DAN WALTERS COLUMNS
Logrolling lives large in California budget
A year ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature enacted a budget package noteworthy for a rare increase in taxes – but getting the required two-thirds votes involved old-fashioned horse trading.
Pro sports don't merit public funds
Super Bowl Sunday is the perfect moment to ponder the myth and reality of professional sports in 21st century America.
GEORGE SKELTON COLUMN
Kindergarten politics
Playing games with Maldonado could backfire for the Assembly.
ECONOMY & JOBS
Insurer may have violated law, report reveals
San Francisco Chronicle-- A high-profile California insurance company that is backing a controversial insurance measure on the June ballot has engaged in practices that may be illegal, including deceptive pricing and discrimination against consumers such as active members of the military and drivers of emergency vehicles, according to a state report obtained by The Chronicle.
EDUCATION
For UC's Commission on the Future, nothing is off the table
Los Angeles Times-- With California's public university system shackled to a shrinking budget, a group of chancellors, students and others considers ideas -- from banal to radical -- to keep quality up and costs down.
In cash-strapped state, how will we pay for public higher education?
Sacramento Bee--On a mild, overcast day in October 2007, a University of California graduate lobbed a rhetorical bomb at his alma mater: What if the public university went private?
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
PG&E customers feel sticker shock from rising rates
Fresno Bee-- A Jan. 1 electricity-rate increase by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. may not feel like much now.
Testing waters for salmon in San Joaquin River
San Francisco Chronicle--Water has begun flowing down 64 barren miles of the San Joaquin River in what is being touted as California's most ambitious effort to bring back long-lost native salmon.
HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
Welfare issue becomes a hot issue in governor's race
San Jose Mercury-- Three decades after Ronald Reagan catapulted the catchphrase "welfare queen" into the political lexicon — and 14 years after President Bill Clinton helped "end welfare as we know it" — welfare has suddenly become a steamy political issue in the California governor's race.
POLITICS
Chuck DeVore faces steep climb for California Senate seat
Los Angeles Times--Despite a lack of funds and name recognition, the Orange County Republican says he's best qualified to carry the party banner this fall against Barbara Boxer. Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore was riding high from his party's recent Senate election victory in Massachusetts when he bounded into the town library here. The meeting of the Lincoln Tea Party Patriots was already buzzing over Scott Brown's win in one of the bluest of blue states, and DeVore tried to convince them that with his consistent conservative credentials, he could take incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Garamendi vows to play D.C. money game for his California district
Sacramento Bee--Democratic Rep. John Garamendi was busy talking to himself when he recently attended his first State of the Union speech.
Jerry Brown sounds like a candidate
San Francisco Chronicle--He still won't call himself a candidate for governor, but he's sure talking like one.
Prop. 14 holds promise to change primaries
San Diego Union-Tribune--California voters will have the opportunity in June to replace partisan primaries with a system in which candidates of all parties will be listed on the same ballot and the top two vote-getters would advance to the general election, regardless of party.
Constitutional Convention advocates cry foul
Contra Costa Times-- Proponents of a statewide ballot measure calling for a rewrite of how California governs itself say they are under attack from the lucrative signature-gathering industry.
PUBLIC SAFETY
Assault, prostitution among early jail releases
Orange County Register--A new state law allowing for the early release of inmates includes those who have been convicted of crimes ranging from misdemeanor spousal abuse, vehicle theft, and felony assault with force likely to produce great bodily harm.
MISC.
Judge being gay a nonissue during Prop. 8 trial
The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.
Bay Area is ground zero for California effort to legalize pot
Sacramento Bee--It's almost a cliché these days that this city and its sister to the east, Oakland, stand as the primary incubators of some of California's infamously wacky but later transformational social and political ideas.
MERCURY NEWS EDITORIAL
California needs bills to protect young athletes
It's inevitable. Sometime in the Super Bowl — and maybe more than once — one player will hit another so hard, running at full tilt, that you'll have to catch your breath just from watching.
PRESS ENTERPRISE EDITORIAL
Stopgap mania
Desperation is the hallmark of the governor's proposals for raising state revenue from drivers and highways. Such expedients only help legislators ignore the real reasons behind the state's budget crises -- and duck the task of truly stabilizing the state's finances.
SACRAMENTO BEE EDITORIAL
Editorial on state worker pay riles up readers
Sacramento is a company town. The dominant company? State government. In our region, approximately 81,000 people work for the state of California, not including those employed by public universities.
CalPERS needs to get honest with its facts
The California Public Employees' Retirement System has launched a public relations campaign intended to tone down the rhetoric in the increasingly raucous debate over public employee pensions.
Hannity shed light on green agenda's damage to California farms
"Famously hypertensive." That's how Matt Jenkins of High County News describes Sean Hannity, who blamed the San Joaquin Valley water shortages on the Endangered Species Act ("Tapping into Anger"; Forum, Jan. 31).
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