Capitol Alert

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.

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

See other Dan Walters Daily clips here.

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.