California politics updates: The rush to push back against Trump’s offshore drilling directive

It’s been an unprecedented 100 days. And perhaps no state in the nation has reacted more strongly to the administration of President Trump than California.

This week’s podcast is a special episode taped at the recent Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Our topic was the view of the Trump era from California, a glimpse at how the state’s political compass has been reset as the president’s agenda unfolds.

I’m joined by a special panel of Los Angeles Times political writers: Mark Barabak, Seema Mehta, Liam Dillon and Melanie Mason.

(Laura Morton / For the Los Angeles Times)

California’s most important month for collecting income taxes could end some $600 million short of official projections, based on preliminary data collected Friday.

The independent Legislative Analyst’s Office reported that personal income tax collections stood at $13.45 billion, with a final day of tax refunds to be reported on Monday. By comparison, Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget assumed the month would net $14 billion for state budget coffers.

April is historically a key month for taxes paid by Californians, bringing in a larger share of the revenues used to run the state government than any other part of the year.

Once refunds were subtracted, Friday’s tally came in at just $9 million. That’s compared to more than $300 million collected on the same day in 2016.

The state’s fiscal year ends June 30. If tax revenues fail to meet projections, that changes the available dollars Brown and lawmakers have to divvy up for the coming budget year.

In January, the governor projected a $1.6-billion deficit in the coming budget. April’s revenue total — if it misses the target as expected — could lead to new worries about lawmakers when it comes to setting new funding priorities. However, state tax revenues through the end of March were $1.15 billion above Brown’s estimates, meaning that a slump in April could be easily absorbed.

“This probably will leave the state close to even with the administration’s projections for 2016-17 as May begins,” wrote the analysts in an online tax revenue update posted Friday.

Antonio Villaraigosa argued Friday that he is best suited to be California’s next governor because he had been tested when he was Los Angeles’ mayor during the recession, and had proven that he could make politically unpopular decisions in the best interests of the people.

“Look at the track record. I’ve not been afraid to take on my friends. I’ve not been afraid to say no,” Villaraigosa told a couple hundred people at a luncheon at an automotive school in Rancho Cucamonga. He noted that he furloughed 37,000 city employees and laid off 1,000 workers during the recession to stave off bankruptcy, and challenged the city’s school district and teachers union because he believed they were failing students.

“I took on those interests even though they were probably the most important group that got me elected. I made tough calls,” he said. “I think the next governor is going to have to make tough calls.”

Villaraigosa is one of three main Democrats running to replace termed-out Gov. Jerry Brown next year. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Treasurer John Chiang have a financial advantage over Villaraigosa, but the former Los Angeles mayor was the last of the trio to enter the race. He didn’t mention his rivals by name, but he noted that after he accepted the invitation to address the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, the others followed suit. The other two men will address the group in June.

Villaraigosa’s appearance in Rancho Cucamonga is not surprising. His path to victory relies upon garnering support in the Inland Empire and the Central Valley, once GOP strongholds that are now more politically mixed, but whose Democrats are not as rigidly liberal on economic and environmental issues as coastal and Bay Area voters. His campaign is also predicated on support in Los Angeles and among Latinos, groups of voters who don’t cast ballots in proportion to their numbers.

Villaraigosa noted that he spent 51 days touring the state and talking to voters. Twenty-six were in the Central Valley and five were in the Inland Empire, two regions where the economic recovery has not taken hold as strongly as it has in other parts of the state.

“The next governor,” he said, must understand “he has to show up in the Inland Empire not just when he’s knocking on your door and asking for your vote.”

Ensuring that opportunities for residents of inland areas are equal to those in more affluent, coastal areas is crucial to restoring “a little luster” to the California dream, the 64-year-old said.

Villaraigosa, who was elected mayor in 2005 with great fanfare but faced tumult over his two terms because of personal scandal as well as the challenges of the recession, demurred when asked if he hoped to run for president.

“I want to be governor of this state, and I want to do a great job as governor and then we’ll see what happens after that. But more than likely, I’ll be riding into the sunset,” he said. “After two terms, just to be clear.”

Customers buy products at a medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco.

( (Haven Daley / Associated Press))

The Brown administration on Friday released draft regulations for the sale and use of medical marijuana in California, beginning a process that is likely to see changes sought by some in the industry, law enforcement and state legislators.

For instance, the Legislature has to determine how to merge the rules for medical pot with regulations approved by the voters in November legalizing the sale of recreational cannabis.

“The broad objectives of these proposed regulations are to create a state licensed and regulated commercial cannabis market,” the rules said. “The specific benefits anticipated are increased protection of the public and the environment from the harms associated with an unregulated commercial cannabis market.”

The rules require applicants for licenses to grow, transport and sell marijuana for medical use to get a license from the state Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation and undergo a background check.

People who transport marijuana between farms and dispensaries would be prohibited from owning that pot, according to the rules, and they must be 21 or older.

Dispensaries would have to use a track-and-trace system to monitor activity involving the cannabis they sell.

The new rules say cannabis edibles must be sold in child-resistant, opaque packaging and have no more than 10 milligrams of THC per serving. Dispensaries will be restricted to operating from 6 am to 9 pm

Assemblyman Ken Cooley (D-Rancho Cordova) objected Friday that proposed changes to the law approved in 2015 by the Legislature “are not just a problem for lawmakers, but actually are in violation of how Proposition 64 described how the two systems of law would operate side-by-side.”

The state has scheduled four hearings on the proposed rules, including one for 10 a.m. June 8 at the Junipero Serra Building in Los Angeles.

California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said Friday he is prepared to fight any attempt to expand oil drilling off the California coast despite an order signed by President Trump calling for a study of new oil and natural gas exploration.

“We will vigorously oppose new drilling off the shores of our coast,” Becerra said in a statement. “California is leading the way in clean energy production and policies that preserve our state’s pristine natural resources. Instead of taking us backwards, the federal government should work with us to advance the clean energy economy that’s creating jobs, providing energy and preserving California’s natural beauty.”

See the Los Angeles Times coverage of the new order here.

Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, wants to expand the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from five to seven members.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

A group of nine state lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill that would seek to improve representation of people of color on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors by expanding it from five to seven members and creating a position of an elected county executive.

State Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) is the lead author on the legislation that would put the matter of changing the state Constitution to a vote on the California ballot in June 2018.

“Counties with millions of residents deserve a government that is responsive, transparent and accountable,” Mendoza said Thursday. “By expanding representation and creating a professional management position, we address multiple issues and will actively improve local government for all Californians.”

A civil county grand jury recommended last year that the board be expanded and an elected executive position be created, but the Board of Supervisors turned down the proposal.

In 2015, a similar proposal by Mendoza to expand the boards of supervisors in Los Angeles and other large counties failed to win a necessary two-thirds vote in the Senate. That proposal did not include an elected county executive.

Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) had opposed the 2015 plan as unwieldy because it lacked an elected chief executive.

He is a co-author of the new bill, along with Republican Sen. Scott Wilk of Santa Clarita and Democratic senators such as Bob Hertzberg of Van Nuys and Steven Bradford of Gardena.

“If Los Angeles County were a state, it would be the eighth largest,” Wilk said. “I believe L.A. County is too large and should split up. However, this proposal will make county government more accountable and is an important first step to transforming regional government.”

Currently, two people of color sit on the five-member Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Alan Clayton, a demographics expert who consulted on the bill, said a seven-member board would result in one seat competitive for Asian American candidates and two seats competitive for Latinos, who make up half of the county’s population. The current board does not have Asian American representation among its members.

“It will have a huge impact on the minority communities of Los Angeles County,” Clayton said. “It will create a more diverse board.”

Clayton also said the creation of the position of an elected county executive would provide a new opportunity for the large crowd of top Democrats in the state vying to move up to a limited number of powerful positions.

County voters have rejected previous proposals to expand the board, in part because of concerns it would create a more expensive and larger bureaucracy.

The new measure, SCA 12, which would take effect in 2022, would seek to hold costs down by prohibiting the expanded board’s budget from exceeding funding in 2021, and limit the new elected county executive’s pay to the salary received by the presiding judge for the Los Angeles County Superior Court. The supervisors would remain limited to three terms of four years each.

Nearly two-thirds of the 14 Republicans in the California congressional delegation are still reviewing changes to the GOP healthcare plan, and only four have taken a firm position on it.

In the latest version of the healthcare bill, Republicans are considering an amendment designed to win over the most conservative members of their majority by giving states the option of doing away with the so-called essential health benefits that Obamacare requires insurers to cover. The previous version of the bill was pulled off the House floor before a vote was held.

The undecideds include Reps. Steve Knight (Palmdale), Darrell Issa (Vista), Dana Rohrabacher (Costa Mesa), Ken Calvert (Corona), Paul Cook (Yucca Valley), Doug LaMalfa (Richvale), Ed Royce (Fullerton) and David Valadao (Hanford), according to their staffs and media reports.

Rohrabacher and Calvert were among the Republicans who had said they would have voted “yes” for the previous version of the bill that was pulled before they could vote.

Staff for Reps. Mimi Walters (Irvine) and Duncan Hunter (Alpine) said the members support the new version. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Bakersfield) also supports it.

Rep. Jeff Denham (Turlock) told the Hill, a newspaper focused on Capitol Hill, that he does not support the new version of the healthcare bill.

Since most Democrats are expected to remain lined up pretty firmly against the bill, Republicans are on their own to pass it.

House Republicans can afford to lose around two dozen of their own members and still pass it without Democratic help.

A poorly run nonprofit group that has received state funds to help small businesses get loans is in danger of becoming insolvent next year unless it gets more money, but the state should not provide funding without reforms, a state audit concluded Thursday.

The report by State Auditor Elaine Howle said the State Assistance Fund for Enterprise, Business and Industrial Development Corporation (SAFE‑BIDCO) has done some good helping businesses.

But it has not attempted to obtain more money from fundraising, and has imprudently spent limited funds on “questionable activities,” including 16 out-of-state trips and a trip to Ireland by its chief executives, the audit said.

In addition, the group continued to use a business development contractor even though he did not achieve his performance goals, and it continued with this contract without a competitive bidding process.

“As a result of these issues, we are reluctant to recommend that the state appropriate funding without increased direct oversight to ensure adequate reporting and controlled expenses,” Howle wrote to Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature. “We believe direct oversight could occur by establishing SAFE-BIDCO as a program within the state treasurer’s office.”

A sweeping measure that would establish government-run universal healthcare in California cleared its first legislative hurdle on Wednesday, as scores of supporters crammed into the state Capitol to advocate for a single-payer system.

The Senate Health Committee approved the measure on a 5-2 vote after a nearly three-hour hearing, but Democrats and Republicans alike signaled unease with the major question still unanswered in the legislation: how the program would be paid for.

The bill, SB 562, would establish a publicly run healthcare plan that would cover everyone living in California, including those without legal immigration status. The proposal would drastically reduce the role of insurance companies: The state would pay for all medical expenses, including inpatient, outpatient, emergency services, dental, vision, mental health and nursing home care.

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Freshman State Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) filed a formal response Wednesday to the recall campaign that is targeting him because he voted for a bill increasing gas taxes and vehicle fees for road and bridge repairs and mass transit.

The recall papers were filed April 19 by Elvira Moreno and 59 others, with the aid of conservative radio talk show host Carl DeMaio. They must collect 63,592 signatures of registered voters in 160 days to qualify the measure for the ballot.

In a statement, Newman’s campaign noted that he was just elected in November.

“Now the same out-of-town, hyper-partisan special interests who opposed Josh’s election are attempting to stage a costly and unnecessary recall campaign,” the statement said. “They are cynically misrepresenting Josh’s support for sorely needed local road repairs as a pretext for removing him from office.”

Students walk through Sather Gate on the UC Berkeley campus.

(Paul Sakuma / Associated Press)

Hit with a surprise survey by state auditors, officials at University of California campuses changed their responses and dropped criticism of the UC Office of the President after it contacted them, instead offering more positive reviews of its effectiveness, according to documents released as part of the audit.

UC officials said Wednesday that the president’s office did not censor the responses, but State Auditor Elaine Howle said her office is continuing an inquiry into the alleged interference by the UC administration to determine whether it violated policies or laws and should be referred for further action.

“My legal staff is looking at it to determine whether we’ve got a situation where there might be an improper governmental activity,” Howle said. “Then once we complete some of that assessment, that will determine whether we conduct an investigation internally or whether we make any referrals.”

Howle’s audit, released Tuesday, found that the UC Office of the President paid excessive salaries and benefits to its top executives and did not disclose to the UC Board of Regents, the Legislature, and the public $175 million in budget reserve funds that could have helped reduce a 3% tuition increase scheduled for this fall.

Howle alleged in the audit and a letter to the governor that “the Office of the President intentionally interfered with our audit process.”

Two legislative committees have scheduled a joint hearing on the audit and the allegations of interference for 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Capitol. The survey was an attempt to find out how administrators at the 10 UC campuses viewed the effectiveness of the Office of the President.

“Although we explicitly asked each campus not to share its survey results with anyone outside of the campus, we learned in February 2017 that the Office of the President had requested campuses to send their survey responses to it,” the audit said, “and that the deputy chief of staff of the Office of the President organized a conference call with all campuses to discuss the survey and screened the surveys before the campuses submitted them to us.”

The audit said Howle’s office asked the deputy chief of staff to provide her with copies of the original survey results to compare with the final versions turned over to auditors. Auditors were given both copies.

“When we compared the prescreened versions of the surveys to the versions the campuses subsequently submitted to us, we found that the responses were changed to make the Office of the President appear more efficient and effective,” the audit said.

UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein denied that the president’s office acted improperly.

“Nobody was asked to alter anything,” she said.

Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, said he wants to hear answers at his hearing on Tuesday.

“Every year the University of California complains the Legislature doesn’t give them enough money. Yet, the audit found they don’t spend what we give them and secretly hoard it for pet projects,” Ting said. “This is not a good start to ensure the best interests of students as we close out the budget. I hope the system comes to this hearing seeking to restore its credibility and discuss how these extra funds can be used to increase access to this great university.”

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has weighed in on the race in Los Angeles’ 34th Congressional District, endorsing Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez over former L.A. city planning commissioner Robert Lee Ahn.

Pelosi spokesman Jorge Aguilar confirmed the endorsement.

Gomez and Ahn are both Democrats.

Gomez has received dozens of endorsements from elected officials in California’s Democratic Party establishment. Pelosi is the most prominent of a dozen California members of Congress who have endorsed Gomez so far.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is up with digital ads dinging Republicans over a proposal to exempt mbmers of Congress from some changes to the Affordable Care Act.

The amendment, which was introduced Tuesday night and first reported by Vox, allows states to opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s ban on charging more or denying health insurance to people who have a preexisting condition. But, as it’s currently written, that opt-out would not apply to Congress and congressional staff.

The sponsor of the carveout, Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), said Wednesday his proposed amendment is being changed so it no longer exempts members of Congress and their staff. A vote on the bill isn’t expected until next week at the earliest.

The Democrats’ ads will target seven California Republicans who represent districts that backed Hillary Clinton for president: Reps. Jeff Denham (Turlock), David Valadao (Hanford), Steve Knight (Palmdale), Ed Royce (Fullerton), Mimi Walters (Irvine), Dana Rohrabacher (Huntington Beach) and Darrell Issa (Vista).

“This digital ad campaign will educate voters in targeted districts about this morally bankrupt congressional carveout,” DCCC spokesman Tyler Law said in a statement.

Nationally, the ads will target 30 Republican-held districts.

The National Republican Campaign Committee pushed back on the ad buy.

“Democrats’ desperate defense of the failing Obamacare law has cost them dearly election after election. If national Democrats want to continue spending money to prop up public support for the status quo causing skyrocketing premiums and families to lose coverage, that’s their money to burn,” NRCC spokesman Jack Pandol said.

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UPDATES

11:24 a.m.: This article was updated with comment from the National Republican Campaign Committee.

This article was originally published at 9:32 a.m.

San Francisco attorney Stephen R. Jaffe is a lifelong Democrat and he intends to do what no Democrat has been able to do so far: make it to a runoff election against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Jaffe, 71, is an employment attorney who became a volunteer for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign last year.

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FOR THE RECORD

1:08 p.m.: A previous version of this post misstated Jaffe’s age as 72.

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“I was a pretty hard-core Bernie supporter,” said Jaffe, who gave money to the campaign and volunteered during the Nevada caucuses. He was one of two attorneys who filed for an injunction on behalf of Sanders supporters in the California primary, requesting “re-votes” and an extension of the voter registration deadline. (The request was denied.)

Jaffe said he was “devastated” by Sanders’ loss to Hillary Clinton in the primary season and that Sanders, in part, inspired him to run. He says he supports single-payer healthcare and criticized Pelosi for raising money from corporations and special interests.

Pelosi, the highest-ranking Democrat in the House, has never faced a serious challenger on the left in her liberal San Francisco district. Preston Picus, another Sanders supporter who ran as a no-party-preference candidate, came the closest when he received 19% of the vote in November, according to the California Target Book.

“I know that Ms. Pelosi’s strategy has been to essentially ignore anyone who has challenged her, but I anticipate she’ll have a more difficult time doing that with my candidacy,” Jaffe said in an interview. He thinks if local, progressive activists can propel him to a runoff with Pelosi, he’ll have a “quite realistic chance” of winning.

“There’s a rumbling, a wave of activism here by people who have really never stepped forward before.”

Two Republican challengers will run against Riverside Democratic Rep. Mark Takano in the 2018 primary.

Air Force veteran Aja Smith, who now works as an information technology specialist at the March Air Reserve Base, is the latest Republican to jump into the race. She grew up and now lives in Moreno Valley.

Republican Doug Shepherd of Riverside, a real estate broker who lost to Takano in 2016, will be looking for a rematch in 2018.

Both face long odds: Democrats represent 46.57% of registered voters in the district, while Republicans comprise just 27.9%. An additional 21.08% list no party preference.

Takano won reelection with 64.95% of the vote last year.

Smith has a compelling personal story: She joined the military after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; her grandfather and grandmother served in the military; and her great-uncle was a Tuskegee airman.

Though this is her first campaign, she’ll come to it with some local political experience. She helped lead a recall effort against former Moreno Valley City Councilman Marcelo Co before he resigned amid a bribery scandal.

She launched her campaign attacking Takano as a “do-nothing” politician.

“Constantly speaking out of both sides of his mouth is something voters in this district have come to expect from a career politician like Takano,” she said.

Shepherd said the local Republican Party will be investing in voter registration ahead of the midterm elections. He hopes the lack of a presidential election will mean the race will be about local issues.

“I think we can focus on some of the real local issues and not all that national junk,” he said.

California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said he welcomed a federal court decision Tuesday that blocked President Trump’s executive order threatening to withhold federal funding from cities, counties and states that adopt so-called sanctuary policies on immigration.

Becerra’s office had filed court papers challenging the threat to withhold money from jurisdictions that do not cooperate with federal immigration agents.

A federal judge in San Francisco granted a preliminary nationwide injunction Tuesday against the order.

“As California continues to abide by the Constitution, yet another court has ruled against the Trump Administration’s executive overreach,” Becerra said in a statement. “My office has been clear: we will not compromise our values to accommodate the new Administration, which seeks to hijack crucial resources, sow fear among California families and make our communities less safe. This injunction is consistent with the rule of law. In California, we will always fight to protect our people.”

The court decision also drew approval from state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles).

“President Trump has tripped over the Constitution again,” De León said in a statement. “A federal judge has rightfully issued a constitutional victory for states, counties and cities. The state of California, along with our cities and counties like San Francisco and Santa Clara that value the contributions of their immigrant communities, will continue to protect all of our honest, hardworking residents against the cynical and destructive policies of this administration.”

Tuesday’s stinging audit of UC President Janet Napolitano’s office revealed the existence of $175 million in “undisclosed” funds collected from UC campuses, dollars that auditors said were used for a variety of purposes.

And it wasn’t the first time in recent years that lawmakers in Sacramento were told of an agency hoarding a hidden stash of cash.

In the summer of 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown’s state parks director resigned after revelations that department officials had long maintained an off-the-books accounting system that hid the existence of $54 million in funds. The practice of hiding the money had existed for more than a decade, with the funds split between accounts that collected entrance fees and financed off-highway vehicle parks.

While those details differ from the new audit of Napolitano’s office, the new controversy may share a couple of similarities with the parks scandal of almost five years ago. For starters, the dollar amounts involved added up over time. Auditors reported Tuesday that the UC money amounted to “budget surpluses” based on funding approved over a four-year period by the UC Board of Regents. Unlike the university, however, state parks staffers never spent their surplus funds — fearful of detection by the state Department of Finance.

Ruth Coleman, the former state parks director, resigned in the summer of 2012.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

The most compelling comparison, though, may be that both state government operations had publicly fretted over the need for additional dollars. Brown, elected in 2011 and facing a multi-billion dollar budget deficit, had pushed for the closure of as many as 70 state parks because of funding problems. The revelation of the hidden money came just months before voters were asked to approve new income and sales taxes that would help balance the state’s fiscal spreadsheet.

UC leaders have been lamenting their own budget needs over the past few years, concluding earlier this year that a tuition increase — the first in six years — is needed to keep the quality of the university’s education from suffering. While the money identified in the new audit isn’t enough to stave off those needs across the 10-campus UC system, the political perception of extra money could make the tuition efforts a harder sell.

The 2012 state parks revelations led not only to new leadership for the agency but also new accounting rules, many of which were recommended in a state audit completed in early 2013. But the parks operations are part of California’s executive branch of government and controlled by the governor. The critique of the UC president’s office presents a particularly tough challenge, in that the University of California has broad autonomy granted by the California Constitution.

While lawmakers and others can attempt to exert public pressure on the university, they do not control its budgeting practices. In a letter to auditors Tuesday, UC Board of Regents Chair Monica Lozano said some of the state auditors’ recommendations for changes “threaten the University’s standing as a constitutionally autonomous entity.”

Fresno County Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrew Janz will challenge Rep. Devin Nunes in the 22nd Congressional District.

“I have a strong connection to the area. I think I can be a competitive candidate, I think I have a pull here on what people think is important,” Janz, a 33-year-old Democrat, said in a phone interview.

Nunes, a Republican from Tulare, has gained national notice in recent months in the course of his role as chairman of the House Select Intelligence Committee.

He stepped away from leading the House investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election over accusations that he may have disclosed classified information. Those accusations came after Nunes revealed to reporters that conversations by Trump transition officials may have been inadvertently picked up by U.S. surveillance, and said he met with the source of the information at the White House.

As he stepped down from leading the investigation, he blamed “left-wing activists” for causing a “distraction.”

Janz seems poised to use Nunes’ perceived missteps as he pursues the congressional seat.

“The congressman is more concerned with defending himself, defending the president, Donald Trump, against all these allegations,” Janz said.

Janz grew up in the Central Valley district in Visalia, returning after college in 2014 to join the Fresno County district attorney’s office, where he works in the violent crimes unit.

Janz attended Cal State Stanislaus, earning a bachelor’s degree in economics in 2006 and a master’s degree in public administration in 2009. He earned a law degree from Southwestern Law School in 2012 and clerked for Nevada 8th Judicial District Court Judge Carolyn Ellsworth. His wife, who is also a native of the district, owns a marriage and family counseling business.

People back in the farming district south of Fresno don’t seem too concerned about Nunes’ Washington troubles, and Janz will have to fight an uphill battle to unseat him.

Nunes has gotten more than two-thirds of the vote in all but one of his eight congressional elections. In 2016, he beat Democrat Louie Campos with 68.2% of the vote. Republicans hold a significant voter registration advantage in the district, which includes parts of Tulare and Fresno counties.

Janz said he hopes to build support from progressives, moderates and dissatisfied Republicans.

“The bottom line is that the people are frustrated with their representative and they really just want to be heard,” Janz said. “Their feeling right now is that they’re being ignored by their congressman.”

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FOR THE RECORD

4:47 p.m.: This article was updated to correct a quotation from Fresno County Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrew Janz to say, “I think I have a pull here on what people think is important,” rather than “I think I have a poll here on what people think is important.”

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California legislators took the first step Tuesday to ban state government contracts for any company that helps build President Trump’s promised wall along the Mexico border, with the author of the plan urging colleagues “to be on the right side of history.”

The bill by state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) would prohibit any company from receiving a new or extended contract with the state of California if it participates in a future effort to build a new wall along the 2,000-mile international border.

“The wall is another attempt to separate and divide us,” Lara said in testimony to the Senate Governmental Organization Committee. “It sends a message that we are better off in a homogenous society.”

Senate Bill 30 won committee passage on a party-line vote, with Republicans expressing concern about the need for additional border security. Representatives of the construction industry also voiced opposition, arguing Lara’s bill forces contractors into the middle of a divisive political fight.

“This is precedent-setting,” said Todd Bloomstine, a lobbyist representing the Southern California Contractors Assn. “What next unpopular project would be [on the] blacklist?”

Lara told lawmakers he will amend the bill to exclude any work by a company — including current bids on border wall projects — that takes place prior to the bill’s becoming law.

Trump’s campaign promise of a new border wall remains in limbo in Washington, as members of Congress on both sides of the aisle voice skepticism about its funding.

Tuesday’s hearing in Sacramento often veered into the appropriateness of the wall itself, with environmental groups expressing concerns about animal species that live on both sides of the border. That testimony became emotional for Juan Altamirano, an associate director of Audubon California who crossed the border with his family as a young child.

“We need more migration and not stagnation,” Altamirano said.

A gaping hole developed in the Oroville Dam spillway earlier this year.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

California will be racing to finish $275 million in repairs to the Oroville Dam spillways to prepare for the next rainy system, top water officials told lawmakers on Tuesday.

Bill Croyle, acting director of the Department of Water Resources, said the deadline is Nov. 1.

Damage to the spillways in February forced thousands to evacuate from the area downstream of the country’s tallest earthen dam.

Croyle surprised some lawmakers by saying the emergency spillway, a hillside adjacent to the dam, worked as intended by releasing water from the reservoir when it overflowed after heavy rains. Erosion in the hillside could have caused a concrete wall along the rim of the reservoir to collapse, sending torrents of water into the rivers and towns below.

“Erosion was expected,” Croyle said. “The erosion of the rock,” which helped fortify the hillside and the concrete wall, “was not expected.”

The emergency spillway, which had never been used before, handled far less water than expected before failing.

“That’s a design flaw. Right?” said Assemblyman James Gallagher, a Republican whose district’s border runs along the dam.

The crisis was averted when officials decided to risk more damage to the concrete spillway, which had also suffered from erosion as tens of thousands of cubic feet of water per second were being released.

UCLA campus

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The administration of the University of California system pays top workers salaries and benefits significantly higher than that of similar state employees, and failed to disclose to the Board of Regents and the public that it had $175 million in budget reserve funds while it was seeking to raise tuition, a state audit found Tuesday.

The audit triggered a dispute with UC President Janet Napolitano, who said charges of hidden funds were false, while two members of the UC Board of Regents charged recommendations to give the Legislature budget authority over the Office of the President encroached on UC’s constitutional powers.

Among the sticking points, the auditors believe the regents should contract with an independent third party that can assist the regents in monitoring a three-year corrective action plan.

The audit of the Office of the President also found that it failed to satisfactorily justify its spending on system-wide initiatives and “inappropriately” screened surveys submitted by auditors to campus officials.

“Our report concludes that the Office of the President has amassed substantial reserve funds, used misleading budgeting practices, provided its employees with generous salaries and atypical benefits, and failed to satisfactorily justify its spending on systemwide initiatives,” State Auditor Elaine Howle wrote to Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature.

“Furthermore, when we sought independent perspective from campuses about the quality and cost of the services and programs the Office of the President provides to them, the Office of the President intentionally interfered with our audit process,” Howle wrote.

The auditor said that because of recent tuition hikes, she recommends the Office of the President should refund available funds in the reserves by returning them to the campuses for the benefit of students.

Ralph Washington Jr. president of the U.C. Students Assn. said if any reserve money is found it should go to help students, possibly by killing the tuition increase or helping students who are starving or homeless, but he is concerned legislators may use the audit to say the U.C. doesn’t need so much general fund money.

“Students definitely don’t want their tuition to go up,” he said.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount), who serves on the board of regents, said the audit requires more inquiry.

“The audit of the UC Office of the President appears to have uncovered the same kind of budgetary misrepresentations and executive excess that we’ve seen before with the State Parks Department and the Public Utilities Commission,” Rendon said in a statement. “There are many questions that need to be answered—and answered honestly.

The audit was requested by legislators concerned about high tuition and complaints of a bloated administration overseeing the UC system’s 10 campuses.

“The reserve included $32 million in unspent funds it received from an annual charge levied on the campuses—funds that campuses could have spent on students,” the audit said.

Auditors said salaries paid to those in the president’s office are much higher than the pay of comparable positions in other state government jobs.

President Napolitano agreed with the vast majority of recommendations for improving budget processes and spending, but denied that $175 million was hidden from the UC Board of Regents.

In a letter to Howle, the president said changes were already underway.

“The recommendations to [the UC president’s office] are helpful,” Napolitano wrote. “We welcome this constructive input, which aligns with our proactive efforts to continually improve UCOP’s operations, and UCOP intends to implement the recommendations.”

However, Board of Regents Chair Monica Lozano and Regent Charlene Zettel asked Howle to remove recommendations that they feel encroach on the constitutional autonomy of the university system, including proposals to have the Legislature approve the Office of the President’s budget.

“As written, we believe these recommendations threaten the University’s standing as a constitutionally autonomous entity, and the Board of Regents itself,” the regents wrote.

Administrative salaries amounted to $2.5 million more than the maximum annual salary ranges for comparable state employees, auditors found.

For instance, an accounting manager’s maximum annual salary is $169,000 at UC compared to $156,000 for other state employees.

An information system manager can make $258,000 with UC, but $150,000 with other state agencies.

The audit said: “10 executives in the Office of the President whose compensation we analyzed were paid a total of $3.7 million in fiscal year 2014-15 — over $700,000 more than the combined salaries of their highest paid state employee counterparts.”

On benefits, the Office of the President provided a regular retirement plan but also offered its executives a retirement savings account into which the office contributes up to 5% of the executives’ salaries—about $2.5 million over the past five years, the audit found.

“The Office of the President also spent more than $2 million for its staff’s business meetings and entertainment expenses over the past five years—a benefit that the State does not offer to its employees except in limited circumstances,” the audit said..

The audit also said the Office of the President reimbursed questionable travel expenses, including a ticket for a theater performance and limousine services. One person spent $350 per night on hotel rooms, which is above the allowable standard for other state agencies.

The audit said the Office of the President has not managed its own budget — which amounted to $747 million in fiscal year 2015–16 — “in a fiscally prudent or transparent way.”

Napolitano said the audit was in error in claiming her office failed to publicly disclose tens of millions in surplus funds.

“In fact, UCOP’s budget and financial approaches reflect strategic, deliberate and transparent spending and investment in UC and state priorities,” said a statement by the Office of the President.

Howle disagreed.

“Significant reforms are necessary to strengthen the public’s trust in the Office of the President,” the audit concluded.

Read the audit here.

Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk), who easily beat out a Democratic challenger in the November election, says she will seek reelection in 2018.

Napolitano, 80, pointed to her seniority and experience — 10 terms in Congress — in a campaign announcement Tuesday.

“We are at a critical point in our nation, with a new administration that has lost sight of the core values that this nation was founded on,” she said in a statement. “It is imperative that we have members in Congress who are experienced and ready to fight, day to day, to bring the federal resources that address our community’s pressing needs and the many challenges ahead.”

Napolitano suffered a minor stroke in 2016 that affected her ability to write and slightly slowed her walk, but she continued her reelection campaign and beat former Democratic state Assemblyman Roger Hernandez of West Covina.

He was seen as a potentially strong challenger when he announced his run, but he effectively ended his campaign in August after a judge granted his ex-wife’s request for a domestic violence restraining order against him.

After some speculation that Napolitano might retire, two hopefuls for her seat emerged.

Mary Ann Lutz, the former mayor of Monrovia and a former aide to Napolitano, has been raising money to run — but said she will run only if Napolitano retires.

The same goes for Andre Quintero, mayor of El Monte and a former Napolitano intern. He has been raising money for a run, but like Lutz said he would not challenge his former boss.

Napolitano starts off the race with $146,780 in the bank.

Gov. Jerry Brown speaks to union members at a dinner in Sacramento on Monday, Apr. 24.

(John Myers/Los Angeles Times)

Gov. Jerry Brown warned on Monday that what he’s heard so far from President Trump and congressional Republicans on a major new infrastructure plan sounds more like a way of benefiting the private sector.

“Let’s invest in America, not sell it off to the highest bidder,” Brown said in an evening speech to the annual conference of the California Labor Federation and the State Building and Construction Trades Council.

The governor, who thanked labor leaders for helping to wrangle votes in the Legislature for the $52-billion transportation plan approved earlier this month, sounded a note of skepticism about the notion of public-private partnerships that could be at the heart of Trump’s promise to launch a $1-trillion national effort.

“Here’s what they want to do, this is the Republican idea: sell, liquidate,” Brown said, referring to what he said could be efforts to finance the effort by selling off publicly owned assets.

“And who benefits?” he asked the crowd. “The guys who put the deal together, the investment bankers who provide all the paper. So watch out for this infrastructure program, that it isn’t another way to enrich Wall Street, providing all the financing for the selling of all our public jewels and assets.”

California submitted a $100-billion list of infrastructure projects last month to federal officials in hopes of securing a portion of any available dollars. That list included additional federal assistance for California’s current effort to build a north-to-south high-speed rail system.

Brown lauded the Legislature’s recent action on transportation — funded by a higher gas tax and a new vehicle transportation fee — as a more responsible approach to repairing infrastructure.

“I’d like to see the California model: We pay for what we need. We get what we pay for. And we pay as you go,” he said.

A former chemistry professor will challenge longtime Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) — one of the seven Republican members of Congress in California whom the Democratic party has said it will target for defeat in the 2018 midterm elections.

Phil Janowicz, a former chemistry professor at Cal State Fullerton who now runs a education consulting firm, is a first-time candidate. He’ll start his campaign Tuesday.

“People have become disgusted by the current state of our politics in Washington, D.C. Partisanship and gridlock, never-ending conflict, and promises to ‘drain the swamp’ that are broken as quickly as they are made,” he said in a statement. “Our country and our communities deserve better.”

Royce was first elected in 1992 and is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Democrats are targeting the district — which mostly composes voters in north Orange County but also includes Diamond Bar and Chino Hills — in part because because Hillary Clinton took 51.5% of the vote there compared with Trump’s 42.9%.

But Royce was easily reelected with 57% of the vote. He starts off at a significant advantage beyond seniority: He has $2.8 million tucked away for his next campaign.

Just over 36% of registered voters in the district are Republicans while 34.37% are Democrats and about a quarter list no party preference.

Democrats are sending national operatives to Orange County to help win seats in the traditionally Republican stronghold.

The president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections, and Democrats are working to tie Republican members of Congress to the president in the hopes of winning the House.

Janowicz is already trying to tie Royce to Trump, accusing Royce of voting “in lock-step with Trump 96% of the time,” seemingly referring to the score the website FiveThirtyEight has assigned members of Congress based on how often they vote in line with Trump’s positions.

Janowicz, who lives in Buena Park with his wife, Angela, is among several new candidates with science backgrounds who are entering the political arena on the heels of President Trump’s victory.

He was at a candidate training run by the nonprofit political advocacy group 314 Action in Washington, D.C., last week, according to his campaign consultant Jason Mills. The group is also assisting a candidate running against Rep. Steve Knight (R-Palmdale).

The National Republican Congressional Committee shot back Tuesday.

“Ed Royce is a trusted voice fighting to keep Southern California families safe from very real threats at home and abroad,” said NRCC spokesman Jack Pandol. “Liberal professor Phil Janowicz may hypothesize he has a snowball’s chance challenging Royce, but in the real world, he’ll find Royce’s support runs deep and wide in Orange County.”

UPDATE

April 25, 12:07 p.m.: This article was updated with a comment from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

This article was originally published on April 24.

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FOR THE RECORD

12:07 p.m.: An earlier version of this post said the district included Chino. It includes Chino Hills.

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( (Elise Amendola / Associated Press))

A California bill that would have blocked local governments from taxing Netflix, Hulu and other streaming video services is done for the year.

Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) wanted to stop cities and counties from taxing users of such services until 2023, which would have given the industry and local governments time to figure out how a taxation system would work, Ridley-Thomas said.

Currently, many local governments tax cable-television subscribers. Ridley-Thomas aimed to stop cities from extending that tax to streaming services to foster growth in the industry and deal with complex legal and taxation issues as the streaming services grow in popularity.

“This is a critical discussion in my mind,” Ridley-Thomas said at an Assembly committee hearing Monday.

But his bill came under intense opposition from local governments and the cable industry at the committee hearing. Cities and counties were worried that the bill would have blocked their ability to raise revenue, and cable companies believed the measure would have discriminated against their industry.

“It’s picking winners and losers in a very competitive video market,” said Carolyn McIntyre, president of the California Cable & Telecommunications Assn.

Ridley-Thomas agreed to reconsider the bill for next year after it became clear that he might not have the support necessary from his colleagues on the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation.

Last year, the city of Pasadena considered extending its utility tax to Netflix and other streaming services, but backed down after an outcry. Pasadena Mayor Terry Tornek recently estimated the city could bring in $2.3 million a year if it decided to tax the services.

Many other cities including San Bernardino, Glendale, Santa Monica, Culver City and Pico Rivera also are weighing extending the tax, according to a committee analysis of the bill.

Currently, roughly one-fourth of Californians pay a tax on cable television service, according to The California Local Government Finance Almanac.

Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) is pushing revised legislation on climate change.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

California’s fight against climate change would be overhauled under legislation advanced by an Assembly committee on Monday.

The legislation, a revised version of a measure introduced earlier this year, would link the state’s efforts against greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming, and other pollutants, which cause public health problems such as asthma.

Facilities such as oil refineries would face tighter restrictions, and the cap-and-trade program — which requires companies to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases — would become less flexible.

The goal of the legislation, Assembly Bill 378, is to broaden the benefits of California’s internationally recognized initiatives on climate change. But it will face resistance from a variety of sources, most notably industry groups that oppose stricter regulations.

Lawmakers are debating the future of the cap-and-trade program because there’s uncertainty over whether it can keep operating after 2020. Gov. Jerry Brown wants lawmakers to extend the program with a two-thirds vote, the higher threshold required for tax measures, to insulate it from legal challenges.

“We’re taking care of the global community,” said Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), who co-wrote the measure. “And we’re also taking care of the disadvantaged communities in our backyards.”

At this point, the legislation appears to be the focal point for conversations about about cap and trade.

A provision to extend the program has been trimmed out of a second measure on the issue, Assembly Bill 151. That bill addresses offsets, which are green projects that can be funded by companies to comply with emissions regulations, by encouraging more them to be developed inside the state.

“This is a work in progress,” said Assemblywoman Autumn Burke (D-Marina del Rey), one of the co-authors.

This year’s climate legislation is on a collision course with industry groups that also support cap and trade but envision the program differently. They want a tighter cap on the price of emission permits and as much flexibility as possible to keep their costs down.

“Increasing reliance on direct emission reduction measures over less costly methods is the wrong approach,” wrote a coalition of groups including the Western States Petroleum Assn., the California Manufacturers & Technology Assn. and the California League of Food Processors.

An Armenian march across Los Angeles on Monday served as a stage for the budding rivalry between Antonio Villaraigosa and Gavin Newsom as the two Democrats vied for the loyalty of a key constituency in next year’s race for governor.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been here,” Villaraigosa, the former Los Angeles mayor, said at the march’s launching grounds in Pan Pacific Park. “For some, it may be.”

“Some” was an apparent reference to Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor, who was standing just a few steps away.

It was indeed the first time Newsom had joined the Los Angeles march. But Newsom said he’d participated in many San Francisco protests calling on Turkey to acknowledge its 1915 genocide of Armenians. Turkey disputes that a genocide took place.

Both Villaraigosa and Newsom, rivals in the June 2018 primary to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown, denounced Republican and Democratic presidents alike for declining to pressure Turkey to accept responsibility for the mass killing of Armenians.

“This was the genocide that started off the most violent genocidal century in humankind’s history,” Villaraigosa said.

After a quick hello before the event, he and Newsom ignored each other as they walked in the front row of the march toward the Turkish consulate. At a rally afterward, Newsom called the Turks’ killing of Armenians an “unconscionable act of inhumanity.”

(Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

The state Assembly voted to give final approval Monday to nearly $1 billion for transportation projects in the districts of five lawmakers who voted two weeks ago in favor of a gas-tax increase after previously being undecided.

Assemblyman Matthew Harper of Huntington Beach led Republicans in opposing the legislation, which he dubbed “earmarks based on political influence and backroom deals.”

GOP lawmakers said the normal process calls for individual transportation projects to go through the California Transportation Commission, but Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced) said the Assembly should make the decision, rather than leave it to “unelected bureaucrats.”

Senate Bill 132 provides $500 million for projects helping the districts of state Sen. Anthony Cannella (R-Ceres) and Gray, both of whom held out support for the bill until the day before the vote. The measure includes $400 million in transportation funds for the extension of the Altamont Corridor Express, a commuter rail line between the Bay Area and Central Valley, and $100 million for a parkway project at the UC Merced campus.

The measure approved Monday also provides $427 million for transportation projects in Riverside County, where Sen. Richard Roth (D-Riverside) and Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes (D-Corona) held off supporting the gas tax until the day of the vote. Other money goes to providing clean air technology for trucks in areas that include the district of Sen. Connie Leyva (D-Chino).

Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) questioned the legality of the bill, which he said “rewards” lawmakers for their votes and undermines public trust. When Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yucca Valley) called Senate Bill 132 “graft,” Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) objected, saying Gallagher was “impugning the integrity of some of the colleagues on this floor.”

However, Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) said SB 132 pays for “key transportation projects that are important in our state to stop the gridlock.”

The bill was one of three measures asked for by lawmakers who ended up voting to approve the gas tax bill. The Assembly also approved a proposal by Gray that exempts architecture and engineering firms from having to pay the defense fees for clients who are sued.

Another bill scheduled for action would provide $17 million to a handful of young cities in Riverside County that lost state funds when they incorporated.

An AR-15 semiautomatic assault-style rifle.

(Charles Krupa / Associated Press)

The state affiliate of the National Rifle Assn. on Monday filed the first of a series of planned lawsuits against a package of gun control bills approved in California last year, including one challenging the state’s newly expanded assault weapons ban.

Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a prohibition on the sale of semiautomatic rifles equipped with bullet-buttons that allow for the quick removal and replacement of ammunition magazines.

The first lawsuit will be filed late Monday in federal court in Santa Ana by the California Rifle and Pistol Assn., the state affiliate of the NRA , and asks the courts to declare the expanded assault weapon law unconstitutional.

“It criminalizes possession of firearms which are commonly possessed for lawful purposes by law-abiding citizens for self- defense or shooting sports,” said Chuck Michel, a Long Beach attorney for the gun rights groups.

The legislation, and other bills including a ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines, were approved by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature in response to a 2015 terrorist shooting in San Bernardino in which weapons including AR-15 rifles were used to kill 14 people attending a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center.

But the new law “will do nothing to stop terrorists or violent criminals, and infringes on the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment,” the groups argued in a statement Monday.

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) led the effort to get the gun bills passed and predicted Monday they would withstand any legal challenge.

“Background checks and other guns laws California has enacted have saved lives and are key in making our mortality rate one of the lowest in the nation,” de León said in a statement. “I am confident that the courts will reject the NRA’s arguments, just as our voters did in November, and uphold California’s right to implement common-sense policies to protect its people. ”

Michel said the NRA plans five lawsuits challenging new gun laws in California, including one next week that will seek to invalidate a ban on the possession of ammunition magazines capable of holding more than 10 bullets.

The groups waited to file the lawsuits until Republican President Trump began appointing judges to the federal bench, including Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was confirmed last week for the U.S. Supreme Court.

UPDATED AT 3:55 pm to include comment from Senate leader Kevin de León.

Updated at 5:40 pm to reflect that the lawsuit has been filed.

Two California gubernatorial candidates and one potential candidate joined the tens of thousands expected to march and rally Monday in Los Angeles to commemorate the 102nd anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

Candidates Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa marched with fellow Democrat L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, who hasn’t ruled out a run for the office.

Here’s everything you need to know about who’s running for California governor and who’s still on the fence.

Tom Steyer, president of environmental advocacy organization NextGen Climate, has spent millions to benefit the Democratic Party in the last few election cycles and some have speculated that he may run for governor of California in 2018.

But when he appeared on Chelsea Handler’s Netflix talk show last week, the blunt host asked him whether he felt he invested wisely, given the Democrats’ losses in 2016: “Do you want your money back, like how do you feel?”

Steyer pointed out success in California, bragging about registering 800,000 people to vote in California. He pointed out that Democrats have super majorities in both houses of the California Legislature.

“We had a great day in California, if you look outside of California and we looked really closely at what happened. What we saw was we weren’t big enough,” he said. “Where we were active the outcome was like California and really good. But we weren’t nearly big enough.”

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Whittier) joined Steyer on the talk show, which has become a popular stop for liberal California politicos — Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor in 2018, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti have both appeared recently.

Sanchez said she doubted that President Trump would voluntarily hand over his tax returns.

“I certainly don’t think its going to happen,” she said, adding that the public should continue to apply pressure for their release.

The group also talked about the wave of activism going on at town halls.

Eleni Kounalakis, a former U.S. ambassador to Hungary and Hillary Clinton fundraiser, on Monday officially announced her bid for lieutenant governor of California.

Kounalakis, a Democrat from San Francisco, was appointed as an ambassador by President Obama. In her campaign announcement she emphasized her work with Clinton when the former presidential candidate served as secretary of State.

“As a lifelong Democrat, I will stand up for a woman’s right to choose and for equal rights for all Californians,” Kounalakis said in video statement released on Twitter and Facebook. “As a businesswoman and job creator, I know our economy thrives when we create good paying jobs and affordable healthcare for all.”

Kounalakis previously served as president of AKT Development, founded by her father, Angelo Tsakopoulos, a prominent Sacramento developer and a major Democratic donor.

Kounalakis joins a 2018 race that includes at least one formidable Democrat, West Covina state Sen. Ed Hernandez. Hernandez has collected more than 100 endorsements from prominent California Democrats.

Los Angeles physician Asif Mahmood, a Democrat and supporter of a “Medicare for all” national healthcare plan, also has announced he’ll run.

Senate President Kevin de León, too, has filed an intention to run for lieutenant governor and has been busy raising campaign contributions, though it’s unclear whether he’ll actually jump into the race.

Multiple Republicans have declared interest in running for the seat.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions on Sunday disputed criticism from California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra that a federal immigration crackdown is “reckless,” and accused state officials of jeopardizing public safety with so-called sanctuary city policies that restrict cooperation with federal agents.

Taking their disagreement to the national stage, Sessions and Becerra appeared live but in separate interviews on the ABC-TV news show “This Week,” hosted by George Stephanopoulos.

Becerra said on Friday that threats to withhold federal funds from states and cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities are reckless and undermine public safety.

“It’s nothing reckless,” Sessions said when asked about Becerra’s comments. “It’s nothing extreme about saying if someone comes through our country unlawfully and commits a crime, another crime in the country, that they should be deported. That’s what the law says.”

State and local governments are not allowed by federal law to prohibit their law enforcement officers from sharing information with the federal government, Sessions said.

“In other words, if a person commits a crime in Los Angeles or in the case of Kate Steinle, San Francisco, and an individual there is released multiple times and he comes back to San Francisco because it’s a sanctuary city and commits a murder, that’s the kind of situation that that person should have been deported previously and not allowed to return,” Sessions said.

Becerra said Sunday that California is ready to fight any attempt to withhold federal funds.

“Whoever wants to come at us, that’s hostility, we’ll be ready,” Becerra said. “We’re going to continue to abide by federal law and the U.S. Constitution. And we’re hoping the federal government will also abide by the U.S. Constitution, which gives my state the right to decide how to do public safety.”

The state attorney general was skeptical about comments by President Trump in recent days that so-called Dreamers —young immigrants brought to this country illegally by a parent — will not be targeted for immigration enforcement.

“It’s not clear what we can trust, what statement we can believe in, and that causes a great deal of not just anxiety, but confusion — not just for those immigrant families, but for our law enforcement personnel,” Becerra said.

He also denounced the Trump proposal to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border as a “medieval solution” to immigration issues, adding that neither U.S. taxpayers nor Mexico want to pay for the proposal.

Will environmental activist and mega political donor Tom Steyer make a run for governor? Keep waiting for that answer.

Steyer gave a fiery speech in front of a large, cheering crowd at the Los Angeles March for Science Saturday that had all the hallmarks of a stump speech, including talk about rebuilding the state, creating jobs and helping children.

But when The Times asked if he was close to making a decision about a gubernatorial bid, he responded: “I don’t think I have to make a decision yet.”

Steyer added that he and his political advocacy group NextGen Climate, which sponsored the Los Angeles march, will be battling President Trump’s administration as the 2018 midterm elections approach.

He was the nation’s biggest individual donor in the 2014 elections, and in 2016 he was a major force behind seven state ballot measures.

“I am obviously completely committed to fighting these guys,” he said of the Trump administration.

Steyer’s speech was marked by soaring rhetoric about California exceptionalism as he spoke about the state as a global leader.

“California leads into the future,” he said. “When you talk about research and technology and innovation and new industries — that is California. That is who we are and what we do.”

He ended with his fist raised in the air:

“The answer is not going to come out of Washington, D.C. It is going to come out of the Golden State of California. We cannot falter, we cannot flinch and we cannot fail. On we go.”

It may have looked like a break on the calendar, but the spring recess for many in California’s congressional delegation found voters back home in a feisty mood.

This week’s California Politics Podcast takes a closer look at town halls recently held by a number of lawmakers, events that offered some common themes and often a large crowd demanding resistance to President Trump’s agenda.

We also take a look at how April income tax collections are shaping up — a month that’s crucial in crafting a state budget and the potential for political fights over the new spending plan.

I’m joined by Times staff writer Melanie Mason and Marisa Lagos of KQED News.

(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times))

Sen. Kamala Harris’ first town hall as a U.S. senator began with a “welcome home” from the gathered crowd.

“I am so happy to be home, I cannot tell you,” she said.

It set the tone of meeting that lasted more than an hour and was largely devoid of the theatrics that have marked other town halls in recent weeks, including the two held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) this week.

The about 800 Californians who attended the midday event at the Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles were overwhelmingly polite, booing just once when Harris mentioned the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt. Harris opposed his nomination.

Harris’ progressive positions have made her a liberal favorite, while Feinstein’s more moderate tendencies have been the target of activists who have protested at her home and office over the last few months, urging her to stand firm against President Trump.

Vans full of Service Employees International Union members came to the town hall, and the dozen or so questions from the audience fell along Harris’ known policy positions.

Does she oppose building a wall at the southern border?

“Yes,” she said. “It’s just a stupid use of money.”

Should the U.S. get more involved in the war in Syria?

“I’m absolutely opposed to boots on the ground in Syria,” she said.

Afterward, she stayed for more than a half an hour to take selfies and answer individual questions.

Click on the image to watch the town hall live and follow Sarah D. Wire for more updates.

Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) addresses the Senate in Sacramento last year.

( (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press))

California officials reacted with defiance Friday to a threat by federal officials to withhold some $20 million in criminal justice grants from the state and its counties as part of the dispute over so-called sanctuary city policies.

“It has become abundantly clear that Atty. Gen. [Jeff] Sessions and the Trump administration are basing their law enforcement policies on principles of white supremacy — not American values,” Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement. “Their constant and systematic targeting of diverse cities and states goes beyond constitutional norms and will be challenged at every level.”

De León’s statement on “white supremacy” drew an immediate rebuke from Republican Assemblyman James Gallagher of Yuba City.

“That’s a ridiculous statement,” Gallagher said.

“Nobody here is talking about the state becoming an immigration agency or doing ICE’s job for them. It’s about whether you comply with federal law,” Gallagher added.

The U.S. Department of Justice warned in a letter Friday that the grant funds could be jeopardized unless the state can verify in writing that the state and its counties and cities are not restricting the sharing of information with federal immigration authorities regarding the citizenship status of people in prison and jail cells.

The state was given until June 30 to comply with the grant requirement, according to the letter Friday from Alan R. Hanson, acting assistant attorney general for the federal Office of Justice Programs.

“Failure to comply with this condition could result in the withholding of grant funds, suspension or termination of the grant, ineligibility for future [OJP] grants or subgrants, or other action, as appropriate,” Hanson wrote.

De León on Friday released a letter to Sessions written by a private attorney hired by the Legislature who said the state and its cities are in compliance with the law.

“It is our understanding that these laws do not violate federal law and would not be subject to an enforcement action by the federal government,” wrote attorney Daniel Shallman, whose firm, Covington & Burling, has been hired to assist the state in communicating with the Trump administration. The legal strategy is being guided by former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.

Shallman asked that the federal officials confirm that it will not take action against the state.

“If the Trump administration resorts to attempting to enforce its Order against California, the Legislature will use all available means to defend the rights, values and safety of Californians,” Shallman wrote April 6.

California received nearly $20 million in grants from the federal agency in the 2016 fiscal year, $18.2 million of which was distributed to criminal justice programs in 32 counties.

The money is distributed to counties through the California Board of State and Community Corrections, which received the warning letter from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The largest county grant was $3.59 million provided to Los Angeles County for a program that coordinates enforcement, prosecution and treatment for people and gangs “that spread social malaise through illicit drug abuse and narcotics-related crime and gang culture,” according to a board report.

L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell has opposed De León’s Senate Bill 54, “sanctuary state” legislation that would limit cooperation with immigration officials. San Francisco County officials have said they will limit their cooperation.

San Francisco County received a $3-million federal grant for a program aimed at reducing recidivism for young people to block “the school-to-prison pipeline,” the state report said.

Another $1 million went to San Bernardino County to cover costs involving the 2015 terrorist shooting that killed 14 people, and $396,310 went to a state prison program to reduce rapes of inmates.

Rep. Ted Lieu hasn’t stopped messing with President Trump on Twitter.

This week’s episode revolved around Lieu’s Thursday town hall and featured actress Kathy Griffin: “Full capacity, no Russian agents.”

Lieu has been aggressively poking Trump on Twitter since he was inaugurated, and as he told Times columnist Steve Lopez last month:

“Michelle Obama had that beautiful line, ‘When they go low, we go high,’” said Lieu. “I thought about it a lot. But I also thought, ‘We lost the election.’ My view now is that when they go low, we fight back.”

Nearly half of the money spent by all congressional candidates in the primary election to replace Xavier Becerra was unleashed in the final weeks of the campaign.

From March 16 to March 31, the 24 candidates in the 34th Congressional District race spent $1,285,800, or 44% of the total spent overall in the race so far. The final three days before the April 4 election are not covered in the most recent campaign finance reports.

Robert Lee Ahn and Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, two Democrats who beat the crowded field to advance to a June runoff, spent a large share of that.

Ahn dropped about $405,000 in the last two weeks of March alone, spending about three quarters of it on the mailers and potholders that filled voters’ mailboxes throughout the campaign.

Gomez spent much less over the same period: $175,500, and $115,100 of that went to printing and mailers.

In the final weeks of the campaign, Ahn raked in $188,100 in donations compared with Gomez’s haul of $89,500.

In the fast and furious primary campaign in Los Angeles’ 34th Congressional District, the crowded field of 24 candidates spent about $2.9 million trying to sway voters, according to campaign financial reports.

In the end, 42,914 voters cast ballots in the race, bringing the average amount spent per vote to $67.97.

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FOR THE RECORD

8:42 a.m.: The headline in an earlier version of this post stated that candidates in the 34th Congressional District spent an average of $86 per vote. The figure is $68.

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Some candidates, such as Democrat Adrienne Edwards, reported spending no money at all. She received 182 votes.

On the high end of the spectrum were former Los Angeles Times employee Alejandra Campoverdi, who spent $277.93 per vote, and Ricardo De La Fuente, who dropped $230.92 for each of his 331 voters.

Aside from candidates who didn’t spend anything, candidates who reported spending the least were Kenneth Mejia at $13.11 and Steven Mac at $14.15 per vote.

Robert Lee Ahn and Jimmy Gomez, who advanced to the June runoff, spent $81.50 and $41.61 per vote, respectively.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Earlier this month, a White House official floated the possibility of negotiations with California to resolve a brewing dispute over vehicle emission rules. The federal government has started the process of rolling them back, while state regulators here are pushing forward with tough pollution-reduction requirements, raising the possibility that automakers would need to meet different standards in different places.

However, California hasn’t heard from the Trump administration about beginning talks.

“We haven’t been asked,” Mary Nichols, chair of the Air Resources Board, told reporters during a conference on climate change in San Francisco.

California has the unique ability to enforce vehicle rules that are tougher than federal standards, and Nichols said the state’s leaders would be careful about any negotiations.

“I would expect our governor to be no less rigorous in evaluating any possibility of a change to the federal program,” she said.

State Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) has expressed “deep concern” about any negotiations.

“I always encourage dialogue, and we should keep lines of communication with the federal government open, but we cannot afford to compromise our air standards,” he wrote in a letter to Nichols.

The executive director of the state Board of Equalization told legislators Thursday that some board members have acted to reassign staff and resources without following proper approval procedures involving the board’s executive staff.

“It has been a pervasive problem,” David Gau said during a hearing of a state Senate budget subcommittee.

He said the agency is in “a crisis mode” since a state audit was released that found tax officials unable to explain decisions that allocated money to the wrong funds and transferred staff to unauthorized jobs.

Gau went on to say his job has been threatened in the past, but he has received reassurances from the board more recently that he can stay in his post. Still, he said major changes are needed at the tax collection agency.

“My belief as the executive director … is there are structural reforms that need to take place at the Board of Equalization,” Gau said, adding the elected board members should be further restricted from getting involved in the daily operations of the agency.

Democratic Sens. Richard Roth of Riverside and Steve Glazer of Orinda voiced concern about the lack of management controls.

“I do see breakdowns at all levels here,” Glazer said.

Roth and the state Legislative Analyst’s Office said one option for lawmakers to consider would be to remove most of the board’s executive functions and limit it to handling taxpayer appeals.

“That to me would see a clean division of responsibility,” Roth said.

Roth also suggested legislators might consider creating an inspector general position so employees could have a place to report misconduct without feeling their job is threatened.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Thursday she is waiting for some family health issues to be resolved before she announces whether she’ll run for another term in 2018.

“The time is coming, be assured. I’ve had reasons for waiting, and so once those problems are solved, I’ll let you know,” Feinstein said after a town hall in Los Angeles.

Feinstein wouldn’t give more details about the family issue, but she skipped the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last summer after her husband, Richard Blum, was diagnosed with lung cancer.

She herself was fitted with a pacemaker in January, raising additional questions about whether she plans to run.

At 83, Feinstein is the oldest member of the U.S. Senate, with 24 years under her belt, and the California political establishment has been in wait-and-see mode over whether she will seek another six-year term. A number of prominent Democrats would be eager to replace her if she bowed out.

In January, she gave a pretty strong hint that she’d like to run again, and she’s been raising money across the state.

At the L.A. town hall Feinstein hosted on Thursday, a small group of protesters waved signs urging the senator to either support a single-payer healthcare plan or retire.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein faced a largely friendly Los Angeles crowd at town hall Thursday, though the crowd came with a resounding, and sometimes loud, question: How are you resisting President Trump’s agenda?

The 1,000 ticket holders at South Los Angeles’ First AME Church quizzed the Democrat on whether the U.S. should be more heavily involved in Syria (“I think the time has come” ) and whether she’d support expanding Medicare everyone is eligible (“Not at this stage”).

It was Feinstein’s second town hall of the week and her second town hall ever. She faced an at times contentious crowd in San Francisco on Monday.

Tessie Borden, who helps lead the progressive protest group Indivisible Los Angeles said she was grateful Feinstein held the town hall, but felt like they should not have had to pressure her so much to hold it in the first place. (Protesters outside Feinstein’s offices and home have been encouraging her to hold a town hall since Trump’s inauguration.)

Borden said although she thinks there is a time and place for a moderate Democrat willing to work with the other party, her group wants Feinstein to take bolder, more progressive positions.

“We know we’re not always going to win. We’re proud for her to take losing positions if they are the right positions,” Borden said.

But Feinstein told the anti-Trump crowd she isn’t going to pursue charges against Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions for misleading the Senate Judiciary Committee about his contact with Russia’s ambassador during the campaign. As the ranking Democrat on the committee, she opposed Sessions’ nomination and urged him to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

“The elements are not there to prove perjury, that is what the lawyers tell us,” she said.

Feinstein told reporters afterward that she understands why many of her constituents want her to be defiant against Trump and Republicans. She’s voted against many of the Republican initiatives that worry progressives, but says she also has to work with the other side — a position she’s long held and one that’s cemented her reputation as a centrist dealmaker.

She told the crowd that unless Democrats have the votes they need in Congress to block Trump’s policies, they should at least work with Republicans for a middle ground on things they might be able to agree on, such as infrastructure.

“Resistance to me means doing the best I can to serve people in the way we do,” Feinstein said. “I’m giving opposition in my votes, in my comments, in my speeches; now I don’t rant and rail because I’ve got other ways of being constructive, and I think the majority of people want me to be constructive.”

Feinstein, who has served in the Senate since the early 1990s, has not said directly whether she will seek another six-year term, but has strongly hinted that she plans to run again.

(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who came in second in the race for the GOP presidential nomination last year, is raising money and courting prominent Republicans in Orange County on Thursday as he prepares for a reelection campaign in 2018.

A fundraiser for Cruz will be hosted Thursday evening by Palmer Luckey, a Long Beach native who became one of the nation’s wealthiest young entrepreneurs by creating a virtual-reality headset. Attendees are being asked to contribute up to $2,700 to Cruz’s reelection bid to attend a reception at an undisclosed location.

Earlier in the day, Cruz mingled with a few dozen prominent Republicans and supporters of his unsuccessful 2016 presidential bid. The event took place at the Newport Beach law firm of Michael McClellan, Cruz’s Orange County finance chairman and one of his top dozen bundlers in the nation.

Other attendees included Republican National Committeeman Shawn Steel; former state GOP chairman Michael Schroeder, who served as a California co-chairman for Cruz’s presidential campaign; and conservative blogger Jon Fleischman.

Fleischman described Cruz as “sharp and focused” as he discussed possible options to repealing and replacing Obamacare after the failure of President Trump’s first attempt.

“While everyone ... is relieved Hillary lost, no doubt everyone wishes Cruz was in the White House right now,” Fleischman said.

The campaign between Trump and Cruz was brutally ugly. Trump labeled Cruz “Lyin’ Ted,” insulted his wife’s looks, and falsely insinuated that his father was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. Cruz responded by calling Trump “utterly amoral,” a “pathological liar,” “a serial philanderer” and a “narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen.”

The tension came to a head at the Republican National Convention. Cruz, speaking in prime time, pointedly refused to endorse Trump. In response, Trump threatened to launch a super PAC to take down the Texas senator when he ran for reelection.

Cruz eventually endorsed Trump and the two men have appeared to get along since.

Cruz is facing a challenge from Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso. A Texas Lyceum poll released Wednesday showed them tied, with a large number of undecided voters. But political observers were skeptical — no Democrat has won statewide office in Texas in more than two decades.

Gov. Jerry Brown is the elected state official who asks special interests to donate the most to his favored charities.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Elected state officials in California ask special interests to donate millions of dollars annually to their favorite charities. Now residents can get a clearer picture of who is asking, who is giving and who is getting the money.

The state Fair Political Practices Commission launched a new database search site on its website Thursday that makes it easier to see who the players are and compare them to determine who is raising the most money.

“This is yet another tool to provide the public information about their elected officials,” Commission Chairwoman Jodi Remke said. “It shows who is asking for money and from whom, how much, and where it’s going. An informed public is vital to maintain government accountability.”

The database shows that state elected officials asked businesses, unions and other special interests to donate more than $5 million last year to dozens of their favored charities.

Gov. Jerry Brown raised the most — $2.8 million — with money going to the Oakland Military Institute charter school, the Oakland School for the Arts and the State Protocol Foundation, which pays for some of his travel and events.

Contributors to the charities selected by Brown include United Airlines, the Bicycle Hotel Casino, the Gardena Casino, Walmart and Comcast.

For legislators, charities that received much of the contributions include those formed by caucuses for Latino, African American and female lawmakers.

“It’s very user-friendly,” Commissioner Eric Casher said of the database, adding it provides “lots of useful information.”

Congressional town halls in the early days of the Trump administration have been greeted with protests, counter-protests, boos and jeering.

Not so for freshman Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-San Pedro), who represents a district stretching from Compton to the Port of Los Angeles.

“This is good,” she said about halfway through her hour-and-a-half-long town hall Wednesday in San Pedro. “I haven’t had any tomatoes thrown at me.”

It helps that 61.5% of registered voters in her district are Democrats, but other members in safe Democratic districts, including Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk), have faced protests from Trump’s supporters.

Things were calm for Barragán, who won the seat last year with 52.2% of the vote after a heated race to replace Democratic Rep. Janice Hahn.

She introduced herself, spoke about a recent tour she and the other Democratic members of the House Homeland Security Committee took of the port and introduced her staffers one by one. She fielded questions ranging from how she’d protect benefits for retired federal employees to whether she supports a so-called “Medicare for all” plan (she does).

At one point, a woman in the audience from Wilmington asked Barragán for help getting access to a city and county fund intended to help immigrants in the country without legal status.

Barragán answered the question in Spanish, referring the woman to a nearby caseworker.

Bill Roberson, who described himself as a semi-retired business owner, sat in the back row of the audience and nodded with approval.

“I really like this gal. She is really terrific,” he said. “To have her speak in Spanish with her constituent right in front of me, that’s great.”

If anyone was hoping for a feel-good message from Gov. Jerry Brown at this week’s Navigating the American Carbon World conference on climate change, they didn’t get one.

“Don’t relax,” he told the audience of environmental advocates, business representatives and government officials on Thursday. “Don’t feel good about yourself.”

Brown’s speech was a trademark blend of religious references, political barbs and warnings about the future if global warming isn’t addressed.

“Most people don’t like to think about catastrophe,” he said. “I like to think about catastrophe.”

Brown is planning a trip to China this year to talk about climate change. The election of President Trump has raised the stakes, he said, requiring resistance to efforts to roll back environmental regulations.

“You can’t just go with the flow. We’ve got to go against the flow,” Brown said. “The flow is now leading us to catastrophe,”

The challenge, Brown said, was finding Republicans who want to deal with climate change. He said one member of the party told him, “Don’t ask me to use the words ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change.’ I can’t use those words.

“It’s like going to the Vatican and saying, ‘I want to talk about Planned Parenthood,’” the governor added.

Fighting climate change requires confronting the role of carbon in everyone’s daily lives, Brown said.

“Stopping carbon will be like stopping a heroin addiction,” he said. “We are addicted to carbon. We are repeatedly using it, and we get a tremendous high, a whole way of life.”

The conference was hosted by the Climate Action Reserve, a nonprofit that certifies projects for reducing emissions. Some of those projects are a key part of California’s cap-and-trade program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Brown is pushing lawmakers to extend the program.

“I’m going to be working on that very hard in the next several weeks,” he said.

Earlier this year, Brown asked lawmakers to extend the program as part of the budget process, which faces a June 15 deadline. However, the debate could potentially continue until later this summer or next year.

Former State Sen. Isadore Hall III, left, of Compton talks last year with Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) in Sacramento.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

The state Senate on Thursday confirmed former state Sen. Isadore Hall III for the Agricultural Labor Relations Board despite opposition from Republicans.

Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Hall, a 45-year-old Democrat from Compton, to the position in January, drawing objections from agricultural leaders who noted he had supported the United Farm Workers in labor disputes with growers.

Republicans also want an investigation into allegations that Hall threatened farming leaders who opposed his selection.

Hall’s appointment to the job, which pays $142,095 a year, was approved by a 25-13 party-line vote.

Hall lost a bid for a congressional seat in last November’s election to fellow Democrat Nanette Barragán.

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De León (D-Los Angeles) described Hall as “intelligent as well as thoughtful and fair-minded.”

De León defended his decision not to launch a probe of Hall’s alleged threats against farming leaders, which were said to be made at a hotel bar. “It’s not our practice to review or investigate bar room conversations,” De Leon said.

Sen. Andy Vidak (R-Fresno) said he was disappointed de León decided against an investigation, calling Hall “ill-suited to a judicial position.”

Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) agreed that Hall is not qualified for the job and said the appointment meets the definition of “cronyism.”

However, Democratic Sen. Ben Hueso of San Diego said Hall has integrity and will be a fair member of the board. He said some attacks against Hall, who is African American, are “racially motivated.”

Six months after California voters legalized the recreational use of marijuana, a television commercial has begun airing in the state that promotes a product aimed at cannabis users, but without ever mentioning the drug itself.

Eureka Vapor markets portable vaporizers for cannabis concentrates that the company produces. But you wouldn’t necessarily know that from the commercial, which shows actors portraying figures including athletes, dancers and members of the military with phrases such as “Discover Love” and “Discover Freedom” displayed. The ad ends with the product’s logo and Web address.

Why the mystery?

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and many federally licensed television stations do not accept cannabis advertising, according to Randall Huft, president and creative director of Innovation Agency, which has also done work in the past for AT&T, Hyundai, Toyota, Nestle and Disney.

“We wanted to create a commercial that captures the essence of the brand,” Huft said. “Eureka stands for inclusion, acceptance and love.”

The commercial began airing Friday on KDOC-TV, an Orange County-based independent channel with nearly 1 million viewers per week, and is also scheduled to run on stations in Los Angeles, San Diego and other markets, Huft said.

When KDOC began broadcasting in 1982, it was owned by a group of conservative celebrity investors including Pat Boone and Fess Parker.

John Manzi, the station’s general manager, noted that the Eureka Vapor devices can be used for products other than cannabis.

“We are very careful about taking advertising,” Manzi said. “We didn’t feel it was right to deny advertising to a product that has many uses.”

The vaping device can be used with tobacco products. but it and the cannabis concentrates are primarily aimed at marijuana users and are prominently featured on the company’s website, Huft said.

Will a day ever come when television ads will be able to openly promote cannabis?

“Certainly,” Huft said. “Most things in our lifetime seemed impossible just a short time ago: Equal rights for the LGBT community, gay marriages, Trump becoming president. Anything and everything is possible.”

Gov. Jerry Brown speaks to attendees at the League of California Cities conference in Sacramento on Wednesday.

(John Myers/Los Angeles Times)

Gov. Jerry Brown dismissed criticism Wednesday that negotiations on this month’s $52-billion transportation plan crossed the line into the illegal trading of votes by lawmakers, instead calling it a part of the process of finding political consensus.

“That is preposterous,” Brown said of the accusations leveled by some Republicans in the Legislature. “When we fashion a bill in the democratic system, we don’t do it by an autocratic dictator behind a closed door. You talk to people.”

The governor and Democratic legislative leaders participated in intense negotiations earlier this month to strike the deal that raises fuel taxes and imposes a new annual vehicle registration fee to repair roads and highways and improve public transit. The proposal, Senate Bill 1, needed a super majority of votes in both the Assembly and Senate to pass.

The last few legislators to sign on to the proposal — including just one Republican — insisted on a series of side deals, the bulk of which earmark almost $1 billion in spending for transportation-related efforts in their communities.

On Tuesday, Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) asked state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra to investigate those arrangements.

“This appears to be a standard quid pro quo exchange, which has been made clear by these legislators’ public statements about the evolution of their decision and their rationale for voting for Senate Bill 1,” she wrote in a letter to Becerra.

California’s state Constitution declares it a felony to participate in legislative action influenced by “bribery, promise of reward, intimidation or other dishonest means.”

Brown, who served four years as attorney general until 2010, suggested on Wednesday that personal gain was the proper threshold.

“When somebody says, ‘Here, here’s $10,000, I want your vote,’ you’ve got bribery, it’s illegal,” the governor said. “When someone says, ‘You know, I think this bill would be better if you included these projects, or these ideas or these rules, we listen because that’s democracy.”

(Branden Camp / Associated Press)

Democratic National Committee leader Tom Perez will address California Democrats at their annual convention in May, the state party announced Wednesday.

Perez, who was elected chairman of the DNC in February, previously served as secretary of Labor under President Obama.

The state party convention takes place May 19 to 21 in Sacramento. The state party did not say which day Perez will deliver his keynote address; it previously announced Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) would speak on May 20.

Thousands of delegates and guests attend the annual gathering, which includes speeches from elected officials, strategy sessions and parties. This year’s agenda includes electing a new state party chairman to replace John Burton, who is retiring after serving in the role of nearly a decade.

Delegates can also expect to be courted by the candidates considering gubernatorial runs in 2018, when Gov. Jerry Brown will leave office because of term limits.

Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), shown holding his daughter Brielle as he and the rest of the state Assembly are sworn into office in December.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Backers of a bill to make it harder for police departments to discipline officers for making false statements say the current process ensnares officers who make simple mistakes.

But opponents of the legislation argue that building trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve requires greater accountability. The bill, authored by Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) cleared its first committee hurdle Tuesday.

Read More

(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

A state proposal that sought to expand the list of violent crimes under the California penal code failed to make it out of Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday.

Senate Bill 75, introduced by state Sen. Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel), would have reclassified more than 20 offenses as violent felonies, including certain forms of rape and crimes such as inflicting injury on a child and assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon.

The legislation was voted down with a 5-2 vote along party lines. It was granted the option of “reconsideration,” meaning the committee could take it up again at a later date. But its chances of approval are slim.

In a statement released shortly after the vote, Bates said she respected her Democratic colleagues “for philosophically disagreeing with me on the length of prison sentences.”

“But blocking my violent felony bill today nevertheless jeopardizes the safety of all Californians,” she said. “I do not understand how anyone can say with a straight face that crimes such as assault with a deadly weapon on law enforcement should continue to be considered ‘nonviolent.’”

The bill is one of several this legislative session that seek to broaden the legal definition of a violent crime as California undergoes a massive overhaul of its parole system.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 57, which voters overwhelmingly approved in November, will expand good behavior credits and give new power to the state parole board to consider the early release of prisoners who have served the full term of their primary sentences, and whose crimes are not designated as “violent” under the California penal code.

In guidelines to implement Proposition 57 laid out in his budget proposal, Brown excluded all death row inmates, prisoners serving life sentences without parole and all sex offenders from early parole consideration. Temporary guidelines now in effect make the same exclusions.

But lawmakers and prosecutors argue those exemptions can be challenged in court. Expanding the violent felony list, they say, is the best way to ensure sex offenders and other violent prisoners are not benefiting from the implementation of Proposition 57.

A bipartisan proposal filed by Assemblywomen Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) and Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) would add to the list all forms of rape, spousal rape, sodomy, oral copulation and sexual penetration committed against a victim incapable of consent, including those victims who are intoxicated or mentally ill. It moved out of the Assembly Public Safety Committee last week with a 6-0 vote.

Rep. Steve Knight (R-Palmdale) told the crowd at his packed town hall in Simi Valley that he figured many of them wanted to talk about North Korea. Then the shouts of “Russia” started.

“We won’t talk about North Korea,” he said. “OK. Somebody please ask a question about a person who might start a war out there.”

Knight engaged in about an hour of sometimes testy back-and-forth with the largely liberal crowd as they grilled him on his stances on various issues.

Knight’s district is almost evenly split between registered Democrats and Republicans, while about a fifth of voters list themselves as “no party preference.” National Democrats have targeted Knight’s seat as one they want to flip in 2018.

Rep. Steve Knight at a town hall meeting in Simi Valley.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Would he vote to keep preexisting conditions as the Republican-controlled Congress debates changing Obamacare?

“I will keep preexisting conditions,” he said.

Does he believe in “accelerated” climate change caused by humans?

“I do believe that humans have a part. I do believe that we are possibly in a cycle, “ he said. “But that being said, you can’t put this kind of pollution into the air and not think that it is affecting the atmosphere.”

Knight also fielded questions about President Trump and criticized him for his frequent trips to his Florida resort.

“I don’t think that going down to Mar-a-Lago — or whatever it is called — is proper,” he said.

Asked about Trump’s possible conflicts of interest and whether he was violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution, Knight said he and his staff were reading the Constitution on Tuesday asking, “Is this a violation, is this not? [This situation] is kind of different than any other president because you got a billionaire president that owns things,” he said.

“There has to be either an investigation or some sort of a committee looking into this,” he said.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, get ready to meet Duncan Thumper, a giant rabbit.

With two cute ears, a pair of beady eyes and a little white tail, Thumper is the anthropomorphic personification of the Alpine Republican’s pet rabbit that took a cross-country flight paid for by the congressman’s political campaign.

Thumper will be the image of a political action committee, Bunny PAC, dedicated to focusing on the campaign finance scandal that has hounded Hunter for the last year.

Read More

The state Capitol became a bit more adorable on Tuesday, as backers and opponents of a proposal to impose new restrictions on pet stores trotted out some furry friends to make their cases.

A bill by Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell (D-Long Beach) would prohibit pet stores in California from selling live dogs, cats or rabbits unless the animal was obtained from a shelter or rescue group.

More than 30 cities, including Los Angeles and Sacramento, already have such ordinances on the books, which are meant to clamp down on “puppy mills” that can lead to exploitative breeding practices.

“This bill brings California into compliance with compassion and common sense,” O’Donnell said at a news conference, holding a puppy from the Sacramento Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which brought along several other adoptable pups.

The bill, AB 485, cleared its first committee hurdle Tuesday. But it faces opposition from certain pet retailers, who argue such a measure is an overreach.

David Salinas, who operates four pet stores in the San Diego area, also had a puppy in tow, this one coming from a commercial breeder.

“They say all commercial breeders are puppy mills,” Salinas said, after introducing his puppy to Duane Chapman, known as “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” who was in town advocating against a bail reform measure.

Salinas blamed animal rights activists for giving commercial breeders a bad reputation.

“They shouldn’t force that ideology on everyone,” he said.

Duane and Beth Chapman

(Ronen Zilberman / Associated Press)

Celebrity bounty hunters Duane “Dog” and Beth Chapman on Tuesday were among dozens of bounty hunters and bail agents to voice opposition to a state bill that would drastically transform the way judges award criminal defendants bail in California.

The packed hearing before the Assembly Public Safety Committee signals the ramping up of what state lawmakers have predicted will likely be the largest criminal justice battle at the Capitol this legislative session.

Assembly Bill 42, introduced by Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland), would limit offenders from having to post money as a condition of release from jail and would shift some power from judges to pretrial-services agencies to assess the risks they would pose if allowed out in the community.

It moved out of the public safety committee with a 4-2 vote. An identical bill in the other chamber, introduced by Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys), is pending before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

At Tuesday’s hearing, criminal justice reform advocates crowded the hallways outside the committee room, as authors of the bill emphasized the burden on taxpayers of jailing people without convictions, and the toll on poor defendants who could not afford their release. Supporters pointed to the lower jail populations and success rates of “risk-assessment” models in other cities, including Santa Clara and Washington, D.C.

Bonta said reform was long overdue in California.

“Right now, we have a system where if you are a risk to the public and you are a flight risk, meaning you might not show up to your next hearing, but you have enough money in your pocket, then you could post bail and go free,” he said.

Opponents said reforming the bail system would be costly and do away with small family businesses that have survived generations.

They urged lawmakers to take victims into consideration and urged them to hold off on their bills until the system was studied further. One study by the Pretrial Detention Reform Work Group, appointed by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, plans to release recommendations on best pretrial detention practices in December.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Duane Chapman called the hearing a victory for bail agents, saying lawmakers had agreed to go back to the drawing board.

The state bail system was in need of modernization, and California should be a leader, he said. But he said fugitives should not be allowed to go free.

“Poor people don’t break the law,” he said. “It’s not the poor man that runs. He has no money to run.”

7:40 p.m.: This article was updated with the final vote count.

This article was originally published at 12:05 p.m.

Large boxes full of already opened and emptied envelopes sit at the Franchise Tax Board before being recycled in Sacramento.

(Laura Morton/For The Times)

As Californians rush to file their personal income taxes before a midnight deadline, budget writers in Sacramento are expecting more than $1 billion in payments on Tuesday to help balance the state’s books.

Brown’s budget team has projected a total of $14 billion in income tax revenues this month, a slight uptick from actual returns in April of last year. An analysis by the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office shows that total collections for the month are currently running about 10% above the same time last year.

The final totals as of April 30 are crucial to crafting both Brown’s revised budget plan, which will be presented to the Legislature next month, and the final plan lawmakers must put in place by June 30.

Tax revenues for the current fiscal year — combining sales and corporate taxes along with those paid by individuals — were about $780 million higher than the governor’s estimates through the end of March, the analysts report. Lawmakers and Brown often spar over whose tax revenue predictions to use when crafting a spending plan, a debate the governor has consistently won since returning to office in 2011.

Data from the state controller’s office shows that on tax day in 2016, the state collected $1.5 billion in income taxes. Although taxes collected in other months are also important in building state budgets — notably June and September as quarterly taxes are paid — April remains perhaps the best indicator of the fiscal road ahead.

Brown’s January budget plan projected a $1.6-billion deficit, with proposals to resolve the shortfall including the cancelation of some 2016 spending plans and slower funding growth for California schools.

An undercover DMV officer waits with a shopping cart next to a disabled parking spot while conducting an enforcement sweep of fraudulent use of disabled parking placards at the Glendale Galleria.

(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The California Department of Motor Vehicles isn’t making sure that people issued placards for disabled parking should actually have them, a state audit released Tuesday found.

Among other problems, the audit found the agency hasn’t canceled tens of thousands of the permits issued to people who have died, which has allowed some placards to be misused by their heirs.

The state has 2.9 million placards and disabled license plates in service that are meant to allow motorists with medical disabilities to park in disabled parking spots and curbside in metered spots for free and beyond time restrictions.

“DMV does not sufficiently ensure that applications for placards or plates are legitimate,” auditor Elaine Howle wrote in a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature.

Auditors looked at a sample of 96 approved placard applications and found 70 that “did not include sufficient medical information to demonstrate that the applicant qualified.” If that trend holds, it means the DMV may have approved 1.1 million applications from July 2013 through June 2016 without sufficient information to demonstrate that the applicant was qualified, the audit concluded.

Auditors questioned whether signatures of physicians on several applications matched information on file with the state and found the DMV does not work with health boards to review applications, as it is required to do.

Auditors also checked the name and date of birth of active placard holders against the U.S. Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, and identified nearly 35,000 matches. As of last June, they found nearly 26,000 placard holders were over 100 years old, even though the estimated centenarian population of California is only about 8,000.

In addition, some permanent placard holders have requested “an unusually high number of replacements for lost or stolen placards” and state law does not limit the number of replacements a holder may receive, she said. That means some placard holders might be giving extra placards to friends or family.

Although local sting investigations found about 15% of disabled parking placards are being misused, Howle said some local motor vehicle offices have less enforcement than others.

Auditors said there is no standard for how many sting operations each district office should conduct, so some do many more than others.

“By not establishing reasonable goals to conduct regular sting operations, DMV fails to detect and deter as much of the continued placard misuse as it can,” Howle wrote in the letter.

DMV Director Jean Shiomoto was given an advance look at the audit and has begun making improvements.

“We agree with the recommendations and are pleased to report that we have begun implementing the recommendations,” she wrote as part of the audit report.

The review was requested by former Democratic Assemblyman Mike Gatto.

“The audit showed a program that is even more rife with abuse than anyone could have conceived,” Gatto said Tuesday.

UPDATE

10:07 a.m.: Updated to to include comment from Mike Gatto.

Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Turlock) said Monday night that he wouldn’t support his party’s healthcare legislation unless it left significant parts of Obamacare intact.

“I’ve expressed to leadership that I’m a ‘no’ on the healthcare vote until it is responsive to my community,” he said during a town hall meeting with hundreds of voters in his district.

“There are things in the Affordable Care Act we expect to stay,” Denham added, such as coverage for pre-existing conditions and expanded Medicaid coverage.

Denham had previously expressed concerns about Republican legislation to roll back the Affordable Care Act, emphasizing that residents in his Central Valley district struggle to find doctors. The legislation was withdrawn after the party failed to resolve internal disputes between moderates and conservatives.

Restless members of the crowd frequently interrupted Denham, who won his fourth congressional term in November. Asked if he believes that climate change is real, voters chanted “yes or no?” until he answered.

“Yes, I believe in climate change,” Denham said.

Sen. Kamala Harris spent the first week of the April recess in Iraq and Jordan during her first trip overseas as a member of Congress.

It is common for representatives and senators not to publicize overseas trips until they return, particularly if they are visiting a potentially dangerous area.

In Iraq, Harris met with California service members. In Jordan, she visited with Syrian refugees in the Zaatari camp. The camp holds about 80,000 refugees, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

Harris serves on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, which organized the trip, and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

She wasn’t the only member of California’s delegation traveling overseas last week. Reps. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) and Darrell Issa (R-Vista) were also in the Middle East, making stops in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) visited Japan and South Korea.

Less than three months after being given the green light to start gathering voter signatures, the author of a closely watched effort to split California from the United States has decided to withdraw his proposal.

Marcus Ruiz Evans, the initiative’s official proponent, sent an email Monday to the secretary of state’s office asking to cancel his initiative. State election law allows a proposed ballot measure to be recalled for any reason, as long as it happens prior to 131 days before the election. But to do so, Evans must submit a signed letter — which has yet to be received.

“The biggest obstacle to Calexit is having a professional grass roots administration,” Evans said in an email to The Times. He also said he hopes to revive the issue later this spring with a new organization.

Evans’ initiative would have asked voters next November to call a special election in March 2019, at which time they would be asked to vote on formal secession from the U.S. Whether voter approval could have actually turned California into an independent nation was a source of debate by constitutional experts, with some saying there was no currently operational method for a state to do so. The U.S. Constitution only lays out the steps for a state to join the union.

Nonetheless, the idea gained a broad following on social media in the wake of President Trump’s electoral victory; Evans launched the effort just weeks after Trump’s election. By December, another early leader of the effort had opened what he called a California embassy in Moscow, and in the months afterward, there was substantial infighting among the various groups who supported secession.

Louis Marinelli, a former San Diego resident who now lives in Russia and was the man behind the Moscow venture, became a focal point of criticism from some of the effort’s backers. Nonetheless, he laid blame for the initiative’s failure on Monday with coverage by the news media that in an email he said “simultaneously sensationalized, exaggerated, and dramatized information about our campaign and particularly about myself in an effort to delegitimize our effort and demoralize our supporters.”

Backers would have had to collect 585,407 valid voter signatures by July 25 to qualify. The failure of their effort adds another chapter to a collection of more than 200 earlier attempts to either declare independence or to split California into multiple new states. The most well known in recent years, a 2014 proposal to split California into six new states, failed even after its Silicon Valley backer spent $5 million collecting voter signatures.

Marinelli wrote in his email to supporters that he believes the effort can gain traction at some point in the future.

“The truth is Calexit, like any campaign, is entirely possible with the right amount of public support,” he wrote. “With the right amount of public support, anything can be accomplished regardless of legal or constitutional barriers.”

UPDATE

3:07 p.m.: This story was updated with comment from Marcus Ruiz Evans and with additional information.

This article was originally published at 2:34 p.m.

A San Francisco town hall meeting with Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Monday.

(Marcio Jose Sancez / Associated Press)

Progressive activists who have sought to address Sen. Dianne Feinstein face-to-face for months got what they wanted Monday as Feinstein held a town hall meeting in her hometown of San Francisco.

The most tense moment of the hourlong forum came when she answered an audience member’s question about healthcare by saying she doesn’t support efforts to move to a single-payer system.

Faced with boos, Feinstein said when it comes to a “total takeover” of healthcare by the government, “I’m not there.”

One audience member called Feinstein a “sellout” as others joined in chants of “Single-payer now!”

But the event was mostly calm. One heckler who yelled at Feinstein repeatedly was quickly shouted down by other town hall participants. Questioners pushed Feinstein to make public statements condemning “fascists in the White House” and calling Trump “corrupt” and “incompetent.”

“All of this takes a plan,” Feinstein responded. “I’d be surprised if you found too many senators, if any, that have gotten more done.... I don’t get there by making statements I can’t deliver. I get there through some caution, some discussion, some smart help, good lawyers and we generally get where we’re going.”

At least several audience members held up signs reading “Retire Feinstein” as protesters outside urged her not to seek reelection.

Feinstein, who will turn 84 in June, has hinted that she will seek reelection. Asked about whether she’ll run as she left the town hall, Feinstein told reporters, “You’ll find out soon enough,” according to the Sacramento Bee.

It was Feinstein’s first hometown public town hall meeting since being elected to the Senate 25 years ago.

With Congress in recess this week, several California members are holding their own town halls, including one in Simi Valley on Tuesday with Rep. Steve Knight (R-Lancaster), one hosted by Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-San Pedro) on Wednesday and another with Sen. Kamala Harris on Friday in Los Angeles.

Assembly Democrats gather to discuss their 2017 housing plans, April 17, 2017

(Liam Dillon / Los Angeles Times)

Addressing California’s housing affordability crisis is the next priority of Assembly Democrats, nine lawmakers said at a Monday press conference at a downtown Sacramento low-income housing complex.

Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) said that after legislators passed a major transportation funding package earlier this month, housing was the state’s most significant unresolved issue.

“Like transportation, we need to put our money where our mouth is,” Chiu said.

But any major housing effort faces substantial hurdles in terms of prioritization and garnering support necessary for passage.

Housing might not really be next

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) joined Chiu and his colleagues at the press conference. But afterward Rendon didn’t commit to putting housing issues ahead of re-authorizing the state’s main financial program to combat climate change, another major priority on legislative Democrats’ docket.

“I’m saying housing is next because these bills are coming to committee now,” Rendon said. “But obviously a lot of this stuff runs concurrently. For now, our focus is on housing.”

Housing might not get addressed in upcoming budget negotiations

Last year, Assembly Democrats asked for more than $1 billion in low-income housing spending as part of budget talks. Gov. Jerry Brown whittled that number down to $400 million that would only be allocated if the Legislature agreed to his plan to loosen local rules for approving developments that included low-income housing. Lawmakers balked under intense pushback from labor and environmental groups, among others, and a deal never happened.

Rendon said he didn’t know if Assembly members would make a similar request to fund housing during this year’s budget talks, which begin in earnest next month.

“The conversations weren’t very fruitful last year,” Rendon said. “If there are different conditions we’re certainly open to having those conversations.”

Lawmakers could face many votes to increase taxes

The transportation package passed by the Legislature included a 12-cent increase in the gasoline tax, many other fee hikes and squeaked through the necessary two-thirds supermajority without a vote to spare.

Brown is aiming for another two-thirds vote to extend the state’s cap-and-trade program, which charges businesses to pollute in an effort to fight climate change. Political observers already believe the transportation vote makes it harder to get another one for the environment.

Housing measures, including Chiu’s bid to end the state’s mortgage interest deduction on second, vacation homes and spend that money on low-income housing instead, also require a two-thirds supermajority. Rendon said he believed his colleagues could sign off on a two-thirds vote for housing as well.

“I hope so,” he said. “It’s important. It’s a caucus priority for sure.”

Assemblyman Rudy Salas (D-Bakersfield)

(Rich Pedroncelli / AP)

Assemblyman Rudy Salas (D-Bakersfield), the sole Assembly Democrat to vote no on the $52-billion transportation bill earlier this month, was stripped of a powerful committee post on Monday.

Salas will no longer chair the Business and Professions Committee, a powerful panel that oversees professional licensing —a leadership role that is typically seen as a prime position for fundraising. Taking over the post will be Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell).

“Some days it’s hard to keep your commitments. Today is one of those days,” Salas said.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) did not immediately return a request for comment.

The co-chairman of the informal but influential bloc of business-aligned Democrats, Salas was one of a handful of holdouts in the lead-up to the suspenseful vote on the transportation package, which included an increase in gas and diesel taxes and a new annual vehicle fee. But while most wary Democrats were ultimately cajoled to vote yes, Salas stood out as the sole “no” vote on the Assembly side. State Sen. Steve Glazer, a Democrat from Orinda, also opposed the measure.

The day after the vote, Salas posted a quote from Mohandas K. Gandhi on Facebook that extolled independent, even lonely, action.

Salas’ ouster as chair is one of many ripples set in motion by the bruising transportation fight. Conservative radio host Carl DeMaio has said he’ll work to recall freshman state Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), who narrowly won his seat last year and supported the transportation bill.

And the grind of cobbling together a super-majority to pass the legislation now complicates another top item on Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders’ agenda: securing a two-thirds vote to extend the cap-and-trade program, the centerpiece of California’s efforts to combat climate change.

Read More

If there’s one thing Jed Wheeler and Marcus Ruiz Evans agree on, it’s that things in California need to change.

The state sends too much money to Washington, they say, and is both politically and culturally out of step with a country that lacks its openness and vitality.

They sharply disagree, though, on the matter of how and precisely when California should seek a divorce from the other 49 states.

Evans is pushing a ballot measure that would put the question of secession before voters in 2018, believing the time has never been so ripe to form a breakaway nation. Wheeler is working to create a pro-secession political party, looking a dozen or more years down the road when its candidates hold office, and fears that a premature vote would undermine the effort.

In short, the effort to cleave California faces a crackup of its own.

Read More

Continuing his tradition of considering the requests of felons for a second chance both at Christmas and Easter, Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday issued 72 pardons and seven sentence commutations for crimes ranging from burglary to being an accomplice in a murder.

The bulk of the actions by Brown, however, were for nonviolent drug crimes. Former prisoners who served time for those offenses have made up the majority of gubernatorial pardons since Brown took office in 2011.

The governor’s seven commuted sentences offer most of those involved a chance to be released from prison by the State Board of Parole Hearings.

Only one of the commutations will result in immediate release. Brown reduced the sentence of Maria Arriaga, a Los Angeles woman who was 18 when convicted of killing her newborn child. She was arrested after a suspicious hospital visit. Arriaga told doctors that the baby had been born at home, and did not bring the infant with her. Police later found the dead child at Arriaga’s home. She was convicted of second-degree murder and received a sentence of 15 years to life in prison.

Arriaga was found suitable for parole last year, but her sentence did not allow release from prison until 2021. The governor’s commutation will allow her to be released immediately.

“She had hidden the pregnancy from her abusive boyfriend, her deeply devout Catholic parents, her sisters and her friends,” Brown wrote. “Ms. Arriaga’s conduct in prison has been exemplary and she has deep remorse for her crime.”

The six dozen pardons granted on Saturday were for men and women who, in some cases, served their prison sentences decades earlier.

The governor issued 112 pardons on Dec. 23 and a news release on Saturday said that Brown’s approach to requests from former felons is that “pardons are not granted unless they are earned.”

The slogan one group of California lawmakers wants you to remember is “Third in the nation.” That’s third in picking the nominees for president in 2020, behind Iowa and New Hampshire.

On this week’s California Politics Podcast, we examine two efforts to move the state’s primary to early spring in hopes of the state playing a bigger role in the race for the White House.

We also discuss the aftermath of last week’s big legislative vote on the $52-billion package of new taxes and fees for transportation. While legislators scramble to explain the vote to their constituents, the plan could complicate a big proposal waiting in the wings in Sacramento.

I’m joined by Times staff writer Melanie Mason and Marisa Lagos of KQED News.

(Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

The legal battle over California’s cap-and-trade program is going to the state Supreme Court.

After suffering a defeat last week, the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation announced Friday that it will appeal the decision.

The cap-and-trade program requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, a system designed to provide a financial incentive to reduce pollution. Critics have accused the program of functioning as an unconstitutional tax because it wasn’t approved by a two-thirds vote of the state Legislature, the legal threshold for approving taxes.

A state appeals court in Sacramento rejected that argument, but Tony Francois, a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, said they would keep pressing the case.

“Driven by a ravenous appetite for revenue, the state has given some of our most significant businesses and employers an offer they can’t refuse — either buy emissions permits or get out of California,” he said in a statement.

He added: “If this ‘pay up or shut down’ ultimatum is not a tax, then many forms of traditional taxation — think gas taxes — could also be defined as ‘voluntary,’ and exempted from the taxpayer protections in the state Constitution.”

The California Chamber of Commerce, which also filed a lawsuit against cap and trade, has not decided whether to appeal, according to a spokeswoman for the organization.

Police are investigating a Thursday night break-in and vandalism at the Modesto district office of Assemblyman Heath Flora (R-Ripon).

Vandals removed a window at the assemblyman’s office and spray-painted a swastika and “SS” outside the building, according to Flora’s chief of staff, Dylan Gray. Nothing from the office was stolen.

The Thursday night incident was the latest in a series that has occurred at Flora’s Modesto office since he was elected last year. Previously, someone placed a bag with all the material to make a bomb outside the office, and there was an additional bomb threat, Gray said.

“We obviously do not know if these incidents are all connected, but we are not going to be intimidated by these unprovoked acts,” Flora said in a Facebook post describing Thursday’s incident.

Gray said Assembly sergeants completed a security check on the district office since Thursday night and are recommending that Flora move its location.