today was crafted by a Democrat-controlled two-house conference committee that was created after opposition from financial institutions threatened to derail the original bill.

Legislative Democrats praised the conference committee report as a strong compromise that will help homeowners while keeping the economy on track. Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, said it would "give people facing foreclosure a fighting chance" and "help people cut through the red tape" when dealing with lenders.

Some Republicans opposing the bill in the Senate said they support the goal of protecting homeowners, but voiced concerns about provisions allowing borrowers to take legal action against thier lenders under the law. They said the final language, which as a conference committee report could not be amended, created uncertainty for the markets and gave borrowers too much leeway to seek coverage of attorneys fees.

"This will be a field day for the trial attorneys," said Sen. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale. "That doesnt serve homeowners. That doesn't serve regenerating the housing market. It doesn't help."

Representatives from a coalition pushing for the changes said while the proposal approved today provides more limited protections than they first sought, they are happy to see several key elements make it into the final language.

"It's good enough and it's probably much better than good enough," Rick Jacobs, chair and founder of Courage Campaign, said at a press conference held before the vote.

Dan Walters says the Assembly has the votes needed to start construction on California's high-speed rail project, but several Democratic senators are balking at authorizing the money.

Have a question you'd like Dan to answer? Post it on our Facebook page.

See other Dan Walters Daily clips here.

VIDEO: Dan Walters says in today's report that getting the Senate to approve the funds this week to start constructing California's high-speed rail project may not be easy.

Both the Senate and the Assembly have scheduled floor sessions at noon. Legislators are trying to wrap up some loose ends this week before taking a month-long summer recess.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told reporters last Thursday that lawmakers still have "five significant things" on this week's agenda.

"That's not an iron-clad promise that it will get done," Steinberg said, "but we'll endeavor to get done pension reform, foreclosure relief, high-speed rail, ... putting off the water bond until 2014, and the governor's reorganization plan."

Compromise foreclosure legislation, Senate Bill 900 and Assembly Bill 278, is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate today.

The proposal would increase protections for homeowners facing foreclosure through several provisions, including setting up fines for lenders filing robosigned documents and allowing borrowers to sue for damages over material violations of the law.

Banking, business and real estate interests have lined up against it, according to this Senate floor analysis, including the California Association of Realtors, California Bankers Association, California Chamber of Commerce, California Financial Services Association, California Land Title Association, California Mortgage Association, California Mortgage Bankers Association and others.

The Senate may also take up a measure to delay the water bond until the Nov. 4, 2014, general election.

Meanwhile, committees meet in both houses, as Friday is the deadline for policy panels to hear bills. Measures expected to come up in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee include Assembly Bill 298 by Democratic Assemblywoman Julia Brownley aimed at reducing the distribution of single-use carryout bags at retail stores.

Over on the Assembly side, the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee is expected to convene after session adjourns in order to vote on Senate Bill 1221, Democratic Sen. Ted Lieu's measure on the use of dogs to hunt bears and bobcats, which fell one vote short of passage last week.

Meanwhile, the Senate Rules Committee will consider gubernatorial appointments starting at 1:30 p.m. in the Capitol's Room 113. Among those required to appear are Denise Brown, director of the Department of Consumer Affairs; Brent Barnhart, director of the Department of Managed Health Care; and Charlton "Chuck" Bonham, director of the Department of Fish and Game. The three were originally up for consideration last Wednesday, but Alert readers will remember that the Legislature was preoccupied with budget votes that day.

Not required to appear is the new California poet laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera. Click here to read a biography of Herrera. You can also watch a video of him talking about how libraries made stories come alive when he was a child. Find that video and more in this Capitol Alert post about his appointment.

LEGISLATIVE CALENDAR: Click here to find the Senate's full daily file, and click here for the Assembly's.

CAKE AND CANDLES: Sen. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, turns 52 today.

The Bee's Torey Van Oot contributed to this report.