Capitol Alert

Republican Leroy Ornellas is airing his first television spot in the targeted 5th Senate District.

The San Joaquin County supervisor is battling Assemblyman Bill Berryhill, R-Stockton, for one of two November runoff spots in the swing district, which encompasses all of San Joaquin County and part of Stanislaus County. The third candidate on the ballot, Democratic Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, is expected to make it to November by carrying the Democratic voters in the primary.

The 30-second ad, which is running on cable stations through the June 5 primary, is centered on the Tracy dairy farmer's "no more bull" appeal as the only candidate who is not currently serving in Sacramento.

"I've been a dairy farmer all my life and I know bull when I see it and I see a lot of it in Sacramento," he says in the spot, which is posted below. "I see politicians fighting, not solving problems, raising taxes, not cutting waste."

Berryhill, who had to move into the district to be eligible to run, has the backing of the Senate Republican Caucus and some powerful Sacramento interests. A committee funded largely by the California Medical Association, for example, recently reported spending $33,500 on mail pieces opposing Ornellas. The Senate GOP believes Berryhill has a better shot of defeating Galgiani in the seat.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg pledged today to put forward for the 2014 election a package of major changes to California's initiative process, including a provision to make it easier for legislators to place tax measures on the ballot.

The Sacramento Democrat, speaking at a Sacramento Press Club luncheon, outlined a trio of initiative reforms he said "will both strengthen California's tradition of direct democracy and empower the people elected by their communities...to make clear choices."

He said he plans to put the proposals on the 2014 ballot either through a vote of the Legislature, a task he said could be easier if Democrats secure a supermajority in the upper house this November, or by gathering the necessary voter signatures through the initiative process.

UPDATE: 4:20 p.m. The California Lottery Commission is taking down the ad. Read more at this link.

Leaders of the Legislative Women's Caucus are demanding that the California Lottery Commission take a new television ad off the air, saying a scene in which a woman slaps a man who scores a win on a scratch ticket "glamorizes violence."

"We certainly believe this commercial not only portrays women in a poor light -- by perpetrating violence -- but also endorses the act of violence itself," Sen. Noreen Evans and Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, who co-chair the caucus, wrote in a letter Wednesday to Lottery Director Robert O'Neil.

The letter, posted after the jump, asks the Lottery Commission to pull the ad and "scrutinize the content of future ads which may contain harmful messages that are paid for with public dollars."

"It is inappropriate for any entity, especially a state-funded Commission, to promote its products through the use of violence," the letter reads.

The "Luck has a new look" spot, posted below, shows a woman in black, assumed to be "Lady Luck," walking up to a man playing a California Lottery Black Scratchers ticket at a bowling alley. After she slaps him across the face, he looks at his scratch card and says, "I won!"

A spokesperson for the Lottery Commission was not immediately available for comment. The commission website lists several Lady Luck-themed promoted for the Black Scratchers game running through the month of April.

The Senate moved forward today with plans to direct mortgage reform proposals sponsored by Attorney General Kamala Harris to a joint legislative conference committee, passing placeholder legislation over objections from Republican lawmakers who said the upper house was manipulating the legislative process.

The move would allow a six-member committee to hammer out the details of the proposals to apply terms of the major foreclosure settlement reached between 49 states and five major banks to apply to all California lenders outside the normal committee process.

The package of bills on the topic sponsored by Harris, which includes proposals addressing problems stemming from "dual tracking" and "robo signings," was pulled from committee agendas in the Senate and the Assembly this week.

A Senate committee gave the green light today to legislation that would block public and private universities and employers from seeking access to applicants' social media accounts.

Senate Bill 1349, by Democratic Sen. Leland Yee, bans employers and educational institutions from asking prospective or current employees and students to hand over their user names and passwords or provide access to the account.

The bill was approved by the Senate Education Committee 7-0. It now heads for consideration in the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee.

Yee announced plans to pursue the legislation after an Associated Press report cited examples of such practices happening in other states, though the San Francisco Democrat said the issue had come up before in conversations with Silicon Valley interests. While California's public universities and colleges say they do not currently request such information, a legislative committee analysis says some private institutions have sought access to student athletes' accounts.

"While social media have provided a useful avenue for socialization and expression, the author contends that it has also put employees, job applicants, and students at risk of having their privacy blatantly violated by employers and schools," the committee analysis reads.

Assemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose, introduced a similar proposal earlier this year. That bill, A.B. 1844, is scheduled to be heard by the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee next week.

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Bill would stop requests for job seekers' social media logins

PHOTO CREDIT: Matt, 17, and Bob Florian showcasing a Facebook page. Washington Post photo by Susan Biddle.

Steve Glazer, a top unpaid adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown, cleared a key hurdle today for winning confirmation to the California State University Board of Trustees.

The Senate Rules Committee approved Glazer's appointment by a bipartisan vote of 5-0 at a confirmation hearing this afternoon, signaling smooth sailing for the Brown appointee as he heads to a vote of the full Senate.

Glazer's confirmation hearing had been delayed last week amid questions about support from Senate Republicans, whose votes are needed to hit the two-thirds threshold for approving CSU trustees.

Another Brown appointee to the board, former chairman Herbert Carter, failed to win approval after Republicans signaled they would not support him in a floor vote. But unlike Carter, Glazer had not made a controversial vote for a generous campus president pay package on the same day the board moved to increase tuition.

Glazer told members of the committee today that while he believes the board should do what it can to attract top-tier talent for open posts, "we need everyone in the system to make sacrifices" during a time of budget constraints.

"We have to live within our financial means," he said. "We have to set the right example."

Glazer, who is helping run Brown's tax measure campaign, was appointed to the board by the Democratic governor last year. He faces a May 3 confirmation deadline.

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Senate delays confirmation hearing for Steve Glazer

Should wealthy Californians serving time as inmates head directly to jail AND pay the tab of their incarceration costs?

A state Senate committee today decided the answer to that question is no -- for now, at least.

Senate Bill 1124, by Sen. Anthony Cannella,would require the courts to order prisoners who can afford to pay for part of their state prison or county jail stay to do so.

While current law allows a judge order someone sentenced to state prison to pay all or part of the "reasonable costs of the imprisonment," Cannella says that his proposal would result in more so-called "pay-to-stay" orders and alleviate financial burdens for the correctional system.

"I'm just suggesting that the one percenters that we talk about who have the ability to pay for their incarceration do just that," the Ceres Republican told members of the Senate Public Safety Committee.

The bill failed by a vote of 2-3. Critics complained that it would put an undue burden on families and inmates readjusting to life after bars, but Democrats voting no pointed to potential costs for the court system, which would have been required to set a hearing to determine whether the inmate would be able to reimburse the state.

"This is not a time to be imposing any additional requirements on our courts in my view," said Public Safety Chair Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley.

Still, several Democrats sitting on the committee endorsed the concept of the proposal. Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, suggested commissioning a report on how often the current option to force repayment is exercised and looking into a pilot program.

'I think it's a great bill, and I think in a different time and a different place it would be very effective," Calderon said.

PHOTO CREDIT: Inmates wait in the Roger Bauman Facility for assessment at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center on March 5, 2012. Renée C. Byer, Sacramento Bee.

It's all hands on deck as the deadline approaches for supporters of Gov. Jerry Brown's tax measure to turn in the hundreds of thousands of signatures they need to qualify for the November ballot.

In addition to calling and mailing voters pleas to send signatures in, campaign supporters have asked some Democratic staff members in the Legislature to circulate petitions for the constitutional amendment on their time off.

The volunteer effort is organized by the political, non-state arms of the Assembly and Senate Democratic caucuses, which are funded and staffed by the California Democratic Party, both the Assembly and Senate Democrats say.

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

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

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

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

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

Much talk, no action -- yet. California's Citizens Compensation Commission spent two hours today discussing state officeholder compensation, but no decisions were made and none of its members suggested raising pay of legislators or other statewide officeholders.

Chairman Tom Dalzell said he suspects that the state's budget crisis would bar any pay hike, even if there were sentiment to do so when the commission reconvenes in May to consider any written motions submitted by members.

Today, commissioners identified several issues they may want to consider in the future -- whether senators should be paid more than Assembly members because of larger districts, for example, and whether California's prohibition on legislative pension benefits should be taken into consideration in comparing pay to other states.

Jon Ortiz has used Storify to tell the tale, collecting photos, tweets and other information from the Web. This post will take a little time to load, but it's worth the wait.

A handful of state lawmakers wore gray-hooded sweatshirts this morning at this morning's session, taking up the symbol of solidarity and protest that has sprung up around the country over the slaying of Trayvon Martin.

Sen. Curren Price, who gaveled the session to order, wore one of the hoodies over his suit jacket and tie. Other Democrats, including Juan Vargas, donned the sweatshirts bearing "In memory of Trayvon Martin" stenciled in black letters on back.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, put on his sweatshirt before addressing the Senate.

Martin's Feb. 26 death has reignited a national debate about race. The 17-year-old was wearing a hoodie when he was shot and killed in Sanford, Fla., by George Zimmerman, a self-described neighborhood watch captain. Zimmerman claimed self-defense under Florida's "stand your ground" law and has not been charged.

Martin's family and those who support them say he was a victim of racial profiling and that law enforcement officials haven't adequately investigated the teen's death.

Hoodie-wearing protesters around the country have said Martin's killing is part of a larger pattern of injustice against African American men. On Wednesday, Rep. Bobby Rush, a Democrat from Illinois, wore a hooded sweatshirt on the floor of the House of Representatives. Rep. Gregg Harper, a Mississippi Republican who was presiding over the chamber, kicked Rush out of the chamber for violating a dress code ban on hats.

A California senator is seeking to block employers from requesting social network login information as part of the job application process.

Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, announced today that he plans to introduce legislation to ban demands for usernames and passwords from job seekers and current employees, saying content on sites like Facebook and Twitter, such as personal photos and calendars, "have no bearing on a person's ability to do their job and therefore employers have no right to demand to review it."

"It is completely unacceptable for an employer to invade someone's personal social media accounts," Yee said in a statement. "Not only is it entirely unnecessary, it is an invasion of privacy and unrelated to one's work performance or abilities."

While it is unclear how common such requests are in California, questions about legal and privacy concerns have emerged as some companies and government agencies increase their scrutiny of candidates' social media presences. A recent report by the Associated Press detailed examples of the requests in states across the country.

Yee's bill, which has yet to be formally drafted, would also prohibit employers from asking the applicant or employee to voluntarily show them their social media accounts. Legislation on the topic has also been introduced in Illinois and Maryland, according to the Associated Press.

Assemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose, introduced a similar proposal earlier this year. That bill, A.B. 1844, is scheduled to be heard by the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee on April 18.

RELATED POST:

Employers ask job seekers for Facebook passwords

Editor's note: This post was updated at 12:36 p.m. to include the Campos bill.

The price of access is going up for top donors attending this weekend's Pro Tem Cup at San Diego's Torrey Pines Golf Course, an annual golf outing held to raise cash for the California Democratic Party.

Contributors looking to spend some quality time with Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg this weekend can expect to pay up to $60,000 -- a $10,000 increase from recent outings, according to this year's invite and event listings from 2011 and 2008.

The top "Two Day Platinum" price includes golf for four on Friday and Saturday, an evening with Steinberg, two nights accommodation, attendance at an awards BBQ and "commemorative gifts," according to an invitation. The "Two Day Gold," which includes the same access for two people, spiked $5,000, to $45,000 this year.

Prices for the cheaper packages, which start at $10,000 for golf for one on Saturday, one night's stay, the awards BBQ and gifts, remained steady. Spa packages are available for interested parties who don't want to golf.

The increased ticket price comes as Senate Democrats prepare for major battles in several swing districts where victory could mean securing a two-thirds majority in the upper house. Those targeted races, including the Stockton-area 5th Senate District, are expected to be costly battles.

The fundraiser, which starts tomorrow, is sponsored by cable industry interests, including the California Cable & Telecommunications Association, Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Jason Kinney, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats, declined to comment on details of the fundraiser, including package prices, ahead of the event.

The Senate confirmed today Gov. Jerry Brown's pick to lead the state Military Department.

Major General David S. Baldwin, who was appointed acting adjutant general by the Democratic governor last April, was approved by a unanimous vote of 35-0 during Monday's floor session. Baldwin's duties include leading the troubled California National Guard. A Bee investigation has detailed financial and management problems within the Guard, including evidence of "double dipping" and fraudulent bonuses and student loan repayments.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg acknowledged that the appointment had been controversial, in part due to the department's history, but said Baldwin "has committed to address the years of wrongdoing and try to change the culture within the department." He said after discussions and a lengthy Senate Rules Committee confirmation hearing, he is "hopeful and confident" that Baldwin is "up to the job."

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg is looking to shore up donor support for Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani's bid for Senate, circulating an internal poll showing the Livingston Democrat holding a double-digit lead in the contested 5th Senate District.

The race between Galgiani, Republican Assemblyman Bill Berryhill and San Joaquin Supervisor Leroy Ornella, also a Republican, is expected to be one of the year's top state legislative contests. A slight voter registration edge for Democrats in the San Joaquin County district makes it one of three seats Senate Democrats are targeting as they try to get to the two-thirds mark in the upper house.

The polling memo, which was sent to members of the capital's lobbying community by Steinberg's political director, shows Galgiani leading both Republican rivals, with a strong edge among decline-to-state voters.

Pollster Paul Goodwin called the findings of the telephone survey "quite encouraging" for Galgiani in the memo.

"She is almost certain to finish first or second in the June primary, and has a wide lead over her Republican opponents looking ahead to November," the memo reads.

Berryhill's political consultant dismissed the results, saying other polls have painted a much different, closer picture of the race. Republicans say their efforts in the district have caused Democrats' roughly four-point registration edge to drop to about 2 percentage points, with numbers they say have historically resulted in GOP wins.

"If Steinberg's so panicked that he's walking false polls around, you know that Bill Berryhill is going to beat Galgiani," Berryhill consultant Duane Dichiara said.

PHOTO CREDIT: Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton, casts her vote on the budget cuts portion of the Democratic budget plan during the Assembly floor session, Tuesday Dec. 16, 2008.

Editor's note: This post was updated at 5:05 p.m. to correct the town of Galgiani's residence. She is from Livingston, not Livermore.

An Assembly budget subcommittee voted unanimously Wednesday to block expansion of a statewide court case management system that has become the focal point of a months-long political war between the state's judicial leadership and some rebel judges.

The latter -- backed by the politically powerful Service Employees International Union -- have complained that millions of dollars are being wasted on the computer system while local courts are being compelled to curtail their operations and lay off employees as state financing of courts is reduced.

The budget subcommittee's action bolsters the Assembly's position in a conflict with the state Senate over court management. The Assembly has passed legislation, Assembly Bill 1208, that the rebel Alliance of California Judges sponsored to give local judges more power over distribution of operational funds.

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who chairs the state Judicial Council and heads the Administrative Office of the Courts, has publicly complained that the legislation violates judicial independence, and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has declared that the bill will be held in his house without a vote.

Steinberg, however, is under pressure from the SEIU, which represents court employees facing layoffs and is a major source of campaign money for Democrats. Wednesday's action makes the computer system financing a potential bargaining chip in the inter-Capitol maneuvering over the legislation.

The subcommittee's action came after the Legislature's budget analyst and the state auditor delivered reports that strengthened the critics' positions.

So far, legislators were told, the Administrative Office of the Courts has spent $556.5 million on the system but it's been deployed in only a few counties. Even so, Auditor Elaine Howle pointed out, the AOC certified that the system is complete, thereby triggering a limited warranty period from the contractor that could leave the state holding the financial bag if problems crop up later.

Judges themselves are divided over the efficacy of the system, some professing that it lightens their workloads, while others saying it is unusable. In recent weeks, the chief justice and her allies have backed off their previous intent to install it in every county and indicated that they'd give local judges more leeway.

Democratic Assemblyman Ben Hueso signaled today that he is dropping his effort to strip Fish and Game Commission President Dan Richards of his appointment.

Richards came under fire from animal rights groups and Democratic lawmakers after a photo featured in a hunting publication that showed him posing with a mountain lion he shot in Idaho began circulating online. Unlike in California, where voters banned killing mountain lions in 1990, Idaho allows the hunting of the animal.

Critics say his actions, while not illegal, raise doubts about his ability to lead the commission. Hunting groups and Republican lawmakers have come to the defense of Richards.

Hueso, a Democrat of San Diego, drafted a resolution to oust the former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointee after Richards dismissed calls to step down. But the fate of the resolution, which required a majority vote in both houses, was uncertain after Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg signaled he wasn't interested in taking it up in the upper house.

In a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown, Hueso and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez said they have decided to work on crafting legislation to "improve the standards and practices of the California Fish and Game Commission," including a revised conflict-of-interest code for commissioners. The lawmakers urged the Democratic governor to begin his search for a "suitable replacement who can step in and serve as soon as" Richards' term end in January 2013.

The San Jose Mercury News, meanwhile, reported that the commission could act in May to remove Richards as president of the panel.

DFG Letter

PHOTO CREDIT: Dan Richards. The Press-Enterprise/David Bauman

Sen. Sharon Runner is being released from the hospital less than two weeks after receiving a new set of lungs.

Runner's office announced on Feb. 24 that the Lancaster Republican had received a double lung transplant and was recovering at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Runner, who was elected to the Senate in a 2011 special election, has suffered for years from a rare autoimmune condition called limited scleroderma.

While Runner said at the time of her campaign that her condition had improved, infections related to the disease landed her back on the transplant list and prevented her from returning to the Capitol this year.

In addition to praising the work of her doctors and surgeons, Runner thanked the family of her anonymous organ donor in a statement released by her office.

Capitol oddsmakers have assumed for months that the 39th Senate District, which covers the urban center of San Diego County, would be easy pickings for Democrats in this year's election.

Maybe not.

The district's once overwhelming Democratic registration margin has narrowed to under eight percentage points since it was redrawn by the new independent redistricting commission. And last week, the assumed Democratic candidate, Assemblyman Marty Block, acquired a potentially serious Republican opponent, former Assemblyman George Plescia, declared his candidacy.

Prior to redistricting, Democratic Sen. Christine Kehoe enjoyed a 15-point registration gap but the commission expanded it into more conservative suburban neighborhoods.She's now vacating the seat due to term limits.

One hallmark of the district is it's very large contingent of independent voters. Democrats now have 37.8 percent of its voters, Republicans have 30.4 percent and independents are now 26.7 percent.

Thus, the election could easily hinge on how independents lean, and in Plescia, Republicans have a candidate with a centrist image - so much so, in fact, that he was ousted as GOP leader of the Assembly in 2006 for not being confrontational enough with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was feuding with GOP conservatives over taxes.

Schwarzenegger later appointed Plescia to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.

The assumption that the 39th Senate District was safe for Democrats has figured in the calculations of whether they could pick up two seats in this year's election and achieve the holy grail of a two-thirds supermajority in the 40-member house.

When Republican Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, opted to run for Congress rather than vie with Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, in the reconstituted 27th Senate District, it appeared that Democrats had a lock on 27 seats. But Plescia's candidacy now creates a shadow of doubt.

California state Sen. Sharon Runner is recuperating at UCLA Medical Center after a successful double lung transplant, her office announced this afternoon.

Runner expects to be released from the hospital in two to three weeks and will initially work from home, the statement said.

The Lancaster Republican, who has a rare auto-immune disease, announced Wednesday that she would not seek re-election in November. She has been absent from the Senate since January.

Gov. Jerry Brown's pick to lead the California State University Board of Trustees could soon be out of a job.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said today that he will not schedule a floor vote on the confirmation of CSU trustee Herbert L. Carter without a commitment for the Republican support needed to approve his nomination.

"If there are no Republican votes, I will not be interested in having a major floor fight," the Sacramento Democrat told reporters today. "The votes are either there or they're not there."

Carter, who has served on the board since 2004 and now chairs the board, faces a Wednesday confirmation deadline to complete his current term. His confirmation has drawn controversy because of the board's move last year to hike a campus president's compensation package and approve tuition increases at the same meeting.

Steinberg said he is confident that Carter's performance at a "vigorous" Senate Rules Committee hearing won him support of the 25-member Democratic caucus.

Republican Sen. Sharon Runner, who is awaiting a lung transplant for a rare autoimmune disease, announced today that she will not seek re-election in November.

Runner has been absent from the upper house since January, when she disclosed that complications related to her condition required her to work outside of Sacramento. She said today that she expects to make a full recovery and will focus on "business and philanthropic efforts" after leaving office.

A California state senator blasted ESPN today for using a racial slur in a Web reference to New York Knicks star Jeremy Lin, calling on the network to do more than just apologize "in addressing this unacceptable act."

Democratic Sen. Leland Yee said the headline, which was posted online early Saturday morning, "harkens back to 1947 when Jackie Robinson heard some of the ugliest racial epithets as he broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball."

"It is shocking that in 2012, Jeremy Lin's meteoric rise in the NBA is accompanied by the same offensive comments and slurs," the San Francisco Democrat said in a statement. "It is even more disturbing when such racism is promoted by our nation's leading sports network."

The network apologized for what it acknowledged was an "offensive headline" earlier today, saying in a statement that it is "conducting a complete review of our cross-platform editorial procedures and are determining appropriate disciplinary action to ensure this does not happen again." The headline was taken down after about 30 minutes.

Yee spokesman Adam Keigwin said the senator also wants to know what actions were taken by the network after the same phrase was used during the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing. If the same person was responsible in both cases, Yee believes that person should be fired, he said.

"If no action was taken then, they obviously need significant training in racial acceptance within their newsroom," he said.

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PHOTO CREDIT: New York Knicks' Jeremy Lin, front right, lays up for two of his 20 game points on a shot in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2012, in Minneapolis.Jim Mone / AP Photo.

The California Legislature conducted its second "per diem session" of the year Friday, with both legislative houses meeting briefly, thereby allowing their members to leave town for a three-day holiday weekend without losing their $141.86 per day, tax-free expense payments.

Had the Legislature not met Friday and observed Monday's Presidents' Day holiday, lawmakers would have lost the payments for four days, totaling nearly $70,000.

The Senate met for about 20 minutes, doing little more than ceremonial events. The Assembly devoted its session, about 45 minutes, mostly to a resolution marking the 70th anniversary of the 1942 presidential order, issued in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, that citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry, many of them in California, be rounded up and placed in internment camps.

The per diem payments, averaging more than $25,000 per year per legislator on top of their salaries, are supposed to compensate legislators for housing and meals in Sacramento. The state constitution says that the payments continue seven days a week, as long as the Legislature is not out of session for more than three consecutive days.

The Legislature's long-standing practice is to meet from Monday to Thursday - the latter having been dubbed "getaway day" -- unless there's a crunch of business, but when there's a Monday holiday, it routinely has brief sessions on Fridays to avoid violating the three-day rule.

In effect, it's a four-day weekend because members are off duty from Friday morning until Tuesday. A few members, however, don't accept the per diem payments.

California legislators would be required to post their office budgets and monthly office expenditures online under legislation proposed this week by a Republican assemblywoman.

Modesto Republican Kristin Olsen said her bill is needed because the Legislature often does not hold itself to the same standards of openness and transparency that it requires of other government agencies.

The Assembly lost a court fight last year after withholding office budgets as confidential documents. A Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled that member-by-member budgets are public records and ordered them released.

Olsen's Assembly Bill 1730 would require the office budgets posted online to include all allocations and expenditures, including caucus supplements, travel expenses, office rent and staff salaries.

AB 1730 does not mention committee budgets, which often are used by Assembly members to help pay salaries of personal aides. Olsen plans to amend the bill to include committee expenditures, spokeswoman Jennifer Gibbons said.

The Senate Rules Committee approved some committee membership shuffling yesterday, including some changes made at the request of the new Senate GOP leader Bob Huff.

One of the biggest changes was to the Senate Health Committee, where Sen. Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach, replaces Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, as vice-chair.

Strickland and Sen. Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Niguel, also swapped their respective posts on the Senate Governmental Organization and Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committees.

Several GOP members picked up new committee assignments to fill seats vacated by Huff, whose spokesman said he needed to free up time to focus on his responsibilities as leader.

While committee changes under the dome are often sparked by political considerations, a Huff spokesman said these shifts were made to move the leader off the committees and honor some requests made by members.

"There was no king-making here," spokesman Bill Bird said. "Requests were made to Bob for committee assignments and Bob took those requests to Senate (President) Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and those requests were made."

All the committee changes are detailed in the Rules Committee agenda, which is posted here.

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Approval of National Guard head moves to full State Senate

A Democratic political strategist and a former Democratic assemblyman will help lead opposition to a proposed ballot initiative that would reduce California's Legislature to part-time.

Political consultant Steve Maviglio, former spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, said today that he has joined forces with Burbank attorney Dario Frommer, a former Assembly majority leader. Fundraising has not yet begun, Maviglio said.

The group will butt heads with Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, and with Ted Costa, the head of a political watchdog group, over the duo's proposed constitutional amendment.

The secretary of state's office gave the green light Monday for proponents of the proposal to begin collecting the 807,615 valid voter signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot.

Backers hope to encourage the election of citizen legislators who have outside sources of income and are not so politically ambitious that they become overly dependent upon powerful special interests.

The measure calls for the nation's most populous state to meet three months per year -- and for lawmakers' pay to be cut from $7,940 per month to $1,500 per month -- or $18,000 annually.

The initiative also would require legislators to adopt a balanced, two-year budget by June 15 of each odd-numbered year -- and to forfeit salary and per diem for each day it is late.

Lawmakers would be barred from accepting state employment or appointment to a state post while serving in the Capitol or for five years afterward.

Maviglio said that a part-time Legislature would discourage many good candidates from running and would lead to a more corrupt Legislature, with many lawmakers having outside jobs that conflict with issues at the Capitol.

"You'd end up with more inexperienced legislators who lack the ability to tackle the state's major challenges," he said.

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

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's efforts to diffuse controversy surrounding its funding dispute with Planned Parenthood hasn't improved the breast cancer charity's standing with the California Legislative Women's Caucus.

Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said Monday that the caucus has no plans to restore its partnership with Komen. She said the incident left lingering questions about "whether their highest priority is women's health care."

"Basically the fundamental problem is this incident politicized women's health care. And I don't believe that should be political football," Evans said in an interview.

Evans had announced last week that the caucus had decided to cancel its annual bake sale to raise money for the charity and pull sponsorship of a breast cancer awareness event that turns the Capitol dome pink each year in response to Komen's decision to cut breast cancer screening grants it had provided to Planned Parenthood affiliates.

Komen, which cited a congressional inquiry into Planned Parenthood as the reason for the decision, backed off its position after coming under fire from women's health advocates, Democratic lawmakers and others who said the move was sparked by pressure from anti-abortion groups. Komen Vice President for Public Policy Karen Handel, who supported cutting the funding, resigned in the wake of the controversy.

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PHOTO CREDIT: Naomi Gonzalez, left, and Elvia Castro, right, both of Salinas, leave a breast cancer awareness event at the Capitol after it was lighted pink during a day long of events at the Capitol's north steps on Monday, February 8, 2010. Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee.

The state Legislature has taken a loss of more than $1 million on the sale of dozens of cars it had purchased for legislators over the years.

As today's Bee reports, the Assembly and the Senate have sold 64 vehicles that were part of a now-defunct legislative car program. Instead of paying subsidized leases on a state-purchased car of their choosing, lawmakers now receive a monthly stipend to cover costs related to driving on the job.

Spreadsheets detailing the purchase and sale prices of cars assigned to members of the Assembly and the Senate are posted below (click on the Senate tab to see the upper house data). Click here to view the sheets in a new window.

The Senate also sold a 2006 Ford Crown Vic that had been assigned to special services detail for $6,500, replacing it with the 2007 Toyota Highlander Hybrid purchased for Sen. Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster. That car had been purchased for $15,050 in 2007. Sen. Tom Berryhill exchanged the 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee he had been driving previously for the recently sold Lexus, which was an unused car in the fleet, earlier this year. The purchase price for the Lexus, which had been used by at least one other member previously, was not available at the time of publication.

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California lawmakers say goodbye to their state-purchased cars

Editor's note: This post has been updated to note which Senate vehicles were purchased used. Some of those cars were transferred from the Assembly or other members.

Several California lawmakers are severing ties with Susan G. Komen for the Cure over the breast cancer foundation's decision to stop providing breast cancer exam funding to Planned Parenthood.

Democratic Sen. Noreen Evans, who chairs the Legislative Women's Caucus, blasted the decision in a statement, saying it "defies logic ... to deny the most disadvantaged women the critical care they need."

Evans announced Wednesday that the caucus has decided to suspend its annual bake sale to raise money for the foundation and withdraw its sponsorship of a recent tradition of illuminating the Capitol dome with pink lights to raise awareness of breast cancer.

"I am frustrated, angered, and offended that Susan G. Komen for the Cure let a radical political viewpoint withdraw its support for women's health care," Evans said in a statement, referring to reports that the funding decision was made in response to pressure from anti-abortion groups. "I am hopeful they will reconsider their draconian move and fund Planned Parenthood throughout the nation."

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, is making a fashion statement out of his protest. The Los Angeles Democrat announced that he will no longer serve as a "Pink Tie Guy," male volunteers who wear neckties featuring the nonprofit's signature hue to show support of its efforts.

"Komen has placed its supporters in the untenable position of aligning themselves with acquiescence to the agenda of the religious right, or aligning themselves with healthcare and breast cancer organizations that will not bow to such pressures," he said in a statement. "The choice is clear to me. I choose the latter."

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PHOTO CREDIT: Naomi Gonzalez, left, and Elvia Castro, right, both of Salinas, leave a breast cancer awareness event at the Capitol after it was lighted pink during a day long of events at the Capitol's north steps on Monday, February 8, 2010. Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee.

The California Supreme Court will rule Friday on what state Senate district boundary lines will be in effect for this year's legislative elections if a pending referendum qualifies for the ballot.

Justices will post their ruling at 10 a.m. Friday on the court's website, said Lynn Holton, Supreme Court spokeswoman, in a press release.

The matter stems from a referendum attempt by a Republican-backed group, Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting, which opposes new state Senate maps drawn by a citizens commission and has gathered signatures in an effort to overturn them at the ballot box.

Because this year's legislative elections will be held before the group's map challenge could be decided by voters, the Supreme Court must decide which boundary lines will be used if the referendum qualifies for the ballot.

County elections offices currently are counting signatures filed by FAIR to determine whether 504,760 are from valid voters, which would place the newly drawn Senate maps on the November ballot.

The Supreme Court conceivably could order the FAIR-challenged Senate maps to be used this year. Justices also could revive maps that were in effect from 2002-10 or select a special master to draw new districts.

California's legislative and congressional districts were drawn last year, for the first time ever, by a 14-member citizens commission consisting of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four independent or minor-party voters. The Legislature drew political districts in decades past.

* Updated at 2:20 p.m. to add information about the Supreme Court's options and about the structure of the redistricting commission.

Democratic Assemblyman Sandre Swanson has decided not to challenge Democratic Sen. Loni Hancock for the newly drawn 9th Senate District next year, eliminating a potentially costly and divisive same-party battle for the East Bay seat.

In a statement released by the Senate Democratic Caucus, the Alameda Democrat said he would hold off on seeking the Senate seat until 2016, when he plans to run with Hancock's endorsement. Both Swanson and Hancock cited the caucus' efforts to pick up the two seats needed to hold a two-thirds majority in the upper house in the joint statement.

"As Democrats, we must come together to work for the good of all Californians," Swanson, who has now endorsed Hancock, said in a statement. "2012 provides an incredible opportunity for us to achieve a supermajority in the State Senate and that must be every Democrat's top priority."

Swanson, who is termed out of the Assembly this year, had announced in December that he would run for the safe Democratic seat, claiming Hancock had previously promised that she would support him instead of seeking a second term. Hancock thanked Swanson for his support in the statement, saying she "can't think of a better person" to succeed her if she is re-elected next November.

"Nothing is more important," the Berkeley Democrat said in a statement."than having Democrats come together for the greater good."

SD09 Press Release

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Sandre Swanson to challenge Loni Hancock for state Senate

Democratic legislative leaders sued Controller John Chiang today for blocking their pay during last year's budget dispute, a decision that drew scorn from lawmakers last summer.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez said the Democratic controller overstepped his bounds when he decided that lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown a flawed budget last June and docked their pay. They said they are not suing for back earnings, but to ask the court whether Chiang can intervene this year if lawmakers face another budget dispute with Brown at the June 15 deadline.

The lawmakers filed in Sacramento Superior Court, hiring Arthur G. Scotland, retired presiding justice of the 3rd District Court of Appeal, as well as the Los Angeles firm Strumwasser & Woocher. The Legislature's operating budget, financed by tax dollars, will pay for legal costs. Billing rates range from $435 per hour for the two lead attorneys to $130 per hour for a paralegal, according to the leaders' offices.

Chiang said his own party's lawmakers failed to balance the budget largely because their plan underfunded schools by $1.3 billion according to his interpretation of the state constitution. He also said they failed to pass all of the bills necessary to carry out a balanced budget. Chiang's decision came after Brown vetoed the first budget lawmakers sent him at the deadline.

Under a 2010 voter-approved law, lawmakers lose their pay and tax-free expense money if they do not send the governor a balanced budget by the June 15 deadline. Democrats added that provision as a sweetener in Proposition 25, the main thrust of which was reducing the budget vote threshold to a majority, rather than two-thirds. The controller believes he has discretion to determine what counts as a balanced budget under the initiative.

Steinberg and Pérez believe the controller has no role under Proposition 25 to determine the validity of the Legislature's budget. Scotland said today the controller illegally interfered with the Legislature's powers of appropriation.

Aside from veto powers, Steinberg said "neither the governor nor any member of the executive branch may brandish the threat of withholding legislative pay because they disagree with the decisions made by the legislative branch."

Brown and lawmakers ultimately reached agreement on June 27, costing most lawmakers about $4,830 each, equal to 12 days' worth of pay and expense money. The state saved a total of $583,200 in foregone legislative pay.

Mindful of public acrimony against the Legislature, the two leaders emphasized Tuesday that they were not asking for back pay. "Let me be clear from the outset, both the pro tem and I have waived our claims for renumeration should this lawsuit succeed," Pérez said. "This is fundamentally an issue of separation of powers."

Chiang said Tuesday in a statement that he welcomed the court's review. But he also used the words of fellow executive branch members as a retort to lawmakers.

"It is noteworthy to point out that the Legislature's budget proposal was not only vetoed by the Governor for not being a 'balanced solution,' but it was determined by the Treasurer to not be financeable, and would have, within months of its passage, led to the issuance of IOUs," the controller said.

Chiang's move gave Brown leverage in budget negotiations, as the controller essentially suggested that Brown could block legislative pay with his veto pen. Lawmakers have seethed ever since. If their lawsuit succeeds, they would not only have greater pay protection this year, but also greater leverage. Brown has asked lawmakers to pass significant cuts to health and welfare programs and to put school funding at risk if voters reject his tax plan.

Legislation to create a "single-payer" health care system in California won approval in a key committee today, getting the OK for a vote of the full Senate.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved Senate Bill 810, Democratic Sen. Mark Leno's universal health care measure, by a vote of 6-2.

The vote came as the committee met to consider bills introduced in 2011 that are projected to cost the state at least $50,000. A fiscal analysis of SB 810 estimated that running a health care system that would be open to all 37 million Californians could cost up to $250 billion a year.

The bill, which supporters say would provide greater access to health coverage and lower costs, does not include any taxes or fees to cover the cost of the system, which would be run by a new state agency.

The concept has been introduced in the Legislature multiple times in recent years. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed one version approved in the 2007-2008 legislative session. A 2009-2010 measure, also authored by Leno, died in the state Assembly.

The committee also approved urgency legislation related to local redevelopment agencies, which are set to shut down next month due to legislation and court decisions.

Senate Bill 654, by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, would allow the local governments to keep redevelopment money budgeted for low- and moderate-income housing. The bill, which also affects repayment of loans from local governments, would need to win approval from two-thirds of members in both houses to take effect immediately.

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation containing a similar provision last year, saying it would be premature to take action before a legal battle over dissolving the agencies was settled.

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A Republican senator's push to override Gov. Jerry Brown's veto of his state parks legislation failed today in the California Senate.

Sen. Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo, brought up for reconsideration Senate Bill 356, which had proposed giving local governments the opportunity an opportunity to take over operation of state parks slated for closure due to budget cuts.

Blakeslee said the override would send a message to Brown, whom he described as California's "dreamer" governor in light of Wednesday's State of the State address, that the Legislature is working to "to economize and keep parks open."

"We have real world problems today that need immediate addressing and this is an opportunity for us potentially to keep state parks open that would otherwise close," he said.

Thirty-five senators had voted for the measure when it cleared the upper house unanimously in September. But support for bucking the Democratic governor, who called the legislation "unnecessary" in a veto message, was not as strong. Blakeslee's attempt to secure the two-thirds vote needed to override Brown's action failed with 13 lawmakers voting yes and 22 voting no. Those turning thumbs down included 20 Democrats who supported the bill last year.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said that while the legislation is "meritorious," a move to override a governor's veto is "not a decision to be made lightly." Such a decision, he said, should be made by leaders from both caucuses, not an individual member.

"This isn't the bill, this isn't the time," the Sacramento Democrat said.

Blakeslee bristled at Steinberg's response, arguing that it shouldn't be left to "two people to emerge from a smoke-filled room" for the Legislature to use its constitutional authority to act independently of the governor and override a veto.

The presiding officer, Democratic Sen. Joe Simitian, admonished Blakeslee for mischaractarizing Steinberg's remarks, and Blakeslee conceded that one part of his statement wasn't accurate.

"Smoking in state buildings in California is not allowed, so it probably would not be a smoke-filled room," he quipped.

Republican legislative leaders rolled out their response to Gov. Jerry Brown's 2012 State of the State address Tuesday, slamming the Democratic governor for telling Californians that the"sky will fall" without higher taxes.

"Today Governor Brown shared his vision for California for the year ahead," Assembly GOP leader Connie Conway says in a video. "Republicans were eager to hear his ideas for the many challenges facing our state. Unfortunately, the governor's vision is centered around one thing: higher taxes."

The only thing is Brown hasn't shared that vision yet.

The California Legislature conducted its first "per diem session" of the year Friday -- brief meetings of both legislative houses that allowed their members to take off a three-day holiday weekend without losing their $141.86 per day, tax-free expense payments.

Had the Legislature not met Friday -- the Senate for less than 30 minutes, the Assembly for slightly over an hour -- and observed Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, members would have lost the payments for four days, totaling nearly $70,000.

The per diem payments average more than $25,000 per year per legislator on top of their salaries, although a few members don't take the money. Per diem is supposed to compensate legislators for housing and meals in Sacramento. The state constitution says that the payments continue seven days a week, as long as the Legislature is not out of session for more than three consecutive days.

The Legislature's long-standing practice is to meet from Monday to Thursday - the latter having been dubbed "getaway day" -- unless there's a crunch of business, but when there's a Monday holiday such as MLK Jr. Day, it routinely has brief sessions on Fridays to avoid running afoul of the three-day rule.

Both houses devoted much of their brief meetings to speeches commemorating King, the civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968.

Although technically it's a three-day holiday, it's more than four days for the Legislature, since it convened at 9 a.m. Friday and won't reconvene in the Capitol until midday Tuesday.

California's top Senate Democrat today shut the door on Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal to make deep cuts to social services programs in the first few months of the year.

The January spending plan unveiled by Brown today includes nearly $1.4 billion in cuts to the state's welfare-to-work and subsidized child care programs. The Democratic governor called on lawmakers to approve those cuts in March to maximize savings.

But Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, echoing comments made Wednesday, said he wants to hold off on further spending reductions in hopes that the state will see an uptick in revenues this spring.

"Why would we make cuts that are going to harm people and harm the economy in March when in fact in May there's a real not just possibility, but if the trend continues, a probability that the deficit number is going to be less," the Sacramento Democrat told reporters, pointing to improvement in a revenue forecast made in December.

Former Democratic Sen. Ruben Ayala, who was a leading force on water policy during his two decades in the state Legislature, died last night. He was 89.

News of his death was announced in a statement from the office of Democratic Assemblywoman Norma Torres, who now represents Ayala's home region. A Torres spokeswoman said Ayala had been battling a prolonged illness.

Ayala, a former mayor of Chino and member of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, was first elected to the upper house in a1974 special election, according to JoinCalifornia.com. He went on to win six full terms in Senate before stepping down in the late 90s due to term limits.

The longtime Chino resident authored 1980 legislation that proposed building a peripheral canal to transport water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The measure, Senate Bill 200, was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown but voters blocked it in a 1982 referendum.

Torres said in a statement that Ayala's "passion for our community and public service inspired us to build a better future for our children."

"If you ever had the chance to meet and speak to the Senator, you would've seen his passion for his family and the community he served," she said.

Read the obituary published by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin at this link.

PHOTO CREDIT: California state Senators Ruben Ayala, D-Chino, left, and Quintin Kopp, I-San Francisco, listen during a joint legislative committee on allegations of mistreatment of inmates at Corcoran State Prison at the Capitol in Sacramento, on Wednesday Oct. 21, 1998. (AP Photo/ Bob Galbraith).

The Senate Republican Caucus, as expected, is starting the new year with a new leader.

Senate Republicans unanimously selected Bob Huff as the successor to outgoing leader Bob Dutton in a closed-door meeting following today's legislative session.

Huff said he expects"pretty much a continuum" of the caucus' current leadership style and policies, citing job creation and keeping Democrats from picking up the seats they need to secure a two-thirds majority in next year's election as top priorities.

"I expect this to be more of a baton handed off," he said of the transition.

While Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative Democrats are planning to use their majority-vote power to pass a budget plan and go directly to the ballot with a tax hike instead of negotiating with Republicans for revenue solutions, Huff said he hopes to be engaged in the process.

"The voters have given the Democrats the ability to craft a majority vote budget, to the degree they want to do that, they can," he said. "I think they're missing the boat. I think the more that voters see the Legislature working in a bipartisan way, the more they'll be receptive to ideas that end up on the ballot box."

Huff, who served as vice chair of the Senate Budget Committee, had been jockeying earlier this year with the more conservative Sen. Joel Anderson, R-Alpine, for the support of GOP colleagues. The Diamond Bar Republican secured the support of a majority of his 14 colleagues over the legislative recess, and Anderson nominated him today for the post.

Dutton, who is wrapping up his final year in the Senate and running for an Inland Empire Assembly seat, had announced late last month that he would pass the torch early this year. He issued a statement congratulating Huff after the vote, repeating earlier commitments to ensuring a "smooth and orderly transition."

Huff said he expected the transition -- including an office swap -- to be completed by Monday. He announced several expected changes in GOP leadership, including tapping Sen. Tom Harman for the caucus' No. 2 leadership post and Dutton as vice chair of the Senate Rules Committee.

Sen. Bill Emmerson, who was involved in last year's budget negotiations as a member of the "GOP 5," is expected to replace Huff as vice-chair of the Senate Budget Committee. All committee assignments will require sign-off from the Senate Rules Committee.

Related posts:
California Senate Republican leader to step down in January
Jockeying to succeed Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton begins

Editor's note: This post was updated at 4:20 p.m.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sens. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, and Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, talk during the 2012 session in Sacramento, Jan. 4, 2012, before Huff was selected as the new Senate GOP leader.

GOP Sen. Sam Blakeslee has started publicly signaling that he might not run for re-election this year.

The San Luis Obispo Republican told Bee sister paper The San Luis Obispo Tribune that his decision is tied to the fate of the new district maps drawn by the independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Democrats now hold a 16-point registration edge over Republicans in the central coast swing seat Blakeslee won in a 2010 special election. But critics of the new Senate maps have collected hundreds of thousands of voter signatures in an attempt to ask voters to reject the districts next fall. If the referendum qualifies, the decision of whether to use the newly drawn Senate map this year will be left up to the state Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hold a hearing next week on the issue.

The former Assembly GOP leader said if the current maps prevail, he is unlikely to run for a second term in what is now the 17th Senate District.

"I want my community to understand that by making this decision, I'm not walking away from a fight," Blakeslee told The Tribune. "But I'm not willing to lose the entire last year in office in (a vain) pursuit of office. I'm 100 percent engaged to make sure this last year is the most impactful as it possibly can be."

Blakeslee's decision not to run, which has been rumored for some time, would ease the path for Senate Democrats to come one seat closer to a two-thirds majority in the upper house. The only prominent declared candidate in the race so far is Assemblyman Bill Monning, D-Carmel, who announced in August his own bid for the upper house.

Read the full Tribune story at this link.

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PHOTO CREDIT: Sen. Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo at a March 2011 legislative hearing. Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee.

Republican Sen. Sharon Runner announced today that an ongoing battle with a rare autoimmune condition has landed her back on the lung transplant list.

The 57-year-old Lancaster Republican, who has been diagnosed with a condition called limited scleroderma for more than 20 years, said the decision to again seek a double lung transplant was made by her doctors after she experienced several lung infections.

To avoid risk of future infections, she is not returning to the Capitol as the Legislature reconvenes today. She said in a statement, however, that she plans to continue work away from the office in what her chief of staff described as a "germ-free location."

"Given my overall good health, combined with my age, the doctors expect me to make a full recovery. And I look forward to continue the fight to protect Californians," she said in the statement.

Runner, a former assemblywoman, was elected last year to fill the seat vacated by her husband George Runner's election to the state Board of Equalization. She said at the time of her run that her treatment for limited scleroderma, which has no known cure, had been successful and that she no longer required the transplant. She had been hospitalized for infections related to limited scleroderma in 2008, about two years after she began suffering from complications related to the condition.

PHOTO CREDIT: Assembly Member Sharon Runner, listens to Mexican President Felipe Calderón speak to a joint session of the California Assembly and Senate at the state Capitol on Feb. 13, 2008. (Sacramento Bee file photo / Brian Baer)

The state Senate quietly approved a $120,000 taxpayer-funded settlement last year to resolve sexual harassment allegations made against Democratic Sen. Rod Wright by a former member of his staff.

The settlement agreement was reached after a private mediation between attorneys for the state Senate and former Wright aide Fahizah Alim in April 2010, Alim's attorney confirmed to the Bee.

Attorney John Poswall said Alim was reassigned to another Senate office after raising concerns about what he described as a "totally inappropriate" and "intolerable" work environment in early 2010.

"The environment in Sen. Roderick Wright's office is beyond anything anyone would expect of a public official or even any employer in the 20th century," Poswall said. "It is totally intolerable towards women and certainly black women."

Alim, a former Bee reporter who now works for Democratic Sen. Curren Price, has not responded to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for Wright declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. Both cited private personnel issues.

In the market for a new car this holiday season?

The Legislature is selling off dozens of vehicles it had purchased under a soon-to-be axed program that has long covered the bulk of a car payment, along with the cost of gas, insurance and maintenance, for members of the Assembly and Senate.

The full scoop on shelving the car program, including questions over the cost of replacing the leased vehicles with mileage reimbursement, can be found in today's Bee. For those wondering what sort of rides legislators were driving on the taxpayers' dime, memos containing the full list of the cars, their purchase price and the portion of the lease paid by the state and the member as of March of 2011 are posted after the jump. Some members included in those lists, such as Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, elected to give up their cars earlier this year.

A breakdown of the cost of the old program can be found at this link.

As we reported in today's Bee, the state Senate salary handed out salary increases to nearly one-fifth of its staff in recent months.

Here is a spreadsheet detailing the Senate staff raises identified in a Bee analysis of payroll data. The list was compiled by comparing the current pay data, which is posted here, with the payroll as of July 31. At least 10 more staff members not included in this chart received pay increases related to a promotion that resulted in a job classification change.

The Capitol Christmas tree arrived on the west lawn this morning, hauled in from El Dorado County and lifted from a flatbed truck by crane.

The 40-foot-tall white fir is 15 feet shorter than last year's. It was donated by the U.S. Forest Service's Institute of Forest Genetics. As is customary, the tree will be decorated with hand-crafted ornaments made by people with developmental disabilities.

A tree-lighting ceremony, the Capitol's 80th annual, will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 7.

The state Senate has pulled the plug on a longstanding practice of using public funds to provide snacks and meals for members under the dome.

The Senate Rules Committee, chaired by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, voted 3-1 to change the policy in a meeting held over the phone Tuesday, Steinberg spokesman Mark Hedlund confirmed in an email. The decision was first reported by the Los Angeles Times Tuesday.

Under the proposal approved by the Rules Committee, members will be asked to pay $2,000 a year to cover coffee room expenses and meals when the business of the house, such as late legislative sessions, prevents lawmakers from leaving the Capitol.

"It has been a long tradition in the Senate that our coffee room provides snacks for Members on session days, and meals in situations where the Senate remains in session over normal dining hours," Steinberg wrote in a memo to committee members. "However, not all traditions can or should be maintained indefinitely; our institutional practices should reflect our best judgment as times and circumstances change."

The change came after the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that the Senate spent at least $111,316 on food, including deli platters, granola and ice cream, in 2011 -- 10 percent more than it had spent the year before. On top of their salaries, senators receive tax-free payments of $143 a day to cover travel and other expenses related to their work while in Sacramento.

Senate memo on meals

A Republican-backed referendum campaign to overturn the state's new Senate districts is vowing to submit more than 700,000 signatures Thursday to place the issue before voters next November.

The drive needs 504,760 valid voter signatures and has about 650,000 now, with a last-minute push likely to boost that total to 725,000, perhaps 750,000 said David Gilliard, a political strategist leading the drive.

A sizable cushion of signatures is needed in any referendum drive to account for those disqualified because they are duplicates, or because the voter is not currently registered, or for various other reasons.

"We' re going to have, I think, enough room for our validity rate to be where it needs to be," Gilliard said. "So we're very happy."

The GOP-led campaign targets Senate maps that critics say are likely to give Democrats the two additional Senate seats needed for the party to gain a two-thirds majority, the margin needed to raise taxes or fees.

Republican Sen. Sharon Runner will undergo surgery Monday to mend a broken elbow.

The Lancaster Republican's office said the injury was sustained "during a friendly sports competition with family." She also fractured her tailbone in the the fall.

"I want to thank all those who have already sent their kind wishes and thoughts," Runner said in a statement. "While this will change my office schedule, I will continue to work from home to serve my constituents."

Runner's recent injury isn't her first health scare while serving in the Legislature. During her time in the state Assembly, she was diagnosed with a rare lung disease and told she needed a lung transplant. She said during her campaign for the Senate seat vacated by her husband George Runner's election to the state Board of Equalization that her treatment has been successful and she no longer needs a transplant.

State Sen. Joe Simitian, black-listed by the Azerbaijani government after traveling to a separatist region while on a diplomatic visit, was back at his Palo Alto office today, not entirely crestfallen.

"Let me put it to you this way," the Democrat said. "It's a disappointment I can live with."

Simitian was among a group of California senators visiting Azerbaijani officials in Baku, Azerbaijan's capital city, when he went on his own to Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominately ethnic Armenian region and the center of a longstanding dispute.

The visit violated Azerbaijani rules restricting travel in the region - though the United States does not restrict travel there - and Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijan's consul general in Los Angeles, said Tuesday that Simitian was "basically black-listed ... will not be allowed back."

No one in Azerbaijan told Simitian, apparently. The news, first reported by local media, reached the senator via Google alert.

"I have not actually heard directly from anyone in Azerbaijan," he said.

Simitian said that after listening to Azerbaijani officials' concerns about Nagorno-Karabakh, he felt compelled to hear from the other side.

"I was trying to get a better sense of the dynamic," Simitian said. "My view was that since I was halfway around the world, I would just continue on. ... Fundamentally, my view is that the public is better served by elected officials with a broader world view rather than a narrower world view."

The Senate Rules Committee said lawmakers paid their own way. The only public resources involved were travel expenses for two staffers on the trip.

Lawmakers, apparently, are never too busy for a few laughs.

The final floor sessions of the year kicked off last week with tall stacks of bills and rousing games of legislative bingo.

That's the bipartisan game lawmakers play to fuse silly phrases into their "debate."

In a swipe at a potential rival for the 51st congressional district, Sen. Juan Vargas issued an oddly-timed press release Monday demanding that "termed out, drunk-driving legislators" step down from the California Unemployment Appeals Board.

Vargas, D-San Diego, went on to list six former lawmakers on the seven-member board, with the parenthetical note "Drunk-driving arrest" next to the names of former Sens. Roy Ashburn and Denise Moreno Ducheny.

Ashburn's 2010 DUI is widely remembered in the Capitol, but Ducheny's March 2000 DUI arrest is not common knowledge. Vargas has already announced he will run for the newly drawn San Diego-based 51st congressional district. One of his chief rivals is expected to be Ducheny, another Democrat who was termed out of the Senate last year.

Vargas scheduled a 1 p.m. press conference in San Diego to announce he will write legislation to eliminate the unemployment appeals board, and he demanded that all members step down immediately. It is highly unusual for a lawmaker to spend the first business day after legislative session discussing a bill that he intends to pursue next year.

"It is time to stop this wasteful board from being the place where termed out, drunk-driving legislators get an easy government job and get paid $128,000 per year at taxpayers' expense!" Vargas "exclaimed" in a statement. "Every year it's considered for dissolution by the Administration but this year, I will author a bill so that our legislature can decide to eliminate this board once and for all."

Vargas denied that the effort was meant to target Ducheny, saying that the timing of the announcement was in response to the Senate's recent vote to confirm Ashburn and another appointee to the board.

"We just appointed Ashburn and everyone said, 'How is he qualified when he just had a drunk driving (offense) when he was a legislator?" Vargas said, though it was unclear whether such comments were publicly made during the floor vote. The Senate approved Ashburn's appointment on a bipartisan 31-4 vote last month; Vargas abstained.

He said Ducheny's decade-old arrest was included in the release because "everybody knows about" it and he "wanted to make sure that we didn't just attack the Republicans."

"If the board is going to exist, at least they shouldn't have people there that have committed a crime," he said.

Ducheny dismissed Vargas' announcement as a "disrespectful" effort to "grandstand for what is clearly political reasons."

"It's a shame that somebody would take on a whole system and a board that protects the due process rights of workers just to make a personal attack for his political gain," she said. "It was written about me and so he's attacking all of my colleagues because he wants to get to me."

Torey Van Oot contributed to this report.

Editor's note: This post was updated at 2:44 p.m. with added quotes from Ducheny and Vargas.

As Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders dicker over a package of business tax incentives aimed at boosting the state's stagnant economy, an oversight office created by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has concluded that previous corporate tax breaks cost many billions of dollars more than anticipated.

The report, issued Thursday by the Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes, provides ammunition for tax reformers who have called for closing corporate loopholes to raise state revenues and who are leery of opening new ones.

Brown has proposed to change the way multistate and multinational corporations are taxed to raise revenues, then use the proceeds for targeted tax breaks to spur job-creating investment. But with the 2011 legislative session in its final hours, he's encountered resistance from Republicans whose votes would be needed for the tax swap.

Meanwhile, Steinberg's investigators, who are mostly former Capitol reporters, have concluded that "some California tax breaks are acting as blank checks, costing the state billions of dollars more than anticipated when they first were put in place..."

They estimate that over the last decade, 10 major corporate tax breaks have cost the state treasury $6.3 billion more than estimates when they were enacted, including $1.3 billion more in 2010-11.

The Senate took a brief break from the end-of-session madness Tuesday to congratulate the Ocean View All Stars on winning the Little League World Series.

The Huntington Beach team defeated Japan 2-1 to win Sunday's championship game in Pennsylvania. Watch the video below to see GOP Sen. Tom Harman give kudos to the 11- and 12-year-old ballplayers from his hometown.

The office of Republican Assemblyman Jim Silva, who also hails from Huntington Beach, arranged a similar ceremony on the Assembly floor.

Video by Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee.

The Senate and Assembly released member-by-member spending records this afternoon, weeks after The Bee and the Los Angeles Times filed suit against the Assembly in an attempt to force disclosure of current office budget and spending records.

Friday's release shows that both houses have concluded that the public has a right to see all or parts of current-year records regarding the spending of millions in taxpayer funds.

"As I have previously announced, I have asked Assembly Rules Chair Nancy Skinner to form a task force to study our options to modernize the Assembly's records policies," Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez said in a statement. "I am eager to receive the results of their work when we reconvene for next year's legislative session. I have also listened to concerns from members in both parties about the need to modernize how the Assembly maintains and shares information."

"I believe that we can take steps now to increase the accessibility of information as to how the Assembly operates. To that end, I have consulted with Assemblymember Skinner and we have directed the Assembly Rules Committee to begin posting the most up-to-date Assembly expenditures through July on our website."

Find the Assembly's 2010 spending here and 2011 year-to-date spending here.

Find the Senate's 2010 spending here. The Senate has not posted its 2011 information online.

Traditionally, both houses have published such data 12 months after the end of each legislative year - thus, 2011 records would not have been unveiled until the week after Thanksgiving 2012.

Analyzing current-year records will allow Californians to identify the Legislature's biggest spenders and determine how money is being spent in a year of fiscal distress forcing cuts in many state programs.

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino called attention to office records last month by claiming that had slashed his budget for casting the only Democratic vote against this year's budget.

When the Assembly balked at releasing office records, citing a legal exemption for preliminary drafts and correspondence to legislators, The Bee and Los Angeles Times filed suit. That litigation is pending.

This post has been updated to reflect that the records have been released.

Republican state Sens. Tony Strickland, Mimi Walters, Joel Anderson and Doug LaMalfa are among the first contributors to a signature-gathering campaign aimed at repealing the state's newly drawn Senate districts.

GOP strategist David Gilliard said the drive has about $500,000 in contributions or commitments from business, community and political groups, including the California Republican Party.

Former Gov. Pete Wilson has joined with other GOP leaders in sending out a fundraising appeal that contends the new districts could enable Democrats to gain a two-thirds majority in the Senate.

"Democrats are perilously close to gaining the ability to raise our taxes and expand our already bloated government -- unless we take immediate action," the mailer said.

"The state Senate lines drawn by the California Redistricting Commission virtually guarantee a Democrat super-majority in the California State Senate in 2012. A successful drive to put a referendum on the June 2012 ballot is the best way to prevent this from happening."

State law requires Gilliard's group, Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting, or FAIR, to report contributions of $5,000 or more within 10 days of receipt.

Strickland and Walters have contributed $25,000 apiece, Anderson $10,000, and LaMalfa, $5,000. Other contributors are Patrick Dirk, chief executive officer of the Troy Group, $10,000; Paula and Kent Meehan Trust of Beverly Hills, $10,000; and Barth Family Trust of San Marino, $7,500, state records show.

Strickland and Walters could be harmed by the new Senate districts, which were drawn for the first time this year by a 14-member citizens commission rather than the Legislature.

Strickland, R-Moorpark, has seen his safe Republican seat redrawn as a competitive district in which Democratic Sen. Fran Pavley of Agoura Hills also resides.

Walters, R-Laguna Niguel, was moved into an even-numbered district, meaning that she must relocate to seek a new four-year term next year or leave the Legislature when her current term expires in 2014 and wait two years to run again for a Senate seat.

Gilliard said the drive hopes to begin gathering signatures statewide next week. It must collect 504,760 valid voter signatures to qualify for the June 2012 ballot.

Gov. Jerry Brown's decision to remove two GOP appointees to the California Water Commission sparked a partisan dispute under the dome this morning as Senate Republicans sought to approve the appointees despite Brown's plans to replace them.

Brown said last week that he plans to replace former Republican Sen. Dave Cogdill and former Sonoma County Water Agency Director Paul Kelley on the nine-member panel, but has yet to formally withdraw either appointment, both of which were made by former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Instead, Brown asked Democratic leaders to let the appointments lapse at year's end by not approving them by their confirmation deadline.

Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton today introduced a motion to bypass the Senate Rules Committee, which has not yet considered the nominations, and immediately hold a floor vote on confirming both members.

Peter Detwiler, who may be the Legislature's longest-serving professional staffer, is retiring after nearly 40 years in state and local government.

Detwiler, the long-time chief consultant to the Senate Governance and Finance Committee (formerly Local Government Committee), told the chairwoman of the committee, Lois Wolk, in a letter Monday that he'll be leaving the legislative staff after the current session ends in September.

Detwiler is considered to be the Legislature's top expert on local government finance and land use issues, and among insiders, is known for his unusually witty -- and usually exhaustive -- analyses of bills before the committee. He also, as a hobby, has compiled and distributed data on the number of bills, passed and vetoed each year.

Detwiler began his public service career in 1972 at the San Diego County Local Agency Formation Commission, worked in Gov. Jerry Brown's first administration at the Office of Planning and Research and joined the Senate staff in 1982, serving all but a few years with the Local Government Committee.

"I thank you and the entire state Senate for allowing me to have a productive and meaningful career in the public service," Detwiler told Wolk. "The next chapter in my life involves our four grandchildren, more travel, and perhaps some writing. While I will continue to teach for Sacramento State and UC Davis Extension, I am not seeking another job or appointment."

With less than four weeks left in this year's legislative session, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg says his top priority will be putting Californians back to work.

"It doesn't take any kind of a brain surgeon or political genius to know that the economy and unemployment are the most important issues," Steinberg told reporters yesterday after a Senate floor session.

For the Sacramento Democrat, that means pursuing a handful of proposed changes to the state's regulatory processes, including measures to streamline permitting, take duplicative regulations off the books and create some sort of standardized economic impact analysis to weigh the costs of new regulations. Some of those measures were unveiled in February as part of a package backed by Steinberg and other Democrats, while others were discussed as part of this year's failed negotiations to hold a statewide election on taxes.

One state legislator is serving more than his district constituents during the summer legislative recess.

Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, is spending part of the four-week break on duty in the United States Air Force Reserves. Lieu, who served four years on active duty as a prosecutor in the JAG corps, is at work this week at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo. His assignment? Reviewing tort claims and ethics disclosures and writing a litigation report for a case in federal district court.

"Not much of a vacation, but I do enjoy this duty," he said earlier this week.

The week is part of the roughly one month's worth of work Lieu must log as an Air Force reservist. Lieu's break won't be all work, though. He said he plans to cash in hotel points he's racked up during his stays in Sacramento to take his wife and children to Disney World before the Senate gavels back in for session Aug. 15.

Lieu, of course, isn't the only legislator with military service this week. Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo, is currently deployed in Afghanistan as a lieutenant commander in the Navy reserve.

PHOTO CREDIT: November 2008 file photo of now Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, speaking at a rally on foreclosures. Renee C. Byer, Sacramento Bee.

Californians hoping to enter the Legislature's information website to read the dozens of bills signed into law this week by Gov. Jerry Brown were out of luck this morning.

Don't blame your keyboard.

Public access to the Assembly and Senate web pages, and their bill information service, was denied because of a computer breakdown that lasted from about 8:45 a.m. to about 11:15 a.m.

Tracy Fong, a chief deputy director in the Legislative Data Center, said she did not know precisely what caused the breakdown but that public access resumed once technicians isolated the problem.

The temporary breakdown made the public unable to retrieve the text, analysis, and legislative votes regarding bills introduced in the current session or acted upon in years past.

The governor's office was not affected by the computer glitch. Other state agencies were not affected either, Fong said.

* Last updated at 11:20 a.m. to reflect resumption of public access.

State Sen. Leland Yee officially threw his hat into the San Francisco mayoral race today by submitting signatures to City Hall.

The San Francisco Democrat submitted a batch of 4,200 voter signatures, bringing his total to nearly 14,000 -- roughly 4,000 more than is needed to qualify for the ballot without paying a filing fee.

"I am looking forward to the next stage of our campaign and continuing to talk with voters about improving our public schools, our environment, and our economy," Yee said in a written statement.

Yee is seeking the gavel held by interim Mayor Edwin M. Lee, who is not currently a candidate in the Nov. 8 election. Lee replaced Gavin Newsom in January after Newsom was elected lieutenant governor.

Yee will be termed out of the Senate in 2014. He does not need to give up his legislative seat to run for mayor, so he is assured of a Capitol job if he loses the local election.

A child psychologist, Yee was elected to the Senate in 2006. He previously served three terms in the Assembly. His resume also includes service on San Francisco's Board of Supervisors and its school board.

The Capitol stinks - literally.

And that hold-your-nose situation today has nothing to do with the state budget.

Blame the skunk.

A wayward four-legged stinker wandered into the Capitol garage early this morning and decided to stick around for a few hours, leaving a distinct aroma that won't be mistaken for cologne. It was not clear whether the critter was Democrat or Republican.

CHP officers said the skunk entered the Capitol garage no later than 6 a.m. and ultimately curled itself into a ball near the governor's elevator, where it quietly waited about 8:45 a.m. for animal control officers to arrive and send it packing.

Eddie Wright, who provides information and shoeshines at the Capitol, said he was not aware of the skunk's visit but that he knew the odor filling the ground floor was not detergent.

"I can profusely smell it now," Wright said after being asked about the tiny, uninvited guest. "With every breath, I can smell it."

Assembly administrator Jon Waldie laughed when asked why he thought the skunk chose a Capitol visit.

"Maybe it thought Arnold was still here," he quipped.

The pitch to California voters was wrong in claiming that imposing legislative term limits would replace career politicians with "citizen legislators" who would serve at the Capitol and then return home to resume private careers, according to a new study.

Most lawmakers who left the Assembly and Senate in 2008 continued to work in public sector jobs, mirroring results from 1990, the year that term limits were imposed, the Center for Governmental Studies found.

"A majority of state legislators stay in government and simply move to other elected offices," said Tracy Westen, chief executive officer of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Los Angeles research group.

The study concluded by recommending that California modify its term limits from a maximum 14 years to 12 years, but allow all to be served in one house of the Legislature.

The lifetime ban against termed-out lawmakers returning to the Legislature also should be modified, perhaps allowing former members to seek office again four years after their departure, the study said.

Sixty percent of Assembly members who left the Capitol in 2008 remained in public-sector appointed or elected positions. The same percentage remained public sector employees after leaving between 1980 and 1990, the study found.

Among state senators, the percentage of departing lawmakers who remained in public sector positions was 40 percent in 2008, higher than the 30 percent between 1980 and 1990.

Sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation, the study found that the median age of lawmakers under term limits has not changed -- 57 in both 1990 and 2010 -- but the number of legislators in their 50s and 60s has risen while the number of members in their 20s and 30s and their 70s and 80s has decreased.

Controller John Chiang has restored lawmaker pay dating back to Tuesday, the day of the budget passage, according to spokeswoman Hallye Jordan.

Rank-and-file lawmakers lost salary and living expenses of about $4,830 over 12 days. Chiang ruled last week that he would stop pay dating back to June 16 under his interpretation of Proposition 25, which voters approved last year to block legislative pay for late budgets and reduce the budget vote threshold from two-thirds to majority.

In his June 21 analysis, Chiang cited seven problems with the previous Democratic budget, particularly a $1.3 billion underfunding of K-12 schools and community colleges. He also said lawmakers had not passed all of the bills necessary to implement their plan. He determined that it was not balanced, and therefore, not sufficient to maintain pay.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new version of the Democratic majority-vote budget Thursday, and Chiang deemed the governor's signature good enough to reinstate lawmakers' pay.

It is not clear that lawmakers approved all of the bills to implement their plan this time. And Brown himself had yet to sign some of the major ones on his desk as of 3:30 p.m.

But Chiang does not believe he can weigh in once the governor signs the main budget bill, according to the Controller's Office. That's because the governor's Department of Finance makes its own assessment for budget balance when he signs the main budget legislation, Senate Bill 87.

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

By Torey Van Oot and Phillip Reese

Sen. Joel Anderson may be angling for "ayes" to become the next Senate GOP leader, but the Alpine Republican is much more likely to vote no than yes himself in the chamber and committee rooms.

Anderson, who is jockeying with Sen. Bob Huff to eventually succeed Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton, has voted no 38.9 percent of the time this session -- a higher percentage of his total votes cast than any other legislator. On average, legislators voted no about 11 percent of the time, though Republicans' votes against majority Democrats' measures generally bump up their no vote tally.

Anderson credits his commitment to voting yes or no on every measure -- as opposed to abstaining from bills that are controversial or that tackle subjects he doesn't have much an opinion on -- for his high no vote count. That means even voting against requests to add coauthors or grant reconsideration when it comes to measures he doesn't support.

"I can't lay off," he told Capitol Alert earlier this year. "I get paid to vote and so if I can't vote yes, I have to vote no."

See the full rank of no votes compiled by The Bee below:

Editor's note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified Linda Halderman and Jeff Gorell as Democrats. Gorell is currently on a leave of absence during a deployment to Afghanistan.

An early leadership fight is brewing in the Senate Republican Caucus as two members begin jockeying to succeed Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton.

Sens. Joel Anderson and Bob Huff have both told other members that they are interested in serving as leader of the 15-member Republican Caucus. Dutton, who is termed out next year and considering running for Assembly, has yet to signal when he will step down from the leadership job.

But discussions about the future began to heat up this week.

"There has been some desire to start that move but there's no resolution," said Huff, the vice chair of the Senate Budget Committee.

Huff said he does not think now is the best time for a leadership battle, but confirmed his interest in becoming Senate minority leader.

"I am interested if the caucus is willing to support me, absolutely," the Diamond Bar Republican said.

Anderson spokesman Jim Kjol declined comment on whether the Alpine Republican is vying for votes to become leader, saying only "Senator Anderson is a strong supporter of Senate Republican leader Bob Dutton."

Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, called Anderson and Huff "the two naturals" to take the reins as caucus leader.

"They're both well respected within the caucus... Dutton hasn't expressed his timeline (for stepping down), but both of those members are very well respected," he said.

Bee colleague Kevin Yamamura contributed to this report.

Shortly after Controller John Chiang announced that he would block pay to lawmakers, Gov. Jerry Brown spent about an hour behind closed doors with the Senate Democratic Caucus.

As he exited the meeting, Brown refused to pass judgment on Chiang's analysis. Instead, he looked past the decision and said now it's now time to "set up" the budget and get it voted on by legislators.

Most of the Senate Democrats were frustrated by the controller's announcement, saying that the budget they approved a week ago was indeed balanced. Upon entering the elevator to head back to his office, Brown offered a positive take on his chat with the senators.

"I think we've made a good step forward," Brown said.

Watch all of his remarks below.

Video by by Hector Amezcua / Sacramento Bee.

Here is the list of budget bills the state Assembly and Senate plan to take up today. Full language can be found at www.leginfo.ca.gov.

Senate:

2011 Trailer Bills Remaining 6-15-11 Annotated Final

Assembly:

Trailer Bill Package

Editor's note: This post was updated at 1:53 p.m. with a full list from the Assembly, which includes some bills not on the Senate bill.

The state Senate passed three minor budget-related bills on Saturday, but Democrats remain short of the two Republican votes needed to pass the one major component Democrats and the governor are seeking--a tax bridge.

"There's obviously one significant issue left to resolve and a bridge is essential," said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, referring to a proposal to extend sales and vehicle license tax increases past their expiration on June 30.

"The so-called bridge is real money for public schools and public safety," he added.

The Democratic and Republican caucuses plan to meet separately Saturday afternoon before those involved in the budget discussions resume talks. With Wednesday's deadline to pass a budget looming, the Senate could reconvene at any point through Sunday night should some sort of deal be struck.

Senate Republicans blocked a one-year tax bridge to close the remaining $9.6 billion deficit Friday. Democrats responded by passing a countermeasure expanding the taxation powers of local authorities.

Steinberg said to reporters Saturday that the "length of the bridge was negotiable."

On Saturday, there was bipartisan support for measures to pay back funds owed to several state agencies, reinstate a program that allows low-income seniors to defer property tax payments and maintain a payment structure for nursing homes to stay open.

Steinberg said though Friday's release of the first draft of new legislative district boundaries surely created "a lot of buzz," they had not changed the "dynamics of the negotiations."

Asked if anything had changed since Friday, Steinberg said, "One day closer to the deadline."

Forty proposed state Senate districts just won unanimous approval from the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, slightly increasing the number of swing districts in the upper house.

A preliminary analysis of the draft districts by Bee database reporter Phillip Reese shows 27 would be considered safe or leaning for Democrats, 11 safe or leaning for Republicans and two in the swing category. That's an increase in competitive seats from the current district make-up, which - on paper -- has 27 safe or leaning Democratic seats, 12 safe or leaning GOP seats and only one swing district.

Reese's formula for determining safe and swing districts applies current voter registration figures and the outcome of the Jerry Brown-Meg Whitman gubernatorial race last November. Districts that have a registration advantage for one party but chose a gubernatorial candidate of another party are considered swing.

Of course there are other factors at play in specific districts, particularly incumbency, that could increase the number of swing districts.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento and Sen. Lois Wolk of Davis find themselves residing in the same Sacramento-region Senate district. But the two Democrats would never have to battle each other for the seat.

Wolk, who lives in Davis, was first elected in 2008 to an odd-numbered district. Her term ends in 2012. If the new draft district including Davis remained the same in the final maps and was given an odd number by the commission, Wolk said she would run again in 2012. Steinberg, a Sacramento resident elected to an even-numbered district, would not be eligible to run because was elected in 2010, giving him a seat until 2014. Members may serve only two terms in the Senate.

If the district that included Davis received an even number, Steinberg would remain the representative through 2014 and Wolk would have the option to sit out for two years and then run for a second term in 2014. Either way, Wolk said she plans to run for a second term in whatever district includes Davis, and that Steinberg would support her.

The draft Sacramento-area district combines the current districts of Wolk and Steinberg by dropping cities such as Woodland from Wolk's and Citrus Heights from Steinberg's. Wolk's chief of staff Craig Reynolds said Sacramento's legislative maps may change significantly before they are finalized because the 14-member commission has not yet spent significant time reviewing the region in public meetings.

Through all the switching, one key point is a senator would not represent anyone who didn't elect him or her unless those constituents were assigned the senator, called a deferral. That means they elected a senator in 2008 and would get their next chance to do so in 2014 instead of 2012. Those residents would be assigned a temporary representative to reach out to by the Senate leadership. Reynolds noted that Yolo County voters have been deferrals in each of the past three redistricting processes.

Otherwise, the draft Senate maps show GOP Sen. Ted Gaines of Roseville would reside in a district that covers much of eastern Sacramento County, Roseville and El Dorado Hills. It leans Republican. GOP Sen. Doug LaMalfa of Richvale stays in a safe Republican District. The proposed maps create a new solidly Republican "Foothills" district covering eastern, mostly rural El Dorado and Placer counties. No local incumbent lives in that proposed district.

PHOTO CREDIT: Senate President Pro tem Darrell Steinberg offers valentine candy to Senator Lois Wolk in 2009. Brian Baer / Sacramento Bee.

Juan Vargas has long yearned to be a congressman, and he'll have his chance next year in a newly redrawn district that sprawls along the state's border with Mexico from the Pacific Ocean to Arizona.

A former state assemblyman, Democrat Vargas was elected to the state Senate just last year after a bruising primary battle with then-Assemblywoman Mary Salas. He defeated her by just 22 votes. His 40th Senate District overlaps with virtually all of the congressional district now being drawn by an independent redistricting commission.

Bob Filner, the veteran congressman who now represents the 51st Congressional District, announced this week that he would run for mayor of San Diego rather than seek re-election in the newly redrawn district. Vargas once challenged Filner, and the duel between the two was particularly heated and personal.

If Vargas goes to Congress, he would have to resign from the Senate, setting up a special election for his Senate seat in 2013.

The San Diego Union-Tribune's Michael Gardner has the story.

With the June 15 constitutional deadline looming, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, announced today that his house will begin daily budget floor sessions Friday at 10 a.m.

No deal appears imminent as Republicans and Democrats remain divided over whether to extend higher sales and vehicle tax rates until voters can have their say. Republicans do not want to extend those tax rates, while Gov. Jerry Brown is asking that they do so until a mid-September special election.

The two parties are also negotiating a spending cap, pension cuts and environmental regulation changes, as well as curtailing or eliminating redevelopment agencies.

Steinberg said the Senate plans to meet through the weekend and into next week, giving lawmakers all of Thursday to review bill language.

The Assembly adjourned Thursday and remains on call until its normally scheduled Monday floor session.

The June 15 deadline has greater importance this year - at least to lawmakers - in light of a 2010 voter-approved measure that halts legislative pay on June 16 without a budget sent to the governor. Controller John Chiang, who issues legislative paychecks, said last week he would not pay lawmakers unless they send a balanced budget to Brown.

PHOTO CREDIT: Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, speaks at the Capitol Bureau on Jan. 20, 2011. Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee.

With a deal to close the budget deficit with the help of tax extensions yet to emerge, members of the Senate have been asked to come to the floor this week prepared for story time.

The office of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who had set tomorrow as a goal to hold a budget vote, has informed members on both sides of the aisle that this week's floor sessions will include sharing testimony from school and public safety officials on the adverse effects of an all-cuts alternative.

"The pro tem is asking all senators to call their sheriffs and the superintendents of their school districts in their Senate districts and get short letters from each of them, describing the cuts they will have to make, worst case scenario (if the Senate must pass a budget without continuing existing revenues)," Kathy Dresslar, Steinberg's chief of staff, wrote in an email to the chief of staff for the Senate Republican Caucus.

"Our floor session on Wednesday and Thursday will include reading these letters aloud on the floor of the Senate," her email added.

A spokeswoman for GOP Senate leader Bob Dutton has yet to issue a response to Steinberg's request, though it's unlikely that Senate Republicans, who have largely opposed Gov. Jerry Brown's tax proposal, would take to the floor to wax poetic on the dangers of more cuts.

Steinberg spokesman Mark Hedlund said the intent of the request "is to have an opportunity to hear from stakeholders about the impacts of the budget."

Tomorrow's scheduled floor session has been tentatively canceled, and members have been instructed to remain on call for possible sessions during the remainder of the week. Hedlund said that Steinberg is still aiming to take up budget bills this week.

The state Senate today approved legislation aimed at curbing the illegal practice of cockfighting.

Senate Bill 425, by Democratic Sen. Ron Calderon, would increase the minimum fines for both cockfighting ring participants and spectators.

Calderon said the crackdown is intended to curb what animal welfare advocates and law enforcement officials say is a growing problem in the state. While cockfighting is illegal in all 50 states, California does not categorize many related violations as felonies.

"California is basically a welcome mat for this kind of activity because we have relatively weak laws," the Montebello Democrat said.

Supporters, including bill sponsor Humane Society of the United States, say increasing the fines will help deter spectators and participants. There was no formal opposition to the bill, though one critic told The Bee in March that the measure would disproportionately affect low-income spectators, not organizers of larger rings.

The bill was approved on a 36-1 vote. It now heads to the Assembly.

Gov. Jerry Brown said in unveiling his revised budget proposal today that any election to ask voters to ratify higher tax rates should be held "as soon as possible."

But Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, told reporters any election on taxes and other budget-related proposals "ought to be as far off as is reasonably possible."

How soon is soon enough to be one of the many issues up for debate now that Brown's updated plan has been released.

Brown said at a morning press conference that he sees the fall as a logical time to ask voters to approve continuing higher sales and vehicle tax rates.

Steinberg, who noted that Brown did not name a target election date in his proposal, said a buffer on the tax vote would give schools and other public services more funding stability in the coming fiscal year.

"2012 to me in the normal election cycle would be an appropriate time to have an election if an election is necessary," the Sacramento Democrat said.

But before an election date is set, Brown and Democrats will still need to secure the two GOP votes in each house to extend the taxes and call an election. GOP Republican Sen. Bob Huff, vice chair of the Senate Budget Committee, called the governor's proposal "short on reforms," saying his colleagues will still need to see serious proposals on a spending cap and other GOP-backed structural changes in order to support the plan.

"Republicans are going to be reluctant to (vote) on something business as usual," the Diamond Bar Republican said. "Unless you fix the underlying problem that takes into account Sacramento, the Legislature's appetite to spend more than we take in, unless we fix that underlying problem, I do not see that there's going to be Republican votes for this."

Steinberg, who praised Brown's proposal as a balanced approach focused on a long-term solution, was optimistic his house would hold a floor vote on the budget "well before" the June 15 legislative deadline for approving a budget.

"We're on a very fast track, we don't have to start from scratch, a lot of the work in terms of analysis and also negotiation has been done... and we intend to finish," he said.

The Capitol was a zoo today -- but it wasn't lawmakers' fault.

Penguins, a porcupine and other critters were on display outside and around the building as part of an on-site exhibition by SeaWorld San Diego.

One of the stars of the visit was Sheila, a 5-year-old kangaroo who seemed right at home on the Senate floor. Watch Sheila in the video below.

Funeral homes that promote their services on the Internet would have to post their prices online under legislation approved by the state Senate today.

State law already requires funeral directors to provide a general price list detailing the cost of caskets and other services at the start of any discussion with a potential consumer. Senate Bill 658 extends those requirements to funeral home websites, requiring that the home page features a link to the price list.

"The goal is to make shopping for funeral services a little easier for the consumer," author Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, said on the floor.

A committee analysis says the Center for Public Interest Law, which sponsored the bill, is arguing that the change would help grieving consumers to make informed choices about the costly services as they explore their options online.

The bill, which passed 23-14, now goes to the Assembly.

PHOTO CREDIT: Funeral director Jim Beeding works on the display for cremations caskets at W.F. Gormley & Sons in midtown Sacramento on Wednesday, April 14, 1999. Kim D. Johnson, Sacramento Bee.

Legislative offices have been put on alert as teachers and other protesters gather at the Capitol to kick off a week of budget-related demonstrations.

The Assembly and Senate Rules Committees issued a joint memo Friday warning staffers that high turnout for the events "may have an impact on your daily work environment."

The recommended precautions range from being ready to handle higher-than-usual volumes of visitors, emails and calls to packing a lunch to avoid long security lines.

"Because of the volume of traffic, you should anticipate longer lines at the security checkpoints.There may be door closures in various places and times for security reasons. You should have your Capitol identification card with you at all times. You might also plan on bringing your lunch, rather than exiting and re-entering the building," the memo reads.

They weren't joking about the Capitol badges, by the way. Even Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg was subject to an ID check as he tried to cross the temporarily closed Capitol Rotunda this afternoon. Watch the video below and read the full memo after the jump.

Looks like chasing unicorns paid off for legislative Republicans after all.

The minority party scored a rare Capitol victory today when Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton's entrant won the 37th annual Capitol frog jumping contest.

Team Dutton's frog Unicorn -- the name is a reference to Assembly Budget Chair Bob Blumenfield's likening GOP budget proposals to chasing the mythical creature -- covered an impressive 10 feet 5 inches in three jumps when prodded by a Dutton staffer on the east Capitol lawn.

Not all the participants fared as well in the contest, which is a precursor to this month's Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee.

GOP Sen. Ted Gaines, who emceed the event as Calaveras County's representative, expressed discontent with his Tax Cutting Toad's 5-foot-9-inch performance.

"Whew -- that's weak, man!" the Roseville Republican exclaimed after his frog's jump.

While Dutton aide Michelle Clarke took home the trophy for the main event, the real winner may have been the frog competing for GOP Assemblywoman Diane Harkey's office. HSF: High-Speed Frog rocketed out of the contest bounds and escaped into a nearby toad pond.

Perhaps the creature overheard the question jokingly posed by one legislator participating in the event.

"Do we get to eat them later?" asked freshman Assemblyman David Valadao, R-Hanford.

The answer, of course, was no.

See how Sen. Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, (top) and Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, (bottom) fared in videos posted below:

Fran Florez shouldn't expect GOP Sen. Tony Strickland to send her flowers congratulating her on her new job.

A Senate committee today killed his bill to eliminate the very commission she'll be joining.

The Senate Rules Committee has appointed the two-time Democratic Assembly candidate and mother of former Democratic Sen. Dean Florez to the California Medical Assistance Commission.

Senate Bill 256 would have dissolved the commission and transferred its job of coordinating Medi-Cal contracts with hospitals to the Department of Health Care Services.

Strickland slammed the 3-6 rejection by the Senate Health Committee, saying in a statement that legislators "cannot afford to ignore areas where we can trim the fat" during the current fiscal crisis.

"With the responsibilities of this commission dwindling over the years, it is high time we consolidate efforts and reduce government expenses," the Moorpark Republican's statement said.

Florez will receive an annual salary of $56,095, plus travel expenses, for her 20-month term on the seven-member board, which meets roughly 24 times a year.

A fiscal impact report for the bill had not been released, but a committee analysis says that the commission's work negotiating Medi-Cal contracts with hospitals saves the general fund $479 million a year. The analysis also raised concerns about the logistics and timing of shifting the commission's responsibilities to the department.

Another Strickland bill targeting paid commission posts also failed to make it out of a policy committee this week. Senate Bill 153 would have removed the $100,000-plus annual salaries granted to members of a handful of state boards.

The Senate Rules Committee has appointed the mother of former Sen. Dean Florez to a paid post on the California Medical Assistance Commission.

Fran Florez, a former Shafter councilwoman and San Joaquin Hospital community board member, lost a November bid for the 30th Assembly District to Republican David Valadao.

The Shafter Democrat, who also ran for the Assembly in 2008, has served on the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Her term on the board, which coordinates health care services for Medi-Cal recipients, comes with an annual salary of $56,095 and ends Jan. 1, 2013.

Senate Rules also announced that it appointed Nora E. Vargas, a former aide to former Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, to the Osteopathic Medical Board of California. Vargas is the vice president of community engagement for Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest. The Chula Vista Democrat formerly served on the Dental Board of California and the Physician Assistant Committee. She was director of Hahn's Office of Immigrant Affairs.

PHOTO CREDIT: Then Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, and his mom, then Assembly candidate Fran Florez, leave the Senate chambers together, Monday Oct. 22, 2007. Sacramento Bee/ Brian Baer

Editor's note: This post was updated at 1:30 p.m. to add Florez's salary.

"Aye" and "no" weren't the only votes California legislators cast last session.

State lawmakers missed or abstained from votes more than 48,000 times during the 2009-2010 session, an analysis by Bee colleague Phillip Reese found. That breaks down to roughly one out of every 12 votes cast. The review looked at both committee and floor votes, though floor votes made up 80 percent of the abstentions.

See a list of which legislators missed the most votes last session over at our sister blog, The Public Eye.

Lax oversight of in-home care agencies is opening the door for caregivers with criminal backgrounds to offer services to the elderly and disabled, according to a Senate oversight report issued today.

A Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes review of Craigslist.org advertisements for in-home caregivers uncovered five confirmed cases where the individuals offering services had extensive criminal records, including arrests for burglary, narcotics trafficking and prostitution. It also found that more than 25 percent of caregivers identified in media reports as being convicted or accused of wrongdoing on the job had previous offenses on their records.

"Without criminal background checks, these consumers may unwittingly open their homes and finances to those who have shown a willingness to exploit or harm others," the report says.

California is one of six states that does not regulate private in-home caregivers. While the state now screens workers providing care for the mostly low-income, blind, disabled and elderly Californians enrolled in the In-Home Supportive Services program, a similar system does not exist for private providers. The Legislature has approved legislation in recent years aimed at helping consumers conduct criminal background checks on prospective caregivers, but the report found that those services are not being used.

Authors of the report, whose office was established by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, issued several recommendations for creating more oversight in the industry, including launching a public awareness campaign to inform consumers of their options for obtaining background reports and establishing standards for agencies that claim to conduct criminal checks on their employees.

Read the full report in the PDF posted below:

2385.Caregiver Roulette

The state Senate today approved a $600,000 settlement in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by the former executive director of the Board of Chiropractic Examiners.

Catherine Hayes was fired in 2007 amid clashes with then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's appointees to the seven-member panel. A Bee investigation found that she had sent an email to the governor's office challenging the competency of the appointees shortly before her dismissal.

Then-board chairman Richard Tyler, a chiropractor and longtime friend of Schwarzenegger's, briefly assumed the role of interim executive director, and the board came under fire for taking several controversial actions in the wake of the shake-up. Lawmakers later deemed that the panel violated open-meeting laws and that Hayes was improperly fired.

Hayes filed a lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court in 2008 alleging that she had been fired for cooperating with a criminal investigation into the practice of chiropractors working on patients under anesthesia and for reprimanding board members for not complying with open-meeting laws.

The bill, which was approved on a 37-0 vote, directs $600,000 from the State Board of Chiropractic Examiners' Fund to pay for the settlement. It now goes to the Assembly for approval.

PHOTO CREDIT: Fired Executive Director, Catherine Hayes testifies during the California Board of Chiropractic Examiners meeting held at the Department of Consumer Affairs, Friday March 23, 2007. Brian Baer, Sacramento Bee.

It wasn't your typical flight delays that thwarted Sen. Ted Lieu's Monday morning commute to Sacramento. The Torrance Democrat was diagnosed with an ear infection and under doctor's orders not to take the 75-minute flight to work.

But instead of calling in sick, Lieu opted for an alternative route back to Sacramento. He boarded a Greyhound Bus. The nine-hour ride, which left at around 11 a.m., landed Lieu in the capital after 8 p.m. While the trek meant rescheduling at least one bill set to be heard in committee, Lieu was able to make light of the situation on his Twitter account:

No word on whether he got a Southwest refund to put toward his $64 bus fare.

Editor's note: This post was updated at 5:40 p.m. to include a link to a new post with a response from the Assembly speaker.

Assembly Chief Sergeant-at-Arms Ronald Pane has given four legislators permission to carry concealed weapons in the state Capitol, according to two senior Senate staff members who have been informed of the decision.

State law prohibits carrying loaded firearms and deadly weapons in public buildings, except under limited conditions. A 2010 bill by Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Livingston, tightened the law, requiring that most holders of concealed weapons permits or other gun licenses get permission from the sergeants-at-arms of the state Assembly or the state Senate in order to bring their gun in the Capitol or legislative office buildings. Peace officers are exempt from the restrictions.

No such approval has been given in the Senate, where the Rules Committee has established a no-guns policy. Senate Chief Sergeant-at-Arms Tony Beard said while he respects the Assembly's judgment to establish its own security practices to best protect its members, it would take an "extraordinary situation" for him to give a member the OK to carry a concealed weapon in the building. He said his focus has been on how existing safety protocol and systems can be used to respond to threats and protect all members, staff and visitors.

Shortly after The Bee first reported the news, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez said the Los Angeles Democrat had asked Pane to revoke the authorizations "pending a full review of safety and security measures."

As the Sacramento Bee reported this week, sergeants for the lower house have recently started carrying concealed weapons full-time while on duty.

Pane and a spokeswoman for Pérez, who directed the change in policy, said the move was intended to create continuity and enhance safety for members, staff and the public as a whole.

The measures, which come in the wake of the January shooting of Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, are in addition to existing security present at the Capitol, including armed California Highway Patrol officers and metal detectors and security stationed at building entrances.

The state Assembly has stepped up its security measures, ordering more than a dozen sergeants-at-arms to carry guns while on the job.

"Please be advised that as of March 31, 2011, the Assembly Sergeants-at-Arms Security Division will be carrying department-issued Smith & Wesson .40 caliber semi-automatic weapons full-time while they are on duty for the Assembly," Assembly Chief Sergeant-at-Arms Ronald Pane wrote in a March 31 letter to Senate Chief Sergeant-at-Arms Tony Beard, Jr.

Sergeants-at-arms, whose duties include protecting legislators and monitoring floor sessions, are far from the only layer of security at the Capitol. California Highway Patrol officers are already stationed at the Capitol, patrolling the building and grounds 24 hours a day, and visitors and staff must go through metal detectors and screenings upon entering the Capitol.

Pane said the move is not a response to current threat levels or a demonstrated need for more security, but meant to establish continuity in security policy and enhance "safety here at the Capitol." He said the Assembly's security personnel are already armed during large events at the Capitol and times when threat levels are high.

"We've been carrying weapons for years, but now we're carrying them a little more than part-time," he said in an interview, adding that the change will not require the purchase of new guns. "We just thought professionally and as far as providing the service we need to do it full time."

The policy affects roughly 17 employees, all of whom were trained at police academies and subject to peace officer standards training set for California law enforcement officials, he said.

Beard said while the subject of arming Senate sergeants-at-arms full time has been discussed over the years, any change in policy would require action by the Senate Rules Committee.

Senate Democrats are turning for the second year to a New York City-based public policy research firm for advice on how to craft their talking points on taxes.

Members and staff are scheduled to attend a Tuesday morning messaging and strategy session put on by representatives from Demos, which bills itself as a nonpartisan organization that "combines research, policy development, and advocacy to influence public debates and catalyze change."

"This will not be an abstract or academic exercise," reads an email memo distributed by the office of Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley. "You will receive specific advice and they will report on their research on how to communicate about tax and budget issues: What to say, how to say it, who to say it to, and how to communicate complex economic issues to reach the widest possible audience with the right message."

The off-site meetings, which will be held in a California Labor Federation conference room, come as legislative Democrats and Gov. Jerry Brown are mulling their next steps to close a projected $15.4 billion budget deficit. Brown has proposed asking voters to continue $11.2 billion in 2009 tax increases. With a June election to extend those taxes before they expire no longer an option, some unions are pushing for other tax increases, including higher tax rates for the top 1 percent of earners, to be included in the budget package.

While the presentation was set up for members of the Senate Majority Caucus and staff, the office of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said the visit was suggested and arranged by Hancock's office.

"When one of our members has something they'd like to present to the caucus, we accommodate," Steinberg spokesman Nathan Barankin said.

Hancock spokesman Larry Levin said his boss took the initiative to organize the meetings after learning about work Demos has done advising legislators and initiative campaigns in other states. Those efforts including working to "inform public perception of taxes, and to promote a fair tax system that supports effective government structures," according to the Demos website.

Though there is no shortage of budget experts and communications consultants on the payroll at the Capitol, Levin said Demos provides a different perspective for members to consider.

"They were just very impressive in terms of their research and the presentation and how to communicate issues," Levin said. "They're not pollsters and they're not communications people. They're not operational political people. They're a research and policy development independent group."

Levin said Demos is not being compensated by the Legislature but that the visit is part of a California junket sponsored by The San Francisco Foundation, a Bay Area philanthropic and advocacy organization. Last year's visit was funded in part by contributions from individual legislators' campaign accounts, he said.

Sara Ying Rounsaville, vice president of public affairs and communications for The San Francisco Foundation, confirmed that the organization helped arrange and fund Tuesday's trip to Sacramento through its public policy and advocacy program, which supports efforts "designed to achieve social justice and promote progressive social change." The full trip agenda includes Demos workshops for grant recipients and other foundations in the Bay Area and a second Sacramento presentation involving the California Budget Project,which advocates for low-income residents.

"We have a real interest in having an informed and engaged Bay Area population and we include in it our elected representatives in Sacramento," she said.

Rounsaville said organizers sought to target "interested legislators and staff" for the program. Senate Republicans, who were not invited to the Tuesday session, didn't seem to think the added insight would do the Democrats' much good.

"Clearly the Democrats are concerned that California voters are not going to support their tax hike, as they should be," said Jann Taber, spokeswoman for Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton.

Updated at 1:40 p.m. to include response from Gov. Jerry Brown's office.

Two days after Gov. Jerry Brown called off talks and suggested Republicans were obstructionist, Senate Republican leader Bob Dutton and his budget point man, Sen. Bob Huff, held a news conference today to explain their moves over the last week.

Dutton said first lady Anne Gust Brown "yelled" at him in one meeting with the governor last Wednesday over a lack of cooperation.

"Frankly, I was yelled at more than I was talked to," Dutton said, "and mostly by Mrs. Brown, not even Gov. Brown."

Brown press secretary Gil Duran blasted Dutton later.

"And the dog barked at him, too," Duran said. "Big girls don't cry. The real issue here is the fact that schoolchildren, the elderly and the poor are going to be crushed if these reckless Republicans don't get their act together and make a reasonable deal for the good of the people. Given the magnitude of the situation, we really don't have time for Bob Dutton's feelings."

Rather than demands, Dutton said he saw their now famous budget list as a starting point to gain clarity over where the governor and Republicans could agree. He said such lists were typical of past "Big Five" budget negotiations that involved the four legislative leaders and the governor.

Asked why he waited until the end to show Brown that list, Dutton blamed Brown for not asking him to join talks earlier. In prior weeks, Brown had negotiated with a group of five Republican senators seen as more amenable than their colleagues to striking a compromise.

"The governor never asked for my help," Dutton said.

Duran said Dutton "put himself on the sidelines" and that the problem was the "erratic nature of their communication."

The Republican leader said he believes a spending cap and pension changes need to go on the ballot to satisfy GOP concerns. He was vague about how much Republicans are willing to negotiate in the coming months, though he said he didn't believe there would be any Senate GOP votes for tax extensions that didn't go on the ballot.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, speaking separately to reporters after a morning floor session, also predicted that a ballot measure to restrict state spending would be part of a final deal, though he said it is unclear "how that will be tied to the tax extensions."

"We're dealing with a similar framework to what the governor and the set of Republicans had progressed to," Steinberg said of ongoing efforts to close the deficit. "I think it's worth an effort to see whether or not we can finish it."

Steinberg said while he personally would prefer to pursue extending the taxes without going to the ballot, leaders are filling their "obligation to pursue multiple pathways," including a later election date.

"June is not the only month," he said. "There are 11 other months in the year, and certainly we are not giving up."

Torey Van Oot contributed to this report.

PHOTO CREDIT: Republican Senate leader Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga talks to the Bee's Capitol Bureau to discuss the minority's party's role in solving the state budget deficit on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011. Hector Amezcua / Sacramento Bee

California elected officials snagged three out of 10 spots on a new list of Latino politicians to watch that's been compiled by MSNBC.

Two Los Angeles legislators -- Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez and Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla -- were named rising stars from the increasingly influential voting bloc.

The list cast Padilla, who is termed out of the Senate in 2014, as on a clear path to Congress, writing "he has the makings of a Washington power player."

Of Pérez, who was recognized for being an openly gay Latino politician, the site wrote: "If he keeps up his ambitious political track record, he may soon become more of a household name."

Former Democratic Rep. Hilda Solis, who now serves as President Barack Obama's labor secretary, also made the list. The post notes that Solis, the first Hispanic woman elected to the state Senate, "doesn't show signs of slowing down any time soon."

Click here to see a gallery of the full list.

PHOTO CREDIT: Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, D-Los Angeles, talks about the California budget at the state Capitol on Tuesday, May 11, 2010. Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee.

Lawmakers took a look at whether California is ready for a major earthquake like the one that recently struck Japan at a Monday Senate Select Committee on Earthquake and Disaster Preparedness hearing.

See what utility companies and state officials had to say about the lessons learned from the Japan earthquake and tsunami in video highlights posted below:

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg announced today that the Senate will convene at 1 p.m. Wednesday to vote on Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal.

"There is no time to waste. Let's vote," Steinberg said in a statement.

He called Brown's proposal to cut spending and extend temporary taxes "the only plan on the table that responsibly and honestly promises to put California's fiscal crisis behind us once and for all."

Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton slammed Brown's budget as "another short-sighted tax-and-spend scheme."

"The Democrats say, 'Let the people vote,' but what the Democrats really want is for the people to pay for government as usual," he said in a statement.

The Assembly has also announced 1 p.m. vote on the budget plan.

Brown has been negotiating with Senate Republicans in hopes of securing the two Republican votes in each house he needs to put his tax extension proposal on the ballot. Reports emerged yesterday that talks had fizzled, though several members have said they are continuing to negotiate.

"I think there are some Republicans who are very committed to doing something, but so far there's no, there's no agreement," Brown said today.

Hours after budget talks between Gov. Jerry Brown and five Republican senators were described as "done and over" by Assembly GOP leader Connie Conway, one member of the so-called "GOP 5" signaled he could return to the negotiating table.

"I am still willing to talk," Sen. Anthony Cannella said after leaving a Republican Caucus meeting, adding, "I'm going to ask for what I think is important."

Another member of the group, Sen. Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach, told The Bee earlier today that talks fell apart due to resistance to the senators' proposals for pension and regulatory reform and a permanent spending cap.

"There's big gaps in what we're trying to accomplish," said Cannella, who last spoke with Brown yesterday. "I think there's powerful forces at play here that don't want to upset the way things have been, and I personally believe we can no longer continue down the road that we're going."

When asked by a reporter whether he would vote to put tax extensions on the ballot if Brown and Democrats agree to the reforms he is seeking, the Ceres Republican said it was too early in the negotiating process to comment.

"That's like asking the San Francisco Giants who's going to pitch for game seven of the the World Series," he said.

Sens. Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo and Tom Berryhill of Oakdale, also members of the "GOP 5," declined to comment on the matter during and after a noon floor session. The fifth member of the group, Sen. Bill Emmerson of Hemet said talks are "still going" but would not comment further.

After Republican Sen. Dave Cox died last year, one of his daughters found a list of accomplishments the 72-year-old lawmaker still wanted to achieve. One item left unchecked was being honored by his alma mater, University of San Diego.

That wish became a reality on Wednesday, as family, former staff and colleagues gathered at the Capitol to unveil a portrait of Cox commissioned by the university.

"This is really terrific," his wife Maggie Cox said during a small ceremony on the Senate floor today. "He loved USD, he loved the Senate. This is perfect."

The rendering of Cox by artist Greg Shed, which was based on a photograph taken by Jay Mather for the Sacramento Bee, was commissioned to accompany an article honoring the 1961 alumnus in the university magazine. The portrait will now hang in the members' coffee lounge off the Senate floor, which was renamed Cox's Club House last fall in memory of the lawmaker.

Tom Cleary, USD director of community and government relations, said the university offered to share the portrait to hang in the lounge so that "in a way (Cox) is continuing to serve" with current and future elected officials.

Gov. Jerry Brown's appointees to head the Department of Finance and the state Natural Resources Agency were confirmed with broad support in the state Senate today.

The upper house approved Ana Matosantos, who served as former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's finance director, retaining her post in the Brown administration by a vote of 36-1, with just Sen. Joel Anderson, R-Alpine, voting no. Former Democratic Assemblyman John Lairdwon confirmation as natural resources secretary by a vote of 35-0.

Both had received bipartisan support and been approved 5-0 during earlier confirmation hearings in front of the Senate Rules Committee.

There's rarely a shortage of voices chiming into the never-ending debates under the dome. But this week lawmakers opened their ears to what was billed as "a voice that you've never heard here before."

Famed primatologist Jane Goodall paid a visit to the Senate floor during a short floor session Thursday, greeting lawmakers with the call of a wild chimpanzee.

Listen to Goodall perform the call yourself in this audio recording.

The UN Messenger of Peace, who also visited with Gov. Jerry Brown, praised the state for its "leading role in actually having climate change legislation."

Earlier in the week, lawmakers eagerly lined up for handshakes and pictures with Jazz great Herbie Hancock, who was honored with a resolution marking his contributions to music and Black History Month.

"The spirit of California is the background music of my life," the Chicago-born musician said on the floor Monday.

PHOTO CREDIT: Famed primate researcher and conservationist Jane Goodall, center, demonstrates a chimpanzee greeting call during her visit to the state Senate as Senators Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, left, and Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, right, look on at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, March 3, 2011.(AP Photo/ Rich Pedroncelli)

The fight between UC Regent David Crane, right, and state Sen. Leland Yee is getting weirder, with Yee planning a protest against Crane in San Francisco and Crane saying Yee is mischaracterizing his position on public employee unions.

Yee, a frequent critic of UC management and darling of its labor unions, is planning a protest tomorrow at UCSF where, he claims, "hundreds of community members and public employees (will) rally against Regent Crane's recent attack on working families."

Yee, who is running for mayor in San Francisco, is referring to an opinion piece Crane wrote Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle that questioned whether public employees should be unionized. Yee fired back earlier this week with a news release criticizing Crane's perspective.

Now Yee says he plans to stop the Senate from confirming Crane to UC's governing board of regents. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Crane, one of his advisers and a vocal critic of public employee pension plans, to the regents during his final days in office. Crane has not yet been confirmed.

Crane responded to the announcement of Yee's protest by sending a statement to Capitol Alert saying the senator misunderstood his piece in the Chron. Crane believes UC workers should have collective bargaining rights, he wrote. What he objects to, Crane said, is unions for "public employees who have statutory civil service protections" -- which UC workers lack.

Read the full text of Crane's statement to Capitol Alert on the jump.

University of California Regent David Crane has joined the national debate over whether public employees should be unionized, drawing fire from Sen. Leland Yee, a longtime critic of UC management.

In an opinion piece published Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle, Crane argues that unions make more sense in the private sector, where "compensation and benefits are determined through negotiations conducted by unions representing employees and management representing shareholders."

"Neither side has influence over the other, and there is a healthy tension as each side works to increase its share of the pie," wrote the former Arnold Schwarzenegger adviser, who has been a vocal advocate for changing the state's public employee pension system.

"But in the public sector," Crane wrote in the Chronicle, "no such healthy tension exists because unions can use campaign contributions to gain control of 'management,' which in California's state government means the 120 legislators and the governor who together determine employee compensation and benefits."

Not surprisingly, Yee -- who is adored by UC's labor unions -- fired back with a news release blasting Crane's perspective. Yee, who is running for mayor of San Francisco, said Crane had launched a "direct attack on working families."

"It is time for Regent Crane to put away his Wisconsin playbook and come down from his ivory tower," the San Francisco Democrat said in the statement.

"While the Regents have approved million dollar contracts for their top administrators," he added, "they allow many UC workers and their families to live in poverty. ... Now, Regent Crane wants to take away their only avenue to earning a livable wage and a respectable retirement -- their collective bargaining rights."

The California Optometric Association has launched a new television spot featuring Republican Sen. Tom Berryhill lauding the centennial of late President Ronald Reagan's birth.

"We wanted to do something positive, something that reflects the optimism and the great possibilities that exist for every Californian. Regardless of political party, Ronald Reagan represents Californians communicating our highest ideals," said Marketplace Communication's Rachel Pitts, who produced the ad.

The 30-second spot says glasses helped the former president and 33rd California governor, who would have turned 100 Feb. 6, see the "clarity and depth of his surroundings." "A pair of glasses changed his world, and he changed ours," Berryhill, of Modesto, says in the ad.

Berryhill said signing on for the ad when he was approached several weeks ago was an "easy" decision.

"We're trying to educate kids that being able to see opens up opportunities and the fact that Ronald Reagan wore glasses and the fact that it changed his life when he was able to see things more clearly," he said.

Berryhill, a former assemblyman elected to the state Senate last November, is facing pressure from talk radio and other voices in his party's conservative wing for his refusal to join the Taxpayers Caucus, a new group vowing not to vote to put Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed tax extensions on the ballot.

The spot will air on Sacramento and Central Valley broadcast channels.

Editor's note: This post was updated at 4 p.m. with quotes from Berryhill.

Six Democrats and four Republicans were named today to the two-house budget conference committee.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg appointed five senators to represent his house on the committee:
• Mark Leno, a San Francisco Democrat who chairs the Senate Budget Committee
• Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach
• Gloria Negrete McLeod, D- Chino
• Bill Emmerson, R-Hemet
• Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez today named five members to represent the Assembly:
• Bob Blumenfield, a Woodland Hills Democrat who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee
• Felipe Fuentes, D-Sylmar
• Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley
• Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber
• Diane Harkey, R-Dana Point

The five Assembly members will join their Senate colleagues in attempting to iron out policy differences regarding the budget proposed by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.

Freshman Sen. Anthony Cannella had no shortage of knowledge about the topic of his first remarks on the Senate floor.

"Engineers have contributed so much to our society," Cannella, a licensed civil engineer, said in support of a Senate Resolution honoring National Engineers Week. "You can thank engineers for the automobile, the airplane, for radio and television, computers, the highway system, and, contrary to what other people have said, the Internet was actually created by engineers."

The subject was about as straightforward and uncontroversial as it gets. But the Ceres Republican's colleagues didn't let him escape his first time speaking on the floor without fielding at least a few questions.

"I actually had a question for the co-author... You said something about engineers actually having created the Internet, and I always thought our esteemed former Vice President Al Gore created the Internet. Was he an engineer?" Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton queried, referencing an oft-quoted (and mocked) 1999 interview of Gore.

"We in the Legislative branch, we have a lot of ideas and a lot of them are big and we turn them over to the actual engineers to actually create the ideas, to turn them into something real," Cannella answered with a smile.

But Dutton wasn't done with the friendly banter.

"I understand that George Washington was actually an engineer. ... Do you plan to use this as a way to aspire to higher office, a higher calling?" he asked.

Cannella was ready with a response that gave his caucus leader and colleagues a chuckle:

"Is there anything higher than the state Senate?" he cracked.

The resolution, and Cannella's first performance on the floor, both won approval of the Senate.

All 40 desks in the state Senate will now be occupied, with Democrat Ted Lieu, and Republican Sharon Runner sworn in this morning as the newest members of the upper house.

Lieu and Runner, both former members of the Assembly, won Tuesday's special elections to fill the 28th and 17th Senate Districts. The morning swearing-in ceremony on the Senate floor ended months of Senate vacancies created by election to other offices, appointments and deaths.

"For the first time in many, many months, we will have a full house, a full Senate," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said before administering the oath of office.

Runner, who fills the seat vacated by her husband George Runner's election to the Board of Equalization, said her recent term as an appointee on the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board reinforced her priority to foster job growth and economic recovery.

"We have too many unemployed Californians and this is unacceptable," Runner, of Lancaster, said, "I will work hard to do what I can to bring jobs back to California."

Lieu fills the seat vacated by the October death of Democratic Sen. Jenny Oropeza, whom he praised as a "courageous, passionate senator."

"I look forward to working with all of my colleagues here, with the governor and the people of California in crafting a budget that moves us forward," the Torrance Democrat said.

PHOTO CREDIT: State Senators Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, second from left, and Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, third from left, are sworn-in to office at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, Feb. 18, 2011. Also seen are Lieu's wife, Betty, right and son Brennan, 7.Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press.

Here's something you won't find on Roy Ashburn's biography posted on a state website: Before landing a lucrative board post last month, the former GOP state senator served briefly as an assistant to then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The monthlong gig kept Ashburn from ever skipping a paycheck last year, serving as a bridge between the day he left the Legislature and his appointment to a $128,109-a-year job on the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.

Payroll records show that Ashburn served Schwarzenegger briefly as an "assistant to the governor" in the Office of Planning and Research at an annual salary of $99,996, an increase of $4,705 over his senatorial salary. He earned $8,333 for one month of work.

When Schwarzenegger later named Ashburn to a six-figure post on the appeals board - an action taken on the governor's last day in office - critics questioned whether the move was reward for Ashburn bucking much of the Senate GOP caucus in supporting about $12 billion in temporary tax increases in 2009.

Ashburn said he worked daily during his stint at the Office of Planning and Research, providing recommendations on how best to coordinate volunteer efforts of charitable organizations and faith-based groups in serving the homeless or unemployed in the Central Valley and elsewhere.

California state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, said today that he received a threatening and racist fax related to his condemnation of recent comments by talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Yee, who is Chinese-American, had publicly objected, he said, to Limbaugh "mocking the Chinese language and culture during his radio program" this month.

Limbaugh had imitated Chinese, and made other remarks related to the Chinese president's recent visit with President Barack Obama.

The fax that Yee received today at both his Capitol and San Francisco offices is laced with profanities targeting black and Asian people. It includes a drawing of a pickup truck with an American flag dragging a noose with the caricature of a black man inside it.

The fax defended Limbaugh and threatened Yee. The senator reported the fax to the Senate's sergeant-at-arms for investigation.

This isn't the first time Yee has received faxed threats, said Adam Keigwin, Yee's chief of staff. He said that Yee also received threats in April 2010 after he publicly pressed for disclosure of how much former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was paid to speak at a State University of California campus.

On the Monday after the shooting of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Keigwin said, he took a call from the Arizona Pima County Sheriff's office inquiring about the April 2010 threats.

Keigwin said a detective in that office said that the language in the threat Yee had received was similar to faxed threats that officials in Arizona were investigating following the Giffords shooting.

Keigwin said the detective didn't tell him who had received the threats.

In a statement today, Yee said: "It is quite disturbing that such racist sentiment still exists in our country. As I have said in the past, it is unfortunate acts like these that demonstrate why we must continue to be vigilant against hate and intolerance. Such vitriol has no place within our political discourse or anywhere in our society."

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg announced today the full proposed lineups for policy committees.

The assignments, posted in full after the jump, are expected to be confirmed by the Senate Rules Committee tomorrow.

The state Senate convened this morning to honor the life of Democratic Sen. Jenny Oropeza, who died in October at age 53 after battling illness.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg called the Long Beach Democrat "a crusader for the rights of women and girls and a champion for all of us as consumers."

"Frankly, I walk into these chambers and I still expect Jenny Oropeza to lift her mic right over there and to give an impassioned argument about one of her many causes," he said. "For when I think of Jenny, and when we all think of Jenny, we think of her first and foremost as a fighter. She fought for the health of children, for the health of our wives and our mothers, our sisters and daughters, for all Californians."

Colleagues praised Oropeza's focus on cancer prevention and limiting exposure to cancer-causing agents, including cigarette smoke, a passion fueled by her own battle with cancer.

"She used her fight against cancer not as an excuse to work less but as an inspiration to work harder," Steinberg said.

Better late than never?

The Senate and Assembly passed identical resolutions today setting a date to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s leadership of a 1960s civil rights movement that "helped change public policy from segregation to integration."

The measures were passed as part of various other King-related events, including an appearance by Gov. Jerry Brown at a breakfast hosted by the California Legislative Black Caucus.

Legislative aides said the Senate and Assembly resolutions were ceremonial, noting that King already is the focus of a national holiday.

Here's the rub: Both resolutions designate the same date for honoring King and for performing community service in his memory -- Jan. 17, 2011.

Three days ago.

PHOTO CREDIT: Members of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Wake County grab hold of their signs before participating in the 31st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial March in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, Monday, January 17, 2011. (Ted Richardson/ Raleigh News & Observer/ MCT)

Assemblyman Gil Cedillo's challenge of a 2009 pay cut totaling millions in pay and benefits for legislators and other California elected officials was rejected today by a state agency.

The Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board sustained a staff recommendation in turning thumbs down. The action was taken without comment as part of the consent agenda.

Cedillo said that he expected his claim to be rejected by the state and that he plans to pursue his fight by suing.

The Los Angeles Democrat contends that the California Citizens Compensation Commission exceeded its authority by reducing pay and benefits by 18 percent, a cut that went into effect in December 2009.

Specifically, Cedillo's claim argues that the panel has no control over per diem and car allowances; that cutting officials' pay mid-term is unconstitutional; and that it did not give adequate consideration to time spent on the job and to pay for similar positions in the public and private sectors.

Cedillo also contends that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used the possibility of a pay cut - the commission consists entirely of gubernatorial appointees - as leverage in an attempt to extract budget concessions from legislators. Schwarzenegger, through an aide, has denied Cedillo's accusation.

Cedillo, who is seeking back pay for elected officials affected by the 2009 pay cut, said last week that his challenge is a matter of principle because state commissions must abide by the law. He said his challenge would benefit colleagues but that he is not acting at their behest or in conjunction with them.

Asked who will pay the attorneys fees in a court fight, Cedillo said simply, "We'll figure that out."

Besides California's 120 legislators, Cedillo's claim would affect the state's constitutional officers - ranging from governor to schools superintendent to members of the state Board of Equalization.

The 2009 pay cut sliced legislative salaries from $116,208 to $95,291, and it chopped per diem from $173 to $142 per day. The latter is a stipend given to lawmakers while the Legislature is in session to defray living expenses while they are away from home in Sacramento.

Other state elected officials also saw their pay reduced by 18 percent -- for example, gubernatorial pay fell from $212,179 to $173,987, and Board of Equalization salaries dropped from $159,134 to $130,490.

* Updated at 1 p.m. with reaction from Assemblyman Gil Cedillo.

The Senate on Thursday will celebrate the life of the late Sen. Jenny Oropeza, a Long Beach Democrat who championed cancer-prevention legislation and died last October at age 53 after a long illness.

Oropeza will be eulogized by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat. The tribute will start around 10 a.m. Several of the late senator's colleagues are also scheduled to speak about her life and work.

Oropeza's mother, Sharon, is expected to attend, along with a brother and sister. The first Latina member of the Long Beach City Council, Oropeza also served in the Assembly and on transportation and education boards in the Los Angeles area.

She fought cancer and defeated it, but last year suffered from a blood clot that weakened her health.

In 2005, the League of California Cities' Latino Caucus named her legislator of the year. The Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters in 2006 recognized her legislative work to curb air pollution and increase cancer prevention.

PHOTO CREDIT: Assembly Member Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, smiles on the floor of the Assembly before the vote on an education and levee deal, Wednesday March 15, 2006. Sacramento Bee file photo / Brian Baer

Senate Democrats holding a closed-door policy conference today and Wednesday are reviewing options for slashing the state budget and listening to the concerns and ideas of Safeway's CEO and other business interests.

"The issue of jobs and the economy in the Capitol bubble sometimes doesn't lead to the most productive solutions," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, told the Bee.

He said the Senate Democratic Caucus is hearing "sobering" presentations about the state budget deficit that must be back-filled.

Senators will hear more Wednesday on "what policy makers can do to attract and retain high-wage industries in California," Steinberg said.

Among the speakers: Steve Burd, CEO of Safeway and a Republican; green energy supporter and SunPower CEO Thomas Werner; wealthy Democrat Tom Steyer, founder of Farallon Capital Management; Edward de la Rosa, an investment banker from Los Angeles; and a representative of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.

Senators are interested in hearing about green energy and how several bills they have pending could promote job growth in that area. They're also interested, Steinberg said, in hearing about the impact budget cuts could have on the state's economy.

"We're not taking vote cards here today," Steinberg said, commenting on whether the caucus is united in backing Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed $12.6 billion in cuts. However, he said, "there is a common commitment to making the cuts that are necessary."

Economists from the University of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses made presentations today. The senators are meeting at the UC Davis MIND Institute, part of the school's medical treatment and research complex in Sacramento.

PHOTO CREDIT: Safeway CEO Steve Burd smiles as he sits in a Safeway truck at a Safeway store in Dublin, Calif., Friday, Jan. 18, 2008. (AP Photo/ Paul Sakuma)

The California State Senate Democratic Caucus is holding a two-day retreat in Sacramento next week to dig into Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposals and discuss the economy and job creation, Sen. Mark Leno, chair of the Senate Budget Committee said today.

"We're bringing in some business leaders to talk about the economy," Leno, D-San Francisco, said.

The Tuesday-Wednesday retreat is an annual private event where policy is discussed, but debate over budget proposals and the economy are pressing needs that will dominate the meeting.

Leno said budget subcommittees will likely begin holding hearings to take public testimony and review details of Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget the week after next.

Days after saying Democrats should have to deal with the budget on their own, Republican Tom Berryhill is set to be stripped of his Senate Food and Agriculture Committee chairmanship.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has penned a letter asking Rules Committee members to approve handing off the Oakdale Republican's gavel to newly elected Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres.

"Each member of the California State Senate represents nearly one million people and we have a duty, regardless of party or philosophy, to actively engage in the serious work necessary to address the challenges confronting California," Steinberg wrote in the letter.

A Berryhill representative was not immediately available for comment.

Berryhill said he saw no reason for Republicans to propose an alternative to Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal, telling The Bee that the budget "is really not our problem."

"The Democrats own this, and we think that they should be giving us what the solutions are," he said.

In closing his letter, Steinberg wrote that Berryhill "is a man of integrity and substance, and I am confident he will so engage in the months ahead."

Berryhill, a former Assemblyman elected to the Senate in November, was named chair of the committee last week. Cannella, his proposed replacement, is one of two Republican members of the Senate who has not signed the Americans for Tax Reform's no-tax pledge.

The Rules Committee, which Steinberg chairs, is scheduled to meet next Wednesday. The letter is posted below.

Rules Letter Berryhill

Shedding an issue that plagued him during his recent campaign, new state Sen. Ted Gaines of Roseville has decided not to accept $142 per day in legislative living expenses.

Elected this month to the Senate after spending six years in the Assembly, the Republican has decided to forego the per diem given to legislators to defray rent, food and other costs incurred during the legislative session.

Gaines, who lives less than 25 miles from the Capitol, said his decision stemmed from the severity of the state's multibillion-dollar budget gap and the need for everyone involved to tighten their belt.

"I think at this time things are so bad financially that we need to do everything we can to try to balance our budget," Gaines said. "We all ought to be helping out and figuring out ways that we can find savings."

Per diem supplements a legislative salary of $95,291. No pension funds are provided. Gaines rejected his Assembly car allowance last year.

Seante President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg announced committee chair assignments for the new session today.

In addition to reassigning gavels, Steinberg changed the structure of several standing committees.

The Revenue & Taxation and Local Government committees were merged, forming the Senate Committee on Governance and Finance. The new committee will be chaired by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis.

The Banking, Finance and Insurance Committee was divided into two committees, with Sen. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, chairing Banking and Finance and Sen. Ron Calderon,D-Montebello, at the helm of the Insurance Committee.

The assignments, posted after the jump, are set to be confirmed at a Rules Committee hearing on Jan. 12. Full committee assignments are expected within a week.

The state Senate will not confirm five people former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed to the State Board of Education, leaving room for Gov. Jerry Brown to appoint seven new people to the board today.

The result is a shake-up on the board that sets policy for the state's public schools, with the loss of members who supported reforms -- such as the "parent trigger" law that allows parents to overhaul low-performing schools -- and the addition of a member from the California Teachers Association, which opposes such changes.

The Senate never confirmed Ted Mitchell, David Lopez , Alan Arkatov , Benjamin Austin and James Fang. The Senate wanted to allow Brown to form his own education team, said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

"From our perspective we have a new governor and it's up to the governor to establish his own administration," Barankin said. "That includes selecting the leaders of key policy areas, and that certainly includes education."

Two other board of education members -- Ruth Bloom and Johnathan Williams -- have terms that expire next week.

Brown's appointments include two people who served on the board of education during his first stint as governor as well as a lobbyist for the California Teachers Association.

The appointments, all Democrats, include:

• Louis "Bill" Honig of Marin (shown above), the president of the Consortium on Reading Excellence. He was the Superintendent of Public Instruction until he was forced to resign in 1993 after being convicted of felony conflict-of-interest charges. Honig was found guilty of authorizing $337,509 in state funds to pay local schools to hire his wife's nonprofit foundation, Quality Education Project, to set up parent involvement programs. The charges were later reduced to misdemeanors. Honig previously served on the state Board of Education under Gov. Brown from 1975 to 1983.
• Michael Kirst of Palo Alto, a Professor Emeritus at Stanford University and member of the the state Board of Education under Gov. Brown from 1975 to 1982.
• Aida Molina of Bakersfield, the executive director on academic improvement and accountability for the Bakersfield City School District and a former commissioner with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Molina has been a principal in Bakersfield and the Sacramento Unified School District and an assistant principal with the Galt Joint Union Elementary School District.
• Carl Anthony Cohn of Palm Springs, a professor and the co-director of the Urban Leadership Program at Claremont Graduate University. Cohn previously served as the superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District and the Long Beach Unified School District.
• James Ramos of San Bernardino, Chairman for the San Manuel Band of Indians and a member of the San Bernardino Community College Board of Trustees.
• Patricia Ann Rucker of Elk Grove, the legislative advocate for the California Teachers Association. Previously, she was a teacher in the Del Paso Heights School District.
• Trish Boyd Williams of San Jose, the executive director of EdSource. Previously, Williams worked for the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Appointments to the state Board of Education require Senate confirmation and are compensated $100 per diem.

PHOTO: Bill Honig in 1996. Rich Pedroncelli/The Associated Press

Editor's note: This post has been changed from earlier versions to reflect that the Senate failed to confirm five board members. Updated at 4:53 p.m., Jan. 5, 2011.

Bee colleague Susan Ferriss looks at how Democratic Sen. Fran Pavley's "impact on American environmentalism shows how a state legislator can leverage California's power to force national change" in today's Bee:

This year, Pavley's bill limiting levels of the hazardous metal cadmium in children's jewelry became state law. California's sheer market size is likely to force manufacturers to change all kids' jewelry, which is often imported, for the national market.

Pavley won again in November when California voters rejected a proposal to block the state's ambitious greenhouse gas-capping law, which Pavley had championed in 2006.

In April, President Barack Obama took Pavley's 2002 auto tailpipe law - the first of its kind aimed at forcing manufacturers to cut greenhouse gases - and elevated it to the U.S. national standard.

"Large state, very complex issues, pick two or three areas to become an expert on. Spend your time there and make a difference," Pavley said in a recent interview, recalling advice she got when she arrived in Sacramento as an assemblywoman in 2000.

Read the full piece on The Agoura Hills Democrat, including her critics' takes on the policies she pushes, here.

Former state Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny has a new job -- a six-figure post on the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.

The San Diego Democrat, who was termed-out this year, was appointed to the board during a closed-door executive session of the Senate Rules Committee yesterday. Her four-year term on the board, which pays a salary of $128,109, begins Jan. 2, according to a spokesman for Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

The vote by the Rules Committee, which is chaired by Steinberg, was not released.

The seven-member board, appointed by the governor, the speaker of the Assembly and the Rules Committee, hears appeals of unemployment and disability benefit claim decisions made by the Employment Development Department. All five current members of the board are former state legislators.

Ducheny will replace former state legislator Liz Figueroa, whose term ends Jan. 1. The terms of two additional appointees also expire Jan. 1.

The appointment was first reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Post updated at 11:20 with information about whom Ducheny will replace.

PHOTO CREDIT: Senator Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego, at a May 2009 hearing at the Capitol. Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee.

Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, is expected to take the gavel as chairman of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg indicated today.

The announcement came as the Senate Rules committee convened to approve committee membership for the extraordinary session on the budget called today by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Steinberg said during the hearing that Leno's chairmanship is expected to continue during the regular session, though approval of the regular session committee membership will require another vote by the Rules Committee.

Leno was previously a member of the budget committee, as well as chair of the Budget Subcommittee on Health and Human Services. The San Francisco Democrat, who chaired the Appropriations Committee during his time in the state Assembly, also served on the Budget Conference Committee this year. He fills the top committee post vacated by former Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny, D-San Diego, who left the Legislature due to term limits.

Rules members approved designating Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, as vice-chair of the budget committee for the special session. Other members approved to the committee are Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-Santa Clara, Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton, of Rancho Cucamonga, Sen. Bill Emmerson, R-Hemet, Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, Sen. Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, Sen. Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach, Sen. Carol Liu, D-La Canada-Flintridge, Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, Sen. Gloria Negrete-McLeod, D-Chino, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, Sen. Michael Rubio, D-East Bakersfield, Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto and Sen. Rod Wright, D-Inglewood.

Rules also approved appointing Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, as chairman of the Senate Health Committee and Sen. Curren Price, D-Inglewood, as chair of the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee.

Steinberg said the rest of the committee assignments will likely be announced mid-December and voted on early next year.

PHOTO CREDIT: California State Senator Mark Leno speaks on the floor during the last day of the legislative session Tuesday August 31, 2010. Andy Alfaro, Sacramento Bee.

Despite leading by more than 11,000 votes in the initial results, former state Senate leader Don Perata has lost the Oakland mayoral race.

Perata trailed Oakland City Council member Jean Quan by roughly 2,000 votes once second- and third-choice votes were counted in the city's new ranked-choice voting system. He conceded today.

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

Perata, 65, led Quan, 61, by 11,018 first-place votes before the ballots were processed through the ranked-choice voting computer program. Step by step the program eliminated eight other candidates and distributed their second- and third-choice votes to the candidates still in the race until someone attained a 50 percent plus one majority.

When third-place finisher Rebecca Kaplan fell out, 6,390 of her votes went to Perata and 18,882 votes were allocated to Quan, pushing over the 50 percent threshold to victory. The final tally was 50.98 percent or 53,778 votes for Quan, and 49.02 percent or 51,720 votes for Perata.

Perata continued to imply that there was confusion among the voters over ranked-choice voting, and admitted he was disappointed he didn't win.

"Normally, if you finish first, you win," Perata said. "But you play by the rules."

Read the full story here.

From Bee reporters Bill Lindelof and Ed Fletcher:

As a stricken Carnival Splendor cruise ship reached the San Diego dock the word from at least one Sacramento resident is it was an ordeal of climbing stairs and long food lines.

"It is no luxury and it is no fun," said an e-mail from Capitol staffer and former Bee reporter Fahizah Alim. ...

Alim e-mailed as the boat that passengers were awaken by acrid smoke the first morning of the fun cruise:

"Since we have no electricity to fire the elevators, I along with the other 3,000, including the lame, the feeble and children, spend our dimly lit days climbing the stairs back and forth to 9th floor to stand hours in line for cold sandwiches, lettuce and fruit."

Alim, who works for Democratic Sen. Curren Price, of Inglewood, and Price aide Leticia Lewis were both vacationing on the Christian-themed cruise. Click here to read the full story.

Democratic Sen. Leland Yee today took a major step toward running for mayor of San Francisco.

Yee, who represents the 8th Senate District, held a news conference at the San Francisco Department of Elections to take out papers to form an exploratory committee for the November 2011 mayoral race.

The San Francisco Democrat has served in the state Legislature since 2002, where he has sought to increase government transparency laws and protect social services spending. His staunch opposition to education and welfare cuts has sometimes put him at odds with his caucus, including last month when he refused to vote for the budget package over spending reductions. He later lost his post in Senate leadership. He previously served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

"We need experienced leadership that can bring us together as one community," Yee said in a statement posted on his campaign website. "I want to see the Mayor work with, and not against the Board of Supervisors. The next mayor should partner with the school board, parents and teachers to improve our public schools. It is time we get back to basics, fix Muni, create jobs and continue to lead on important issues like the environment and human rights."

Yee, who was re-elected to a second term in the Senate last week, is planning to run in the November 2011 city election. The post will be vacated when current Mayor Gavin Newsom is sworn in as lieutenant governor in January. The Board of Supervisors can appoint an interim mayor to fill the post.

PHOTO CREDIT: State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, right, discusses the the documents related to a speaking contract for former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, found in the trash bins at California State University, Stanislaus, during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, April 13, 2010. Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press.

By Ed Fletcher, Bee Staff Writer

At least two Capitol staffers are confirmed to be among the 4,500 passengers and crew stranded off the coast of Mexico on a Carnival cruise ship.

Fahizah Alim and Leticia Lewis of Sen. Curren Price's office are among those on board, said Tiffani Alvidrez, a consultant for the Inglewood Democrat.

Alim has been a Capitol staffer for several years after leaving the Sacramento Bee. Lewis was one of the primary organizers of the Christian-themed cruise.

The Carnival Splendor was 200 miles south of San Diego when an engine room fire cut its power early Monday, according to a statement from Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines.

The ship is now being slowly towed to a Mexican port and will not arrive until Wednesday, the Coast Guard said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Read the full AP story here.

GOP state Sen. Roy Ashburn has had a rocky relationship with some of his Senate Republican colleagues in recent years.

Now Ashburn has recorded a 30-second robocall attacking Republican Sen. George Runner, who is favored to win a Board of Equalization seat in the 2nd District that stretches from the Oregon border through Sacramento and down to parts of Los Angeles County. Runner faces Democrat Chris Parker, Libertarian Willard D. Michlin and Peace and Freedom entrant Toby Mitchell-Sawyer.

"Hi, this is Republican state Senator Roy Ashburn," he states. "I'm calling to urge you to vote for Chris Parker for Board of Equalization. The last thing we need is George Runner on California's tax board."

Democratic Sen. Gloria Romero has locked in a post-election job as the head of Democrats for Education Reform California.

Romero will launch the California chapter of the advocacy group and political action committee, which, like Romero, is known for supporting charter schools.

Democrats for Education Reform, formed in 2007, currently has chapters in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Colorado

"Gloria recognizes the destructiveness of California's achievement gap, and she's committed to closing it for the benefit of all of the state's young people. There's simply no better person to steer our Golden State expansion," Executive Director Joe Williams said in a statement.

The Senate Education Committee chairwoman, who is termed-out of her Los Angeles Senate seat, lost a primary bid for state superintendent of public instruction.

PHOTO CREDIT: Gloria Romero, Associated Press file photo.

It might not seem unusual for the state Democratic Party to shower a district with mail pieces promoting an incumbent member one week before Election Day.

But one member for whom they are now spending, Democratic Sen. Jenny Oropeza, died unexpectedly last week at age 53.

State law prohibits replacing a candidate on the ballot or calling a special election to fill a vacant office this close to a scheduled election. So the name of the late Long Beach senator remains on the ballot against Republican John Stammreich and Libertarian David Ruskin.

If Oropeza wins in the safe Democratic district, a special election for the seat will be called in early December when members are sworn in. The state Democratic Party has spent $46,135 to explain that possible outcome to voters in the 28th Senate District.

"Given the unusual and tragic circumstances we thought it was our obligation to educate the voters in Senate District 28 about their options and that if voters want a real and thoughtful choice about who is going to represent them for the next four years, they need to vote for Senator Oropeza on Election Day," Senate Democratic caucus campaign consultant Jason Kinney said.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen acknowledged the unusual situation in a roundtable with reporters Wednesday, saying she was working with local election officials to ensure voters are aware of the procedure and their voting rights.

It's not the first time Californians have been asked to cast a ballot for a state legislative candidate who passed away prior to Election Day. Democratic Assemblyman Curtis Tucker, Sr, of Inglewood, posthumously won re-election to his seat in November 1988. His son, Curtis Tucker, Jr., was elected to replace him in a special election.

When Sen. Rod Wright was indicted on charges of perjury and voter fraud last month, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg came to his defense.

"Rod Wright has my full support and is presumed innocent," Steinberg said at the time. "He will remain in his position in the Senate and I intend to personally contribute to his Legal Defense Fund."

Steinberg made good on that pledge, contributing $10,000 from his re-election committee to Wright's legal fund, according to reports filed this week.

Wright, a Democrat, is accused of fraudulently claiming he lives in an Inglewood rental complex in the 25th Senate District he represents. Prosecutors from the Los Angeles County district attorney's office allege Wright actually lives in a home in Baldwin Hills, part of the 26th Senate District. He is also accused of lying about his residence during a 2003 city council run, according to grand jury testimony transcripts unsealed this week.

Wright, who has pleaded not guilty, is next scheduled to appear in court Nov. 10. The "Taxpayers for Rod Wright Legal Defense Fund" committee has raised $68,000 to help pay for his legal bills, according to campaign disclosures reported on the secretary of state website.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sen. Rod Wright, D-Inglewood speaking on the Senate floor on Thursday, August 20, 2009. Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee.

The name of Sen. Jenny Oropeza, who died last night, will remain on the Nov. 2 ballot as a candidate for re-election to the 28th Senate District, election officials said this morning

The 53-year-old Long Beach Democrat died 12 days before the election. Her name is already on the ballot -- some of which have already been cast by absentee voters -- and state law prevents calling a special election to fill a vacant office within 68 days of an election.

Oropeza was expected to win re-election in the district, where Democrats have a 20-plus point registration advantage. The other candidates running for the seat are Republican John Stammreich, an aerospace contracts manager, and Libertarian David Ruskin, a physician.

If Oropeza wins, a special election will be called after members are sworn in for the new term in early December, according to the secretary of state's office.

"If Sen. Oropeza receives a majority of the votes cast on Nov. 2, then she will be considered elected and then the office will be vacant at the beginning of the term at which she was elected," said Nicole Winger, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

The special primary would not occur until after the new year. Because the election will be called in December, it is unclear whether the race would be the state's first primary under the new voter-approved "top two" system, which takes effect Jan. 1.

In the wake of a pension deal Democratic leaders struck with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's prison guards' union has dropped $215,000 to oppose Assemblywoman Anna Caballero's quest for the state Senate.

Caballero, D-Salinas, is facing Ceres Mayor Anthony Cannella, a Republican, for the 12th Senate District, probably the most contested seat in a Legislature dominated by uncompetitive seats. The race is the top concern for both Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and his GOP counterpart, Senate Republican leader Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga. If Caballero wins, Democrats would likely have 26 seats in the upper house, one short of the two-thirds majority now needed to pass a budget or raise taxes.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association has backed Democrat Jerry Brown for governor, but is still stinging from the end-of-session deal between Democratic legislators and Schwarzenegger that essentially authorized the governor to continue furloughs for members of the guards' union until they agree to a new labor contract. At the CCPOA's urging, Dutton and most Republicans opposed the deal, forcing a middle-of-the-night maneuver to pass it with a majority vote. Caballero voted against the deal.

The CCPOA's independent expenditure for a "media buy" to oppose Caballero was reported today. The race has attracted nearly $1.75 million in independent expenditures, including nearly $1 million from business-backed groups on behalf of Cannella and about $400,000 from organized labor for Caballero.

Sen. Leland Yee has lost his leadership post as assistant president pro tempore -- the No. 2 leadership spot in the Senate Democratic Caucus.

The San Francisco Democrat repeatedly refused to put up votes to help pass the budget package during this month's marathon session, citing concerns that the cuts were too deep.

The San Francisco Chronicle's Marisa Lagos reports:

In a letter to (Senate President Pro Tem Darrell) Steinberg and the entire rest of the Senate, Yee notes he was the first Asian American to become assistant pro tem, but said he is "more than willing to relinquish this title if that is the price for voting my conscience on the state budget and standing up against severe cuts to education, social services and health care."

He goes on: "I will comply with your request to reorder letterhead and other office materials to no longer include the title."

Read the full letter here

Yee's leadership post loss wasn't the only shake-up seemingly sparked by the all-night budget session. Assemblywoman Connie Conway, R-Tulare, has been ousted as Assembly Republican Caucus chairwoman.

Sen Bob Dutton takes the reins as Senate Republican leader today.

The caucus picked the the Rancho Cucamonga Republican to replace outgoing GOP leader Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta, earlier this year. But the transition, originally set for Sept. 1, was delayed because of budget negotiations.

Hollingsworth, who is termed out this year, said in a statement that the Republican "caucus will be in good hands under the sure leadership of Senator Dutton." Hollingsworth's office and the caucus issued a press release this morning announcing that the official transition has occurred.

Two California state senators announced today they will hold a joint committee hearing to probe what caused the San Bruno natural gas explosion and how such a disaster can be prevented in the future.

Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee and Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, chair of the Senate Energy, Utilities & Communications Committee, said in a press release that they will set dates for joint hearings of their committees after the the urgent needs of the victims of Thursday's explosion are met.

"My heartfelt condolences go out to the people of San Bruno who have lost friends, neighbors and loved ones in this unthinkable tragedy," Leno said in the senators' joint statement. He said members of the Senate have been in contact with the National Transportation Safety Board, which is the lead federal agency responsible for investigating the explosion.

Padilla said in the statement: "This horrible accident is a wake-up call that California needs to do more to protect the public and meet the highest safety standards. I look forward to an in-depth review into what caused this tragedy and what lawmakers and regulators can do to prevent similar tragedies in the future."

Senate Republican leader Dennis Hollingsworth was adamant earlier this month about leaving his post next Wednesday no matter what, but he and his successor now say the date depends on the state of budget negotiations.

Before a meeting Thursday of legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hollingsworth said he'd delay the leadership handoff if a budget deal is imminent. But if Democrats and Republicans remain far apart, Hollingsworth said he would hand over the reins to Senate Republican Leader-elect Bob Dutton.

"If the Democrats drop their demands for unsustainable levels of spending and higher taxes, then it'll mean we're probably getting pretty close and there's no reason why we couldn't postpone the transition and finish it off," Hollingsworth said. "But if they are not going to drop those demands for higher spending and higher taxes, it means we're essentially at square one and there wouldn't be any harm in Sen. Dutton taking over because there wouldn't be very involved negotiations happening yet."

Dutton said he'd prefer not to have the switch occur in the middle of negotiations.

After a bruising and expensive Aug. 17 special election, Sam Blakeslee took the oath today to become the California state Senate's latest addition.

Blakeslee, a Republican from San Luis Obispo, was sworn in by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, the Sacramento Democrat who had mustered forces to try to defeat Blakeslee and grab the seat from the GOP.

The two embraced on the Senate Floor after Blakeslee, who resigned from the Assembly, took his oath at 11 a.m. A number of senators from both parties were on hand to congratulate Blakeslee.

"Sam's a good guy," Steinberg told the Bee. The GOP senator representing the 15th district replaces Abel Maldonado, a GOP senator from the Central Coast district who was named lieutenant governor this year.

Blakeslee said he believes "compromise is possible" as legislators face a $19 billion deficit and getting an already overdue budget approved. Blakeslee billed himself as a moderate in his campaign, and could he provide key votes during the budget battle.

Steinberg and Democrats have a package of ideas on the table for tax changes they say could provide revenue but offer Californians federal tax breaks to make up for losses.

Republican leaders haven't responded warmly to package. Blakeslee told the Bee, "I wouldn't characterize it (the entire package) as a non-starter at all."

He said tax reform is a good idea - but increasing the tax burden is not.

Photo: Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, gets sworn in as the newest senator. His daughter Landis, 7, and wife Kara participate in the event. Randy Pench/ The Sacramento Bee

Sen. Roy Ashburn has been elevated to vice chair of the state Senate Appropriations Committee, Senate Republican leader Dennis Hollingsworth's office announced last night.

The Bakersfield Republican replaces late Sen. Dave Cox as the minority party's top member on the fiscal committee.

"With California facing an enormous budget deficit, it is absolutely vital to hold the line on state spending," Hollingsworth said in a statement. "Roy Ashburn is a thoughtful and critical legislator who is committed to making state government run more efficiently and be more responsive to taxpayers. I know that in this new capacity as Appropriations' Vice-Chair, he will carefully assess the impact that each bill taken up by the committee is likely to have on the state's fiscal condition."

The appointment comes as a key deadline for the committee approaches. Appropriations committees in both houses will take up a long calendar of bills, including the suspense file, in advance of Friday's deadline for moving legislation to the floor.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, speaks during a Capital Public Radio forum on "Insight." Anne Chadwick Williams/ Sacramento Bee file photo, May 6, 2009.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums announced today that he will not seek re-election, saying it is "time to pass the baton to the next generation of leadership."

Dellums, who served more than 25 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, was elected to his first four-year term as mayor in 2006.

The 74-year-old Democrat said in a statement he was proud that he had increased diversity on the city's boards and commissions and engaged more residents in the political process.

"(As) I reach the end of this term, I am proud to see an Oakland that is more engaged, more enlightened and more empowered to continue the important work that lies ahead," he said in the statement.

Former Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata is among the candidates running for the post.

PHOTO CREDIT: Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums speaks during an event at the State Capitol, Friday Dec. 12, 2008. Brian Baer, Sacramento Bee.

A public memorial service for state Sen. Dave Cox is planned next month near the Capitol where the Fair Oaks Republican served as a legislator for a dozen years.

The celebration for Cox, who died last week after a 13-year battle with prostate cancer, is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 5, in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, 1017 11th St.

Cox was a stickler for being on time for appointments, often reminding his staff about the importance of respecting people's time. In that spirit, the press release announcing Cox's memorial service said it will begin "promptly at 10 a.m."

Cox is survived by his wife, Maggie, of Fair Oaks; daughters, Cathleen Cox of Sacramento, Margo Gunderson of Ladera Ranch, and Sarah Aquino of Folsom; and six grandchildren.

Cox represented the 1st Senate District, which stretches from Sacramento County suburbs into all or parts of Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Lassen, Placer, Plumas, Modoc, Mono, Nevada and Sierra counties.

In lieu of flowers, the Cox family asks that donations be made to the Dave and Maggie Cox Scholarship Fund with the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, 740 University Ave., Suite 110, Sacramento, CA 95825.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tony Beard Jr., the state Senate's chief sergeant at arms, places a desk shroud on the desk of Senator Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks, on July 13 after Cox died. Sacramento Bee/ Hector Amezcua

After two days of recounting, former Assemblyman Juan Vargas is maintaining his paper-thin lead over Assemblywoman Mary Salas for the Democratic nomination in the 40th Senate District, which covers the state's southernmost region in San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties.

Vargas had a 22-vote lead over Salas in the final electronic tally of the June 8 election. She sought a recount in San Diego and Riverside county portions of the district. The first two days of precinct-by-precinct manual recounting produced a handful of vote changes but no net difference.

Although the duel is between two Democrats, it pitted Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who backs Salas, and his union allies against a coalition of business groups that support Vargas as a more moderate, business-friendly Democrat. The district has an overwhelming Democratic voter registration so the eventual nominee is certain to succeed Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny, the Senate's top budget negotiator, who is being forced out of the Legislature by term limits.

Both counties are posting daily updates. San Diego's, covering just the second day of recounting, can be found here. Riverside's, a running total, is available here.

The same day that thrice-monthly furloughs officially ended for other state workers this week, the Senate decided to lift its requirement that aides with salaries above $50,000 take one unpaid day off per month.

Senate Secretary Greg Schmidt characterized Thursday's move as an "administrative decision that I made" and said his Senate bosses "thought it made sense because the governor stopped doing furloughs."

"What's the point -- to be the only agency in the state to have furloughs?" Schmidt said of his rationale for dropping the program. "It didn't make any sense to do it anymore."

Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, said the Senate will cut its spending in other ways to help ease the state's projected $19.1 billion budget deficit.

No specific program has been announced for the new fiscal year, but last year the Senate canceled various contracts, froze equipment purchases and reduced printing costs, among other things.

Sen. Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks, was back in the state Senate on Monday after an absence due to his ongoing battle with prostate cancer.

Colleagues on both sides of the aisle gave Cox a standing ovation and flowers.

San Diego Democratic Sen. Christine Kehoe said, "We're all so delighted to have Sen. Cox back with us. So Dave, we want you to have these flowers from all of us. Best wishes."

Anyone observing the state Senate of late may have noticed Sen. Dave Cox, the Fair Oaks Republican, is wearing a patch over his right eye.

Cox says the patch was prescribed to treat an eye condition, temporarily, and he likes to think he looks a bit like a certain Israeli general who once was a household name.

"I'm imitating Moshe Dayan. It adds to my image," Cox said. "Are you old enough to remember who Moshe Dayan was?"

Dayan, for those who don't remember, was the tough Israeli defense minister whose name dominated headlines during the Six Day War back in 1967 between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

As foreign minister, Dayan also helped negotiate the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.

Any lessons for the legislators in this?

PHOTO CREDIT: Sen. Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks, hugs Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, on Feb. 11 at the Capitol in Sacramento. Hector Amezcua/Sacramento Bee

Democratic Sen. Mark Leno of San Francisco introduced a bill Monday he says should put to rest fears from religious groups that say they'll be forced to perform same-sex marriages one day in California.

Leno's SB 906 is called the Civil Marriage Religious Freedom Act. It would amend California's family code to "reaffirm" the separation of church and state and declare that no no clergy person is required to solemnize a civil marriage that is contrary to his or her faith.

The proposal also assures churches they won't lose tax-exempt status if they refuse to perform marriages contrary to beliefs.

Leno introduced the bill just as a federal trial over Proposition 8 trial began entering its final stages in San Francisco. On Wednesday, the last of witnesses appeared in court. Closing arguments might come in March. Gay couples are challenging the constitutionality of California's gay marriage ban established by Proposition 8.

Here's Leno answering questions about the bill:

Republican Sen. Roy Ashburn had dropped brewing plans to run for the Board of Equalization or Democrat Jim Costa's 20th Congressional District seat.

While Republican Scott Brown's recent Senate victory in Massachusetts has shaken many Democratic candidates, the Bakersfield Republican also cited Brown's surprise win as a reason for not running.

Here's what Ashburn, who is termed out this year, told the Bakersfield Californian:

"I think people are looking for new faces and new people," Ashburn said. "I think that was one of the messages I took out of the vote in Massachusetts."

He was referring to Republican Scott Brown's win last week of the Senate seat opened by the death of Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., last year. Analysts have in part attributed that win to voter disenfranchisement with establishment politicians.

Ashburn said he doesn't know what he will do after he's termed out of office at the end of this year but that "I'm sure I'll find ways to keep busy." Asked if he's ruling out any future run for public office, he said: "it's never smart to say never."

"(For now) I'm very committed to being the very best representative in the Senate I can this year," Ashburn said.

Click here to read the full story.

Updated: An earlier version of this post misspelled Ashburn's name in the headline.

Call him Grandpa Aanestad - again.

Sen. Sam Aanestad doubled his pleasure Tuesday with the birth of twin girls to his son, Erik, and daughter-in-law, Tiffani Aanestad.

Aanestad, who did not yet know the girls' names this morning, said they weighed 5 pounds 12 ounces and 5 pounds 3 ounces, respectively. The twins were born one minute apart, about 8:15 p.m.

"We're just ecstatic," Aanestad said. "What a blessing."

Aanestad said he wasn't able to attend the birth because "I was afraid I'd get caught in the snowstorm."

The Penn Valley Republican and his wife, Susan, have four other grandchildren by their two daughters.