Essential Politics May archives

Amid charges that polluting industries are taking over Southern California’s clean-air board, the state Senate on Tuesday approved countermeasures including an expansion of the board by three state apppointees.

Senate leader Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles) introduced the bill that would expand the South Coast Air Quality Management Board from 13 to 16 members and require the board to submit to the state Air Resources Board its plans to meet federal and state air quality standards.

“As a result of deliberate efforts to weaken the board’s clean-air majority, there is not one single Latino on the board,” De Leon told his colleagues before they approved SB 1387 and sent it to the Assembly for consideration.

The new board members would be appointed by the governor, the Senate Rules Committee and Assembly speaker.

De Leon criticized recent actions by the board to dismiss its long-standing executive officer and take steps he said will weaken clean-air regulations.

“The air basin is still among the most polluted areas in the United States of America,” De Leon told his colleagues. “Simply put, we can’t go back on our progress nor can we afford a delay.”

Smoking would be banned at California parks and beaches as a health and wildfire risk under legislation approved Tuesday by the state Senate.

Sen. Marty Block (D-San Diego) introduced SB 1333, which would make smoking or disposing of tobacco waste an infraction subject to a fine of up to $250.

“Cigarettes are non-biodegradable and contain over 164 toxic chemicals,” Block told his colleagues. “They cause a substantial trash issue and health problems at our beaches and parks.”

He also noted second-hand smoke is a health risk to nonsmokers. The bill applies to electronic cigarettes and medical marijuana as well as combustible cigarettes. Block said that the tossing of lighted cigarettes has caused many wildfires. “If this measure prevents just one wildfire, it will save millions” of dollars, he said, as wildfires can cost as much as $3 million each.

The action comes just weeks after Gov. Jerry Brown approved a package of other anti-tobacco bills, including one that raises the smoking age in California from 18 to 21.

Officials estimate it will cost up to $1.1 million to install 20 signs at each of the state’s 280 parks and state beaches.

The bill is supported by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Lung Assn. in California and Sierra Club California.

The vote was 25 to 11 to approve the bill and send it to the Assembly.

An effort to allow felons additional time to reduce their punishments under guidelines established by a 2014 ballot measure made it through the Assembly on Tuesday.

Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure, changed some nonviolent property and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and allowed those previously convicted under the old rules to ask the courts to lower their punishments. But that provision ends next year, and Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) wants to give felons eligible for the relief five more years to reduce their punishments.

“We’re going to find a lot of cases where justice has been denied to individuals,” Weber said during debate on the bill.

Weber said keeping the existing deadline would lead to a flood of petitions that would tie up the courts and force prosecutors to rush through cases. Weber noted that the bill was sponsored by the San Diego County district attorney’s office and unopposed by law enforcement organizations.

But issues surrounding Proposition 47 generate significant controversy. The California Police Chiefs Assn. has blamed the initiative for a recent increase in property crimes across the state.

“Prop. 47 has enough problems,” said Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach). “Let’s not give them more years.”

Because it modifies a ballot measure, Weber’s bill required a two-thirds vote of the Assembly to pass. After debate on the floor, the measure was roughly 10 votes short of passage. But a few hours later, Weber had rounded up enough support.

A year after approving a tougher equal-pay bill for women, the state Senate on Tuesday passed legislation aimed at closing a wage gap in California based on ethnicity.

State and federal law already ban employers from providing different pay based on race or ethnicity. The new measure proposed by Sen. Isadore Hall III (D-Compton) would broaden that prohibition by saying bosses cannot pay employees of one race less than they pay people of other ethnicities for “substantially similar work,” even if their titles are different or they work at different sites.

The legislation, which now goes to the Assembly for consideration, would make it easier for employees to file legal claims over disparate pay.

Hall cited a U.S Census Bureau report that found that black men on average earn 75 cents for every dollar earned by white men.

“It’s the year 2016. It’s unnacceptable,” Hall told his colleagues. “No employee should be denied an equal wage for an equal day of work.”

“This is new territory for me,” said Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley) as he counted the votes for his committee’s simple bill to reauthorize membership dues charged to attorneys for joining the State Bar of California.

The bill only garnered eight votes in support, after a bipartisan group of assembly members rose to criticize the agency’s operations in the wake of a recent audit and accusations leveled by its former executive director.

“It’s time that we send a clear message to the state bar,” said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego).

The agency, which answers to the California Supreme Court, has faced enormous criticism for its business practices and internal operations. The state audit earlier this month concluded that the agency had a “lack of transparency” in its dealings with both attorneys and the public.

Assembly Bill 2878 attempted to address some of the concerns that have been raised while re-upping the authorization to impose $390 annual membership fees for attorneys.

“Everyone agrees that the bar needs to be reformed in some significant ways,” said Stone.

But his colleagues were unmoved when it came to the plan in front of them.

“I hope we have the opportunity to vote on a bill that reflects real reform,” said Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco).

U.S. Rep. Norma Torres endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid over the weekend, leaving just three California House Democrats who haven’t publicly backed a candidate.

In mid-May, the Pomona Democrat said she wanted to hear more from Clinton about immigration and Native American issues before making a decision.

Torres made the endorsement while opening a campaign office for Clinton, saying she wants Democrats to focus on defeating the likely Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

Torres endorsed Obama early in the 2008 race and campaigned for him when she was mayor of Pomona.

Going into the final days before the June 7 primary, 36 House Democrats and the state’s two Senators have endorsed Clinton. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (San Fransisco), Reps. Alan Lowenthal (Long Beach) and Barbara Lee (Oakland) are staying out of things — for now.

Lowenthal and Lee still haven’t decided whom to back, according to their staffers.

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Los Angeles County would be required to create an independent citizens panel to redraw county supervisor district boundaries after the next U.S. Census under a bill approved Tuesday by the state Senate.

Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) modeled his legislation after a process approved by state voters for redistricting at the state legislative level after the last U.S. Census.

“For a county with over 10 million residents … it is imperative that we have a fair and impartial process for drawing districting boundaries,” Lara told his colleagues.

His bill would require the redistricting plan approved by the citizen panel to stand, taking away the county’s current powers to modify it.

SB 958 was approved 25-11, with most Republicans in opposition. It now goes to the state Assembly for consideration and has a good chance of passage.

The state Senate on Tuesday took initial action to pave the way for the state to reimburse San Bernardino-area agencies for the full $18-million cost of responding to the Dec. 2, 2015, mass shooting that left 14 people dead and even more injured.

Sen. Connie Leyva (D-Chino) said the attack created unusually high expenses for police and medical agencies that responded to the terrorist act.

State law would only allow the agencies to get 75% reimbursement, but Leyva said that would create a financial burden for local agencies. Leyva’s bill allows 100% reimbursement.

“Their quick and selfless response saved countless lives and prevented this tragic act from becoming much worse,” Leyva told her colleagues before the uninimous vote to approve SB 1385 and send it to the Assembly for consideration.

The Tea Party Express on Tuesday endorsed Republican Tom Del Beccaro in California’s U.S. Senate race, calling him a “conservative thought leader.”

The political action committee’s support comes just a week before California’s June 7 primary election.

“Tom Del Beccaro has long been a leading California advocate for limited government, fiscal responsibility and policies that promote economic growth,” said Tea Party Express cofounder Sal Russo.

Russo praised Del Beccaro’s call for a federal flat tax and his efforts to broaden the Republican base when he was chairman of the California Republican Party from 2011 until 2013.

Recent opinion polls show Del Beccaro and the other top Republicans in the race — George “Duf” Sundheim and Ron Unz — lagging behind Democrats Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez among likely primary election voters. About one-third of voters said they were undecided.

Under California’s “top-two” primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary will face off in the November general election, regardless of political party.

If Gov. Jerry Brown’s housing plan passes, local governments will lose some of their power over development.

But at the same time the governor wants to force cities to approve affordable housing projects more quickly, he’s relying on the same cities to zone enough land for housing in the first place. Without enough cooperation from cities, it’s unlikely the governor’s plan is going to have much of an effect on the state’s housing shortage.

I’ve written a lot about the governor’s housing plan since he unveiled it earlier this month. I’ve put all my coverage in one place so you can keep track of what’s happening, and I hope to keep it updated as the proposal winds its way through the Legislature.

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With just a week to go before California’s June 7 primary election, Gov. Jerry Brown wrote an open letter saying he will vote for Hillary Clinton “because I believe this is the only path forward to win the presidency and stop the dangerous candidacy of Donald Trump.”

The Democratic governor announced his decision after playing coy for months.

In the letter to California Democrats and independent voters, Brown praised Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for running a strong campaign for the Democratic nomination.

He lauded Sanders for his message that “the top one percent has unfairly captured way too much of America’s wealth, leaving the majority of people far behind.”

Brown noted that mounted a similar campaign when he ran unsuccessfully for president in 1992. (He also ran in 1976 and 1980.)

Clinton touted the Brown endorsement in a press release. It isn’t yet clear to what extent the governor will work to help the former secretary of state, who will be back in California this week to campaign.

California’s strict policy against releasing information about police misconduct will remain in place after a Senate committee killed a bill Friday that would have opened up some records to public disclosure.

SB 1286 from Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) would have allowed the public to access internal reports in cases where police departments found their officers had committed sexual assault or racial profiling, lied on the job or other significant examples of misconduct. It also would have made available investigations of officer-involved shootings and other major use-of-force cases.

The bill had faced substantial opposition from law enforcement groups and was held in the Senate’s Appropriations Committee on Friday without discussion.

California is one of just three states that specifically protect all internal police records from public view. Leno, who will leave the Senate at the end of the year because of term limits, had tried multiple times over the past decade to unwind some of the state’s police confidentiality rules. In recent years, police shootings and other high-profile use-of-force cases across the country had eroded trust in law enforcement, Leno had argued, and opening up the police disciplinary process would help gain it back.

But law enforcement organizations contended the bill would invade officer privacy while existing civilian review boards and potential prosecution provided enough outside accountability of police.

“Strong relationships between the community and law enforcement is critical to good policing,” Craig Lally, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League said in a statement. “However, SB 1286 was poorly written, with no input from law enforcement and would have done nothing to improve relationships with the community.”

Assembly Republicans were more than disappointed by some of the bills quietly killed on Friday during the final action taken by the lower house’s appropriations committee.

They smelled politics at play.

“The majority party speaks often of the need to help Californians who are living in poverty,” said Assembly GOP leader Chad Mayes (R-Yucca Valley). “I am disappointed that Assembly Democrats chose instead to put partisan politics first and block these important bills to give those in need a pathway to a better life.”

Mayes was the author of AB 2058, which would have offered monthly grants of between $100 and $300 for those in the state’s welfare-to-work program, CalWORKs. The bill received bipartisan support in its first committee hearing last month.

Republicans also pointed to bills that would have made forgiven mortgage debt tax-free, and a small monthly boost to the state’s tax credit for renters that has been unchanged for more than a quarter of a century. These bills also sailed through policy committees without any Democratic opposition.

The chairman of the Assembly’s fiscal committee, though, said it was all about the money.

“The Republican Party argues for limited government, yet my Republican colleagues in the Assembly sent more spending bills to the Appropriations Committee than in any year in recent memory,” said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego).

It should be noted that not all Republican bills were killed, either in the Assembly or Senate’s “suspense file” actions on Friday.

Not all bills killed in Friday’s action by the Legislature’s fiscal committees were attempts to resolve huge public policy debates.

Even some of the most narrowly tailored proposals were “held” in the Assembly and Senate appropriations committees. And like all other bills quietly killed during the clearing of the “suspense file,” there was neither public debate nor explanation.

Bills of note and, in many cases, novelty that were killed include:

• AB 2539 by Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) would have required California health standards for the fashion modeling industry. The standards would have required employers to adopt workplace rules to help models avoid developing eating disorders. One former model penned a Times op-ed in support of the bill.
• SB 1467 by Sen. Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) would have placed new limits on how politicians use money raised by their ballot measure campaign committees — committees that can accept donations in unlimited amounts, and where Bates said too many lawmakers spend money to promote themselves.
• AB 2709 by Assemblyman Bill Quirk (D-Hayward) would have banned the sale of balloons made of shiny metallic material that can cause power outages when coming into contact with electricity lines.
• AB 2602 by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale) would have limited free disabled parking to only those Californians with severe “mobility and dexterity” disabilities.
• SBl 1002 by Sen. Bill Monning (D-Carmel) would have required the state to set up a toll-free hotline for people who have questions about California’s new aid-in-dying law, which takes effect June 9.

While the use of marijuana is skyrocketing in California, two bills aimed at cracking down on motorists who drive under the influence of pot were shelved Friday after cannabis industry officials said they were not supported by science.

The Assembly Appropriations Committee sidelined a measure by Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) that would have made it a crime for a person who has 5 nanograms or more of THC, the active ingredient in pot, per milliliter in their blood to drive a vehicle.

The Senate Appropriations Committee also killed a measure by Republican Sen. Bob Huff of San Dimas that would have allowed law enforcement officers to use oral swab tests to strengthen cases.

Huff said his bill is needed, given that medical marijuana is legal in California and a measure proposed for the November ballot would allow recreational use of the drug.

“The use of both legal and illegal drugs while driving is rampant and fatal accidents are on the rise,” Huff said. “I’m disappointed that members of the Appropriations Committee killed this bill, imagining a state cost where none existed.”

He said he had hoped to get federal grants so law enforcement could buy new technology to test motorists.

The decision to shelve the bills was welcomed by Amanda Reiman, a manager with the Drug Policy Alliance.

“California is wise to express a desire to better understand the relationship between cannabis use and impairment before passing laws that could unduly impact those in California most in need of cannabis to alleviate their suffering,” Reiman said.

She noted that the Adult Use of Marijuana Act proposed for the November ballot sets aside revenue to research how to detect impairment.

A measure that would have required many bosses in California to give their employees a work schedule at least one week in advance was shelved Friday after it was labeled a “job killer” by the California Chamber of Commerce.

Sen. Connie Leyva (D-Chino) said her bill applying to employees in restaurants and grocery and retail stores was in response to an increase in unreliable scheduling that she said can leave employees unable to plan child-care, attend college or take a second job.

The bill was held on suspense Friday by the majority-Democrat Senate Appropriations Committee.

“Workers with reliable schedules also have reliable paychecks, which are vitally important so that they have an idea how much they will be making week to week,” Leyva said.

Leyva said Friday she is disappointed that the bill failed but promised to pursue the proposal in the future. “Progress takes time and today is simply another step towards ensuring that workers and their families are treated fairlym,” Leyva said.

SB 878 was a priority of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus and was modeled loosely after a policy adopted by the city of San Francisco in 2014.

However, the Chamber led business groups in fighting the measure, arguing it would “eliminate flexibility in the workplace for employers and employees, deny employees the opportunity to work additional hours if desired” and “subject employers to unnecessary layers of penalties, investigative actions, and costly litigation.”

A closely watched effort to force a statewide vote on Gov. Jerry Brown’s water tunnels project was blocked Friday in the Assembly -- a big victory for Brown in a year where the plan faces some key hurdles.

AB 1713 by Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) would have required voters to approve the construction of twin underground water tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The bill’s language would have meant a statewide vote as soon as 2018.

Like all bills killed during the clearing of the Assembly appropriations “suspense file” there was no discussion and no explanation. Nor was there any public announcement of how legislators on the committee voted.

Though the bill received bipartisan support during an earlier committee vote, it was opposed by water agencies — most notably the powerful Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

With a seriously ill patient waiting for a new liver, the Legislature took the extraordinary action Friday of having both houses — within an hour — approve a bill that would allow HIV-positive people to donate organs to others who are HIV-positive.

Gov. Jerry Brown later Friday signed the bill, which becomes effective immediately. “This is a life-saving matter that aligns California with federal law,” said Deborah Hoffman, a spokeswoman for Brown. ,

The Assembly and Senate acted on the measure after San Francisco surgeon Peter G. Stock told lawmakers he has two HIV-positive patients needing liver transplants, including one who has identified a donor. However, state law makes it illegal for HIV-positive people to donate organs.

“I am deeply concerned for these patients because their health is failing, and I am concerned that, by the time the Legislature is able to act in the ordinary course, the patients will be unable to receive a transplant due to deterioration or unavailablity of a donor,” wrote Stock, professor of surgery at the UC San Francisco Medical Center.

Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) introduced SB 1408, which he said could prolong the life of seriously ill patients.

“Right now there is a felony associated with that donation,” Allen told his colleagues on the Senate floor. “We can save a life this month.”

He said 22 Americans die every day waiting for an organ transplant. “Let’s take care of this stigma. Let’s take care of this injustice,” he said.

With a life on the line, the case drew the involvement of state Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, who supported the change in the law. Harris wrote to lawmakers that they should “quickly remove these outdated criminal penalties and permit Dr. Stock and others to perform these groundbreaking and life-saving surgeries.”

Word of the governor’s action thrilled Dr. Stock, the surgeon.

“I’m stoked,” he said. “It’s going to mean something for 60 patients on the waiting list who have HIV but it also means something for the 4,000 other people on the waiting list who don’t have HIV because for every donor we add, somebody benefits.”

The patient whose husband has agreed to donate part of his liver will undergo surgery in a matter of weeks, “as soon as possible,” Stock said.

The surgery will take half of the liver of the husband with the understanding that livers can regenerate back to full size in weeks, he said.

UPDATED at 1:55 p.m. to reflect that the bill was signed by Gov. Brown.

Cecilia Muñoz is the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. She’s talking about how regulations can make homes less affordable, and she favorably cites Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed legislation to limit local government review over affordable housing projects.

Three California Republican officials called on state Assemblyman Roger Hernández (D-West Covina) to resign from public office Thursday and end his congressional campaign a day after the lawmaker’s wife accused him in court of repeatedly assaulting her over the course of their three-year relationship.

“Given the serious and growing list of accusations, Assemblyman Hernández’s continued presence in the State Assembly brings dishonor to the entire California State Legislature,” state Sen. Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) said in a statement.

Rep. Mimi Walters of Orange County and California Republican Party Vice Chairwoman Harmeet K. Dhillon also called for Hernandez to step down and end his campaign challenging Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk).

Baldwin Park City Councilwoman Susan Rubio, who is seeking a domestic violence restraining order against Hernández while the two are going through divorce proceedings, detailed several episodes of domestic violence in court Wednesday.

She testified that he became physically violent with her more than 20 times during their relationship, alleging that he choked her with a belt, beat her with a broom and once held a knife over her head.

Hernández is mounting an intraparty challenge against Napolitano for her 32nd Congressional District seat in California’s June 7 primary. A spokeswoman for Hernández’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Hernández has an obligation to the people of California to represent them equally, and the repeated, serious allegations of abuse that surround him are in no way conducive to his role in representing California in the State Legislature,” Dhillon said in a statement. “Domestic violence is a very serious issue in our society, not a ‘private matter’ to be brushed under the rug by a man holding public office.”

In a May 3 declaration, Hernández denied earlier allegations by Rubio when she sought a temporary restraining order against him.

In a statement released by his spokesperson Thursday, Hernández said he would continue his campaign and maintained that the accusations were politically motivated.

“These allegations are retaliation,” he said in the statement. “At no point throughout our lengthy 16-month divorce process did Susan Rubio ever raise any accusation of domestic violence.”

Updated 6:50 p.m. This story has been updated with a response from Hernández.

From commercial fishing to tax credits and even fashion model regulations, a massive stack of proposed laws faces a major deadline Friday morning at the state Capitol.

To survive, they must clear what’s known as the “suspense file” -- the place where bills that would cost taxpayers money are held in legislative limbo.

By law, bills with a fiscal impact must be sent to the floor of the Assembly and Senate by the close of business on Friday. That means it’s decision time for 694 pieces of legislation: 245 in the Senate, 449 in the Assembly.

Bills are generally sent to the “suspense file” if their projected cost to the state is $150,000 or more. The procedural move was widely used during California’s deficit years as a way for lawmakers to weigh the pros and cons of proposals in light of limited resources.

But government watchdog groups have long pointed out that the clearing of the “suspense file” ends up hiding some of the legislative sausage-making from public view.

That’s because bills that don’t clear Friday’s hurdle are essentially killed without a recorded vote.

And neither chamber offers any explantion for why those bills were killed. Decisions on the fate of the “suspense file” are made in private, hours or days before the public hearing.

In the Assembly, the Appropriations Committee chairperson will simply tell the public that a decision has been made to “hold” the bill. In the Senate committee, killed legislation won’t even be mentioned during Friday’s hearing.

That means that no one will know for sure whether a bill is really killed because of its price tag or its politics.

Why are well-funded interest groups spending money to support both a Republican and a Democrat in the same Assembly race?

In Assembly District 47, one of the most hotly contested races this cycle, they may be trying to game California’s top-two primary system.

The California Realtors Assn. has poured in more than $207,000 toward getting Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown (D-San Bernardino) reelected in her tough fight against Colton attorney Eloise Reyes.

But it has also been quietly funneling money into a committee that’s backing the race’s sole Republican, Aissa Chanel Sanchez, a 24-year-old regional sales training manager for SolarCity with no political experience and who has raised no money of her own.

Sanchez does not have an official campaign manager or a campaign website. She has not raised or spent any money, she said.

“It was just more of a confidence booster,” Sanchez told The Times. “I know people are looking at how young I am, but it’s just a learning experience.”

The Reyes campaign is crying foul.

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Sen. Ben Hueso (D-San Diego)

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

The state Senate on Thursday approved a bill that would prohibit businesses in California from charging customers different prices for similar goods on the basis of gender.

State Sen. Ben Hueso (D-San Diego), the author of the bill, cited the example of two substantially similar disposable razors sold by the same company. A package of 12 blue razors marketed for men cost $7.99. A package of 12 pink razors for women sold in the same store for $12.99.

“We understand that women already earn less income. Why are we charging them more for essential products that they need in their everyday lives?” Hueso said during the floor debate. “This bill would prohibit the sale of goods on the basis of discrimination to women or men.”

He also cited a 2015 study by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs that looked at a wide variety of products, including toys and clothing, which found that women’s products cost more 42% of the time while men’s products cost more 18% percent of the time.

California has, for two decades, protected consumers against gender price discrimination in the service industry.

Hueso’s bill would allow consumers to challenge different prices by the same brand for similar or identical products.

But it allows price differences based specifically on the labor, materials, taxes or other gender-neutral reasons.

Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) joined most Republicans in opposing the bill, predicting it would lead to a flood of frivolous lawsuits that could drive small retailers out of business. He said consumers and the marketplace will weed out unfair pricing.

“I don’t think we need to have a pricing police going into retail shops,” Moorlach said. “I see it as a nightmare for retailers.”

State Sen. Connie Leyva (D-Chino) brought up an example in which one company sells a red boy’s scooter for $29.99 and a pink girl’s scooter for $49.99.

Other lawmakers joked about consumers saving money by using a product marketed to the opposite sex.

“Members, sex discrimination isnt a joke,” responded state Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley). “It’s a reality that women have been living with for centuries.”

The bill goes to the Assembly for consideration.

Retiring Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) tweeted this photo of her holding a kangaroo at an annual reception held on Capitol Hill by the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums.

Also attending the reception were an armadillo, penguins, sharks and a sloth, according to Capps’ staff.

After voting this morning, the House left for the Memorial Day break. Members aren’t scheduled to return until after California’s June 7 primary.

A new poll finds that 67% of likely voters in California support a proposed initiative that would increase the state’s tobacco tax by $2 per pack of cigarettes.

The poll by the Public Policy Institute of California also found that 60% of likely voters say that, in general, marijuana use should be legal, and 37% say it should not be legal.

The poll results are a boost to a coalition of health groups called Save Lives California that has submitted signatures it believes are sufficient to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

“Voters are poised and ready to save lives and ask smokers to pay their fair share to improve healthcare and fight cancer,” said Ken Wallis, a dentist and president of the California Dental Assn.

The measure, which also taxes electronic cigarette products, is opposed by the tobacco and vaping industries.

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren and a University of San Diego law professor got into a sharp back-and-forth over transgender rights during a House Judiciary Committee hearing this week about federal regulations.

Amid the national conversation about bathrooms and transgender rights, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights issued guidance on what facilities transgender students should be allowed to use at public schools.

University of San Diego School of Law professor Gail Heriot said the guidance is an example of the executive branch overreaching what the legislative branch intended.

Lofgren, a Democrat from San Jose, took issue with how Heriot described being transgender in her written statement. It is common for witnesses to submit a lengthy statement to the committee along with brief remarks.

“We are teaching young people a terrible lesson. If I believe that I am a Russian princess, that doesn’t make me a Russian princess, even if my friends and acquaintances are willing to indulge my fantasy,” Heriot’s written statement reads.

Heriot is a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

“I found this rather offensive,” Lofgren said. She theorized that the professor had never met a transgender child.

Heriot asked to comment, and Lofgren shot back: “No, it’s just my opinion.”

The video below shows the clash, starting with Lofgren reading from Heriot’s written testimony. Fingers are pointed. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) ultimately cut Lofgren off.

“We allow witnesses to say offensive things, but I cannot allow that kind of bigotry to go into the record unchallenged,” Lofgren responded.

The estranged wife of Assemblyman Roger Hernández (D-West Covina) accused him of assaulting her more than 20 times over the last three years at a divorce court hearing in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Baldwin Park City Councilwoman Susan Rubio, who is seeking a domestic violence restraining order against Hernández, detailed eight episodes of alleged violence during her testimony, including one in which she said Hernández choked her with a belt and another in which she said he “dropped” her on the floor and beat her with a broom.

Rubio testified that during one argument Hernández accused her of having an affair, retrieved a knife from the kitchen, held the knife over her head and told her, “Keep talking, watch what happens,” before backing away from her.

Hernández, who was at the hearing, declined to comment through his lawyer, Donald Schweitzer. In his opening statement, Schweitzer accused Rubio of coming forward with the allegations to hurt Hernández’s political career.

The assemblyman is challenging Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk) for her 32nd Congressional District seat in California’s June 7 primary. Rubio’s sister, Blanca Rubio, is running for the Assembly seat Hernández is vacating because of term limits.

In court, Susan Rubio said Hernández accused her of “hooking up” with state Sen. Ben Hueso (D-San Diego) when Rubio and Hernández went on a trip to Rosarito, Mexico, for her birthday with Hueso and his wife. Rubio said Hernández was upset that she and Hueso had separated from the others while horseback riding on the beach. She accused her estranged husband of pushing her when the other couple weren’t looking.

A spokeswoman for Hueso said that he remembered the trip but that there was no fight and Rubio and Hernández never argued. Hueso denied any allegation of an affair.

Rubio also alleged Hernández yelled at her for “ignoring” him during a separate trip to a Rosarito wine festival with other members of the Legislature. She said he stepped on her toe so hard that her toenail broke. He threatened to throw wine on her if she did not stop crying before other lawmakers saw her, she said.

“So I just held the pain,” Rubio said in court.

Rubio testified she tried to conceal bruises by wearing long sleeves and turtleneck shirts. She said she urged Hernández to seek professional help.

“I loved him,” she said.

In a May 3 declaration, Hernández denied earlier allegations by Rubio when she sought a temporary restraining order against him.

“I would never engage in the type of conduct respondent has accused me of committing,” he said in a court document.

Schweitzer said he would not comment on the case until he was able to cross-examine Rubio at the next court hearing on June 9. The temporary restraining order barring Hernández from contacting Rubio remains in place until then.

Times staff writer Liam Dillon contributed to this report.

(Charlie Neibergall / Associated Press)

The Democratic primary appears to have narrowed in California, according to a new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California.

The poll showed a statistical tie between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders among likely Democratic voters. Clinton had 46% support, Sanders had 44%, and the margin of error was plus or minus 5.7 percentage points.

A previous poll, released in March, had Clinton leading 48% to 41%.

The survey counts both registered Democrats and independents who said they would cast ballots in the Democratic primary as “likely Democratic voters.”

But any independents who want to vote in the Democratic primary on June 7 still must request a Democratic presidential ballot.

When only registered Democrats were counted, Clinton was ahead 49% to 41%.

Lawmakers have approved Gov. Jerry Brown’s effort to stash away an extra $2 billion in budget reserves, but Democratic leaders are gearing up for a showdown with the governor over spending levels for welfare and child assistance programs.

Passage of a spending plan by the Assembly Budget Committee on Thursday turns the focus to a conference committee of the two houses.

The Senate’s budget writers approved their own proposal on Tuesday.

In a sense, budget plans from both houses suggest a series of nips and tucks to Brown’s plan, cobbling together enough additional cash to fund a handful of Democratic legislative priorities.

Some of the more notable differences between legislators’ budget plans and Brown’s:

• Brown has proposed putting an extra $2 billion into the state’s rainy-day fund as insurance against future economic downturns. While the Assembly agreed, Senate Democrats want to put the money into a different cash reserve that could be more easily tapped in the months to come.
• Democrats in both houses are pushing for repeal of the long-standing law that denies families on welfare assistance additional help in the event of a new child. The change in the so-called “maximum family grant” would add about $100 million in spending in 2016-17.
• The Assembly has included some $600 million for child care and preschool programs, a key demand of the Legislative Women’s Caucus but opposed by the Brown administration.
• Both houses seek to slow down the spending on the Brown administration’s plan to earmark $1.5-billion for the construction and replacement of new state government buildings. Doing so would free up more money for spending on other government programs.
• Assembly members want to redirect $250 million set aside by the governor for local jails. Their budget plan would send the money to mental health and community services. “We have to carve out new solutions,” said Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), the Budget Committee chairman, on Thursday.
• Lawmakers are assuming that voters will approve a ballot measure on Nov. 8 to extend existing income tax rates on the most wealthy Californians. While the tax issue wouldn’t affect revenues in the fiscal year that begins July 1, it’s built into expectations about revenues for 2018 and beyond.

Updated 5:07 p.m. This story has been modifed. The original version incorrectly stated that the Assembly’s budget proposes putting $2-billion into a cash reserve fund that’s easier to access, but that proposal is contained in the Senate plan.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press )

The House voted 247 to 169 Wednesday to keep to a measure affecting California’s drought in an appropriations bill.

Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Stockton) had moved to strip the measure from the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2017. He and other Northern California Democrats argue it would have a severe effect on the Endangered Species Act and Clean Air Act.

The House passed Hanford Republican Rep. David Valadao’s bill almost a year ago, but the Senate has refused to take it up, and many state Democrats object to it. His legislation focuses on funneling more water to San Joaquin Valley growers by reducing the amount used to support endangered fish populations.

Including the text of Valadao’s bill forces the two chambers to reconcile the versions of the bill.

The Senate is reviewing a bill proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) as part of a broad package of water bills for Western states.

California Republicans and Democrats took to the House floor Tuesday night to debate keeping the language in the bill.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) met with Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in her office Wednesday.

“I was truly impressed by his brilliant legal mind and his quiet pursuit of justice,” she said on Facebook after the meeting.

On his way to the meeting, Garland passed a framed photo taken the day Boxer and several other then-House members stormed to the Senate to demand that Anita Hill’s sexual harassment claims be heard before voting to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

Boxer credits that fight for her ascension from the House to the Senate. The California senator has met with and considered six Supreme Court nominees since her 1992 election.

Garland has met with senators in both parties — including Sen. Dianne Feinstein — even as Republican Senate leaders say they will not consider a nominee put forward by President Obama.

Elections officials across California are doing more than just preparing for the fast-approaching June 7 presidential primary. They are also making key decisions that will determine the size of the statewide ballot six months from now.

Backers of 10 potential propositions are watching as county elections workers check hundreds of thousands of voter signatures gathered over the past few months, most of which were submitted last week.

In doing so, there are two key questions: Did the campaigns -- on issues ranging from gun control to the salaries of hospital executives -- collect enough valid signatures? And can local officials make that determination through a random sampling of the signaures submitted?

If the random sample estimates that between 95% and 110% of an initiative’s signatures are valid, Secretary of State Alex Padilla will order that every signature must be checked. That process would undoubtedly not be complete by June 30, the legal deadline to qualify for this fall’s ballot.

In other words: Any initiative that can’t qualify for the ballot by the “random sample” method would have to wait until the November 2018 election.

Eight measures have already secured a spot on this fall’s ballot, though one of them -- to increase the statewide minimum wage -- is expected to be withdrawn in the coming weeks after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a wage boosting law last month.

An updated report on Monday shows that of the 10 measures with signatures being checked, five appear in solid shape for clearing the “random sample” hurdle. State officials have yet to receive full county reports on signatures submitted for the remaining five initiatives.

An additional measure, which would ask voters their opinion on federal campaign finance rules, could be placed on the ballot by the Legislature. That would bring the total for Nov. 8 to 18 statewide propostions -- the most since March 2000.

Tommy Chong is a big Bernie Sanders guy. He regularly tweets out love for the senator from Vermont. Earlier this year he and some volunteers got together and made a video supporting Sanders for president.

So he was kind of bummed when he was disinvited from introducing Sanders before a rally in East Los Angeles on Monday.

“It’s lip service to get the votes, but they don’t want to endorse what I stand for and what I’ve stood for all my professional career,” Chong told The Hollywood Reporter after he was uninvited to the rally. “It was an insult.”

A Sanders spokesman told the Reporter: “We appreciate his support but a scheduling issue came up.”

Later in the day Chong seemed to have mellowed out about the snub.

When The Times last spoke to Chong about the presidential race, he was upfront about his low opinion of Donald Trump and other Republicans in the race at the time.

He said Hillary Clinton would make a fine commander in chief, but he didn’t like her big-money donors.

“It is a money dance. They are dancing for whoever is pulling the strings,” he told The Times. “That’s what I like about Bernie; there is no one pulling the strings.”

Either way, Chong seemed to be all right on Tuesday. After all, it is his birthday. He is 78.

House Republicans are making another push for a bill addressing California’s drought, adding the text of a measure by Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) to two pieces of legislation headed to the Senate.

The House passed Valadao’s bill almost a year ago, but the Senate has refused to take it up. His legislation focuses on funneling more water to San Joaquin Valley growers by reducing the amount used to support endangered fish populations.

The Senate is reviewing a bill proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) as part of a broad package of water bills for Western states.

Including the text of Valadao’s bill in either measure would force the two chambers to reconcile the versions of the bill.

On Tuesday, Republicans and Democrats from Caifornia’s 53-member House delegation lined up to debate the inclusion of Valadao’s measure in the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal 2017.

The White House signaled this week that Valadao’s water legislation would prompt a veto of the appropriations bill if it reached his desk.

The House also will vote to include the language in the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016.

Here are some highlights from Tuesday’s back and forth among some California lawmakers.

Valadao held up a photo of tarp-covered homes in his district along arid dirt he called a shantytown.

“This is not in a Third World country. This is in the United States of America, this is right here in California, and this is something that’s happening in these communities because of this water being wasted,” he said.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) argued that House Republicans have repeatedly met privately with Democrats to craft legislation the whole delegation can live with, but have been publicly stymied.

“There were more Democrats than there were Republicans and we stayed months in there talking. And we came to a lot of agreements. Maybe some people that were in the room won’t say that on the outside, but on the inside they agreed to a lot of pieces of the legislation,” he said.

Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Stockton) sponsored an amendment to pull the Valadao text out of the bill. A vote on the amendment wasn’t held Tuesday night.

“These provisions would undermine 40 years of progress,” the Democrat said. “The provisions in the bill will weaken the Endangered Species Act and set a precedent of putting aside environmental protections.”

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) said that gutting the Endangered Species Act and ignoring the Clean Water Act to just turn on the pumps would be the “death knell of the delta.”

Rep. Jim Costa of Fresno was the only Democrat to speak in support of including Valadao’s measure, saying that at least it would provide some relief.

“In the absence of getting a comprehensive water bill passed into law, which I have not given up hope for and my colleagues on both sides are still working on [on] a bipartisan basis with Sen. Feinstein, I hope my colleagues in the meantime will join me in supporting the provisions in this bill that Congressman Valadao has been able to provide that will in fact contain relief to the people of California who we represent and who have been most impacted by this drought,” he said.

A proposed ballot measure to legalize the recreational use of marijuana could generate more than $1 billion annually for state and local governments, but also would likely lead to more cannabis use, requiring additional money to be spent on drug treatment, the state Legislative Analyst’s Office said Tuesday.

The report was presented to state lawmakers who held a hearing on the measure, which was proposed for California’s November ballot by a coalition that includes former Facebook president Sean Parker.

The measure would allow adults ages 21 and older to possess, transport and use up to an ounce of marijuana for recreational purposes and place a 15% tax on retail sales of the drug.

“Our best estimate is that the state and local governments could eventually collect net additional revenues that could range from the high hundreds of millions of dollars to over $1 billion annually,” analyst Aaron Edwards of the Legislative Analyst’s Office told lawmakers.

Supporters noted the measure requires some of the money generated go to stepped-up law enforcement and drug treatment programs and would reduce the state’s cost of keeping offenders in jail or prison.

“It’s time for a different approach, one that brings sanity and clarity to our marijuana laws,” said Diane Goldstein, a retired lieutenant with the Redondo Beach Police Department.

However, Shaun Rundle of the California Peace Officers Assn. said the marijuana measure will lead to more violent crime, including home-invasion robberies of marijuana growers. He said it “will undoubtedly burden keepers of the peace.”

Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) said he is “quite irritated” that the proposal is an initiative instead of legislation that lawmakers could refine.

“My great concerns … are specifically about legal marijuana dispensaries becoming the neighborhood blight centers we’ve seen in liquor stores,” Ridley-Thomas said.

Meanwhile, the California Assn. of Highway Patrolmen on Tuesday joined other law enforcement groups in opposing the marijuana initiative, saying it will make California’s highways and roads “more dangerous” by increasing the number of drivers who are high on drugs.

“This proposed measure will result in no cost savings to the highway patrol, and in fact adds costs due to increased marijuana DUI-related accidents and fatalities as experienced by other states,” said the association’s president, Doug Villars. “This initiative also allows passengers in a vehicle to smoke marijuana, resulting in second-hand smoke intoxication of the driver.”

The measure, which is in the signature verification stage, had previously been opposed by the California Police Chiefs Assn. and the California State Sheriffs’ Assn.

Lawmakers from the Assembly and Senate are continuing to push Gov. Jerry Brown to spend money on affordable-housing programs.

Assembly Democrats are asking for $650 million in subsidies to pay for rental housing for low-income workers, tax credits and farmworker housing. That amount, which advanced out of a budget hearing Tuesday, is half the $1.3-billion request a dozen Assembly Democrats made last month. Senators renewed their request for $200 million in funding to combat homelessness during their own budget hearing.

Brown didn’t include either funding request in his revised budget, saying that affordable-housing subsidies brought too little bang for the buck, especially with numerous budgetary pressures.

By reducing their request, Assembly members seemed to concede that a larger dollar figure didn’t have a chance to get Brown’s support.

“While the $650 [million] falls short of our original ask, if you will, it represents a significant investment of funds to address what is nothing short of a full-blown affordability crisis,” said Assemblyman Kevin Mullin (D-South San Francisco).

The governor does support a $2-billion bond promoted by Senate leaders that would reallocate existing dollars toward homelessness services. Brown’s major housing affordability plan involves loosening restrictions for developers to build homes, but that effort has attracted major opposition from labor and environmental groups.

Long-stalled plans to boost funding for road repairs in California won’t happen as part of the state budget deal, the leader of the Assembly budget committee said.

“We have been working on transportation funding for over a year,” said Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco). “Overall, I support the governor’s proposal and, although it has a lot of support in the Legislature, it doesn’t have the votes to pass by June 15. By moving it to the policy process, we can keep these important discussions moving forward.”

Gov. Jerry Brown called a special session of the Legislature last summer to deal with road funding, but little progress has been made since. Last week, a coalition of cities, counties, labor and business groups put forward a new plan, which relies on increases in gas taxes and vehicle fees as well as reforms to the repair process, in hopes of breaking the logjam.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will meet Wednesday afternoon with President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland.

The California senator has met with and considered six Supreme Court nominees since her 1992 election.

Garland has sat down with senators in both parties, even as Republican Senate leaders maintain they will not consider a nominee put forward by Obama. The White House has cast the meetings as chipping away at GOP resistance.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) met with Garland on April 6.

Then-state Sen. Leland Yee, left, and then-Sen. Ron Calderon in 2014, before both men were suspended with pay over corruption charges.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Assemblyman Ian Calderon (D-Whittier) has spent $41,500 in political funds to support Proposition 50, an anti-corruption measure put on the ballot in response to issues raised when his uncle, former Sen. Ronald Calderon, was indicted in a bribery case.

Ronald Calderon and Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco were indicted in separate corruption cases in 2014, leading to their suspension with pay by the Senate after lawmakers said state law prevents them from withholding the money. Proposition 50 would allow suspensions without pay.

Ian Calderon said he is supporting the ballot measure on principle.

“I voted to put Proposition 50 on the ballot because I believed it to be the right thing to do,” he said. “Proposition 50 protects our institution, and will help restore people’s trust in our ability to do our job.”

SeePolitical produced this video explaining Proposition 50.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) and former California Rep. Howard Berman will help draft the Democratic Party’s platform this year.

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz named them to the 15-member panel that will help determine policy priorities ahead of the party’s July convention in Philadelphia.

This year, Democrats divided the makeup of the panel, with presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders each allowed to name a portion of the group and Wasserman Schultz naming four people. Lee and Berman were selected by Wasserman Schultz.

California’s deadline to register to vote is Monday night, but the plaintiffs in a federal voting rights lawsuit are undeterred in their quest to get extra time.

William Simpich, the attorney who filed a lawsuit on Friday demanding additional time to register new voters, said on Monday that he’s still waiting for the scheduling of a hearing in the case.

At issue: Confusion among some of California’s independent voters, officially know as voters with “no party preference.” As the Times first reported on Sunday, the lawsuit alleges these voters have not been given enough information about how to cast a ballot in the June 7 presidential primary.

The lawsuit was filed by a group supporting Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, as well as two voters from the Bay Area and California’s American Independent Party.

The deadline to register to vote in California’s June 7 primary ends just before the clock strikes midnight.

• To check the status of your voter registration, go to this website
• Not sure which county you live in? Enter your ZIP code here
• If you need to register, or reregister, go here
• The last day to apply for a vote-by-mail ballot by mail is May 31. To make that request, you’ll have to submit a form through your county official’s office. You can find that here

If you’re an independent voter who wants to vote the Democratic Party ballot, you’ll have to be registered as “No Party Preference” and request a Democratic presidential primary ballot. (That’s at the heart of a lawsuit filed by backers of Sen. Bernie Sanders.)

If you’re registered with the American Independent Party instead, you won’t be able to cast that vote. You can check your status here.

A measure aimed at registering more college students to vote passed the Assembly on Monday.

AB 2455 by Assemblymembers David Chiu (D-San Francisco) and Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) cleared the house with a 52-23 vote.

The idea was originally proposed by two UC Berkeley law students who sought to require California State University and community college campuses to automate voter registration for students when they sign up for classes online.

That language was stripped from the bill. Under the new version, campuses would be required to integrate a more direct link between online college enrollment systems and the Secretary of State’s online voter registration page, but would not be required to automatically transfer data to elections officials to register eligible voters.

Cal State and community colleges already are required to include a link to online voter registration on their websites, but Chiu says the new bill will encourage those systems and the University of California to move toward automated registration of students.

“I’m committed to continuing to explore this idea further and see how we can implement it in the future,” said Paul Monge, 26, who, along with recent graduate Cindy Dinh, submitted the idea to the lawmakers’ “There Ought To Be a Law” contest.

Monge said concerns were raised about the fact that unlike the DMV, which also registers voters, some colleges don’t collect and store signature information, a requirement to verify voter forms.

“We’ve been working closely with Paul and Cindy through every step of the legislative process,” Chiu said in a statement. “They’ve been supportive of the amendments because we’re still getting more young people registered to vote and this bill brings us one step closer to automated student registration.”

The bill next moves to the state Senate.

The state Senate on Monday approved legislation that would prohibit developers, environmentalists and others from having private, off-the-record communications with members of the California Coastal Commission that could influence decision-making.

Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) introduced the measure because of concern over the recent Coastal Commission decision to remove Executive Director Charles Lester during a closed-door session with little public explanation.

More than 200 environmental activists and others testified against the removal, with some claiming commissioners were making the agency friendlier to developers.

Jackson told her colleagues that the commission has ‘’run amok,” adding the removal “has resulted in a high degree of public uncertainty, accusations of a lack of transparency in the decision-making process and concerns of undue influence.”

The bill would explicitly prohibit ex-parte communications involving development permit applications and board hearings on enforcement actions against improper development.

“SB 1190 will help restore the public’s trust in this commission, ensure that decisions are made with transparency and remove that backroom decision-making or the public perception that backroom decision-making occurs,” Jackson said during the floor debate. The vote was 23-12.

The commission, which plans and regulates the use of land and water along the coast, allows ex parte communications as long as they are disclosed. However, Jackson said the disclosures are often delayed.

Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) voted against the bill, saying it is too restrictive on communications between the public and its government.

“I think we are probably overreacting to something,” he said.

Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) voted for the bill despite concerns that the bill could prevent full and fair hearings to people and lacks a prohibition in ex parte communications with staff.

“Currently it’s nearly impossible to get a full and adequate hearing without ex parte communications,” Hertzberg said, noting interested parties often get only minutes to make their case at a hearing.

A federal lawsuit alleging widespread confusion over California’s presidential primary rules asks that voter registration be extended past Monday’s deadline until the day of the state’s primary election on June 7.

“Mistakes are being made,” said William Simpich, an Oakland civil rights attorney who filed the lawsuit Friday.

At issue is whether voters understand the rules for the presidential primary, which differ from those governing other elections in California.

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It’s one of the biggest political questions in California once 2016 is all said and done: How many Democrats will jump into the race for governor in 2018?

On this week’s California Politics Podcast, we discuss the entry into the race by state Treasurer John Chiang. And we look ahead as to how both Chiang and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom may work to keep their names in the news over the next two years.

We also discuss the complicated politics of gun control bills now making their way through the Legislature. And in our final segment, a little bit of political potpourri: Gov. Jerry Brown’s new challenges on water and high-speed rail, and how the Nov. 8 statewide ballot is finally taking shape.

California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday endorsed Kamala Harris for the U.S. Senate, saying she has served the state well as attorney general and delivering a blow to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana), her top rival in the race.

“Kamala has done a great job and, as her client, I know what a hell of a lawyer she is,” Brown said. “She’s intelligent; she knows what she’s doing.”

Brown announced support at the headquarters of the California Democratic Party, which had endorsed Harris during the party’s February convention in San Jose.

The move crystallizes her support among the state’s top Democratic politicians.

Harris’ longtime friend and San Francisco political ally Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom endorsed her Senate bid in January.

Brown, Newsom and Harris all use the same San Francisco political consulting firm, SCN Strategies, which includes political advisors Ace Smith, Sean Clegg and Dan Newman.

Harris also has been endorsed by state Treasurer John Chiang, Controller Betty Yee and Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones.

Even before launching her campaign a year ago, Sanchez said she knew that California’s “establishment Democrats” were already backing Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney. Sanchez has been endorsed by 17 members of California’s congressional delegation.

Sanchez also failed to land the state Democratic Party endorsement in her first run for Congress in 1996, and she went on to win the nomination and oust Orange County conservative Rep. Robert Dornan.

Harris was first elected attorney general in 2010, and was reelected in 2014.

There are 34 Senate candidates on the June 7 primary ballot. Recent opinion polls show that Harris is the solid frontrunner and have Sanchez in second place.

Under California’s “top-two” primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary will face off in the November general election, even if they belong to the same political party.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who knows a thing or two about running an insurgent presidential campaign, took a not-too-subtle shot on Saturday at Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders.

“I don’t think anybody should be seeking the Democratic nomination with a scorched-earth policy. At the end of the day, we’ve all got to work together,” Brown told reporters after speaking at a United Farm Workers union convention in Bakersfield.

“It’s very important to beat Donald Trump. That’s the overriding imperative.”

Brown didn’t mention the Vermont senator by name. Still, Sanders has been locked in an increasing nasty fight with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, even though Sanders faces long odds in capturing the delegates needed for a victory.

Brown ran for president in 1976, 1980 and again in 1992, fighting hard in the Democratic primaries – especially against former President Bill Clinton in 1992 -- before he eventually fell short.

“I’ve run insurgency campaigns. And they have to be run in a way that, ultimately, the Democratic nominee wins,” Brown said.

He added that there is “great exuberance in getting highly negative” during a tough presidential primary fight. But he said that “it’s a temptation that should be avoided.”

Less than a week after announcing his 2018 bid for governor, state Treasurer John Chiang addressed the United Farm Workers’ annual convention Saturday and spoke of the deep bond among all immigrants, including Latinos and Chinese, who worked the earth and picked crops in California.

Chiang also spoke of the death of his sister, Joyce, a federal immigration attorney who disappeared and was found murdered in Washington, D.C., in 1999.

“My sister was murdered,” Chiang bluntly told the crowd.

Heartbroken, his family found comfort in the tremendous outpouring of support after the tragedy, including from Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy. Robert F. Kennedy was a passionate supporter of the farmworkers movement in the 1960s.

“Kerry Kennedy went to the mass and prayed and genuflected with my mom and my brother at the service,” Chiang told the union delegates gathered inside the Bakersfield convention center. “That’s the power of community.”

U.S. Senate hopeful Kamala Harris, speaking to leaders of the United Farm Workers union, called for fixing the nation’s immigration system and protecting the rights of millions of immigrants in the country illegally.

Harris told union delegates gathered at Bakersfield’s convention center that immigration is the “civil rights issue of our time,” a phrase she has repeated often at campaign rallies. But the state attorney general offered few specifics on how she would work with the Republican leaders in Congress to pass legislation.

Harris received the loudest ovation when she said “an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal” in both English and Spanish.

Harris and her top Democratic rival in the Senate race, Rep. Loretta Sanchez of Orange, were both invited to speak at the event. But Sanchez canceled Saturday morning because of a “family matter,” according to Emily Morris, the congresswoman’s spokeswoman.

Harris, speaking to reporters afterward, also said that she was “skeptical” of the practice of hydraulic fracking by the oil industry in the Bakersfield region, the heart of California’s billion-dollar oil industry. She stopped short of calling for a ban or moratorium, however.

“There’s no question that we need a significant shift in terms of our reliance on oil in this country,” Harris said.

Gov. Jerry Brown is scheduled to address the UFW convention Saturday evening, and former President Bill Clinton will speak Sunday.

Donald Trump will raise money Wednesday evening in Los Angeles, marking his first foray into official GOP fundraisers with an event where tickets start at $25,000.

The dinner will be held at the home of Rachelle and Tom Barrack, according to an invitation obtained by The Times.

Guests paying $25,000 per person receive a photo and can attend the reception and dinner. Anyone paying $100,000 per couple becomes a member of the host committee and also gets a Republican National Committee Regent membership.

Trump and the RNC have entered into a joint fundraising agreement called “Trump Victory.” That means some of the money raised will go to the RNC and 11 state parties: Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

The invitation notes the first $2,700 raised will go to Trump’s primary campaign and the second $2,700 to his general election campaign. The next $33,400 will go to the RNC’s operations account, followed by the next $100,200 to the party’s convention account. Another $100,200 will be allotted to the RNC’s Headquarters account. The $110,000 after that will go to the state parties, and the final $100,200 will go to the RNC’s Legal Proceedings account.

Democrats have a similar structure for high-dollar fundraisers, including one Hillary Clinton did recently with George Clooney.

The hosts listed on the Trump fundraiser invitation are RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, Trump Victory Finance Chairman Lewis Eisenberg and Trump campaign Finance Chairman Steven Mnuchin.

Barrack, whose real estate private equity firm Colony Capital recently sold Miramax, has done deals with Trump, according to a profile in Fortune Magazine.

One of California’s most vocal unions representing healthcare workers appears poised to make good on a long-standing threat: to ask voters to rein in the salaries of hospital executives.

On Thursday, state officials reported that the Service Employees Union-United Healthcare Workers West has submitted signatures on an initiative that would generally cap the salaries and other perks of private and some public hospitals at no more than the salary of the president of the United States – currently $450,000 a year.

“The hospital industry is run by people who are paid exorbitant salaries,” said Dave Regan, president of the labor union.

The initiative would give the California attorney general the power to enforce those salary mandates and could affect “a few hundred” hospital executives in California, according to one ballot analysis.

This is the second initiative the union has successfully landed on the fall ballot, having qualified a minimum-wage increase proposal in April. That measure could be withdrawn, as Regan has said the union supports the law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown that will gradually raise the statewide minumum wage to $15 an hour.

The union backed off a similar salary-cap initiative in spring 2014 after reaching an agreement with the California Hospitals Assn. regarding union representation of workers and a joint effort to increase Medi-Cal funding.

But that détente abruptly ended earlier this year.

Jan Emerson-Shea, a representative of the California Hospitals Assn., called the initiative a violation of the brokered deal.

“It represents the third time in four years that UHW has attempted to use the ballot initiative process to leverage hospitals into organizing agreements,” she said in a written statement. “The filing of this measure is nothing short of an abuse of California’s ballot initiative system.”

Regan said the union tried to work cooperatively with hospital officials on a number of healthcare issues.

“They’re fundamentally committed to the status quo,” he said in an interview.

Gov. Jerry Brown, still awaiting word on the legality of his plan to revamp the state’s parole laws, nonetheless submitted petition signatures on Friday to earn the measure a spot on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Brown’s ballot initiative remains under review by the California Supreme Court, after a Sacramento judge ruled that Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris had erred by approving last-minute changes in its wording. If Brown loses that case, the initiative would be barred from the fall statewide ballot.

The initiative, unveiled in late January, would allow early release for some prison inmates who are serving sentences for nonviolent felonies and who earn credits for education and other programs. It would also allow judges the discretion to keep some juveniles from being tried as adults.

Elections officials now must seek to verify the signatures collected by Brown’s campaign team, a process in which petition circulators were paid as much as $5 per signature. By law, the initiative needs 585,407 valid signatures.

In a speech to business leaders on Wednesday, the governor called the initiative “a system of incentives” for some prisoners to focus on their rehabilitation.

“I think it’s pretty reasonable,” Brown told the group.

But some law enforcement officers and district attorneys are poised to oppose the initiative.

“The governor longs for a return to the ‘bad old days’ of his first term that began in 1974, when parole boards freed inmates who had served extremely short sentences,” wrote George Hofstetter, president of the Assn. of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, in a recent online critique.

Brown’s initiative is likely one of the very last proposals to seek a spot on the ballot, a list that could total as many as 18 propositions by the time the final signatures are verified by elections officials. Secretary of State Alex Padilla has until June 30 to certify the final list of ballot measures.

With more than $1.2 million in outside spending already pouring in to the race in Assembly District 43, it’s clear there’s a lot at stake for this safe Democratic seat.

There’s a big factor that could affect the outcome: the district’s large bloc of Armenian American voters.

Armenians make up about 17% of the electorate in the district, and have become highly organized and are known to line up behind their own.

That matters in this race because Glendale City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian, a second-generation Armenian American who was raised in Glendale, is facing Laura Friedman, a Glendale City Council member who has benefited from most of the outside spending.

In a district where total turnout in recent presidential primaries has hovered around 50,000, the 45,000 eligible Armenian American voters here could swing the race in Kassakhian’s favor in a crowded field of eight.

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Former state Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Moorpark) on Thursday reached an agreement with California’s political watchdog group in which he admitted violating campaign finance laws and will pay a $40,000 fine.

The state Fair Political Practices Commission approved the settlement, which replaces an $80,000 fine recommended originally by its enforcement staff before Strickland admitted to the violations.

The commission found that Strickland played a role in earmarking campaign contributions made to his 2010 campaign for state controller by supporters whose money went through two county Republican committees to disguise its source.

“We are pleased Mr. Strickland accepted responsibility for the violations,” said Galena West, the chief of enforcement for the FPPC. “The maximum fine imposed sends a message that this type of activity will be aggressively prosecuted and will not be tolerated.”

Strickland said he decided to settle the six-year-old case “in order to move forward.”

“I am very pleased that this matter has been resolved,” he told The Times in an email. “But, I want to be clear that there was no money laundering. I never solicited a party donation for me. In 2010, I was one of the top fundraisers in the state and raised money for the Republican ticket.”

This year, Strickland is chairman of the Committee for American Sovereignty, a super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump..

The U.S. House on Thursday adopted an amendment by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) that prohibits federal taxpayer funds from being used to fly the Confederate battle flag at cemeteries operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The amendment was added to the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act by a 265-to-159 vote.

The Veterans Affairs Department currently permits the display of the Confederate flag on Memorial Day as well as on Confederate Memorial Day at 131 facilities.

In a statement, Huffman said the vote was a step in the right direction, but that it was still shameful that a third of House members voted against it.

“Why would anyone in Congress — let alone a majority of the governing party — still condone displays of this hateful symbol on our sacred national cemeteries? Symbols like the Confederate battle flag have meaning. They are not just neutral historical symbols of pride, they represent slavery, war, lynchings and tragedy,” he said.

A similar effort by Huffman last year brought the appropriations process to a halt when Southern lawmakers protested the proposal, which would have restricted displaying the banner in federal parklands.

Here’s a quick overview of proposed gun control measures approved Thursday by the state Senate.

• Ammunition regulation: SB 1235 by Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) requires background checks to buy ammunition. It also creates a license to sell ammunition, and creates a new system for collecting information about those sales.
• Ban on large ammunition magazines: SB 1446 by Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) bans the ownership of any ammunition clip that holds more than 10 rounds.

A plastic pistol made using a 3-D printer, described by some as a “ghost gun.”

(Jay Janner / Associated Press)

• Bullet buttons: SB 880 by Sen. Isadore Hall (D-Compton) expands the legal definition of an “assualt weapon” to include a group of rifles with ammunition clips that can be quickly swapped out by using a bullet to push a small release button.
• SB 894 by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) requires reporting most lost or stolen guns within five days.
• “Ghost guns”: SB 1407 by De León requires a person to get a serial number from state officials before making or assembling a gun.
• Gun violence research: SB 1006 by Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis) creates a new University of California center for researching gun-related violence.

Two other bills, both of which originated in the Assembly, were amended by Senate Democrats.

• Gun theft: AB 1176 would make the theft of a gun a felony, a change in the 2014 law passed by voters as Proposition 47. As such, this proposal would have to be approved by voters on the Nov. 8 statewide ballot.
• Gun lending: AB 1511 places tighter rules on lending someone a gun -- limiting those loans to family members or a licensed hunter.

Seeking to break the logjam over road repair funding at the Capitol, a broad coalition of local, business and labor leaders proposed a package of new taxes and reforms at a rally Thursday.

The plan, coalition leaders said, borrows from existing proposals from Gov. Jerry Brown, Democrats in the Assembly and Senate and GOP lawmakers who have failed to reach a deal for a year. The coalition plan includes a 12-cent hike in the gas tax, $500 million from cap-and-trade revenue and new fees for car owners, among other revenue increases. It also has a number of reform measures advocated by Republicans to reallocate transportation dollars and streamline environmental reviews.

“We can do reform. We can do revenue,” said Matt Cate, the executive director of the California State Assn. of Counties. “But what we can’t do is wait anymore.”

A transportation package has essentially gone nowhere since Brown called a special session on the issue last summer. Democrats have blamed Republicans for not entertaining new taxes while Republicans say the money the state has isn’t being spent wisely. Declining gas tax revenue as cars increase their fuel efficiencies has led to a funding crunch.

The coalition plan would raise more than $5 billion in its first year and nearly $7 billion by the fifth year as tax hikes get phased in. These figures are more in line with proposals from legislative Democrats and more than $1 billion higher than Brown’s plan.

Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes of Yucca Valley said the onus is on Democrats in control of the Legislature to get things moving.

“To date, they have refused to vote on their own transportation proposals, much less ours,” Mayes said in a statement after the rally. “Legislative inaction will not improve our roads.”

The House voted 285 to 138 Wednesday to reject an amendment from Rep. Barbara Lee that would have ended President Obama’s authority to use military force against Islamic State.

Congress approved an Authorization for Use of Military Force in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, to give President George W. Bush authority to use the military. Obama has said he believes that authority extends to fighting Islamic State, which sprung up as Al Qaeda’s strength waned.

Lee and other members of Congress say the president should have had to come back to Congress for a new authorization.

The Oakland Democrat tried to add an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have repealed the authority 90 days after the defense spending bill passed. To continue military operations in Iraq, Syria and other Middle East countries, Congress would have had to debate the merits of a new conflict and vote on a new military force authorization.

“The overly broad and almost 15-years-old [authorization] represents a major and very concerning deterioration of congressional oversight,” Lee said during debate over the amendment on the House floor. “Let’s repeal this blank check.”

Lee, who was the only House member to vote against the 2001 authorization, said she voted no because she was worried it gave presidents the power to wage endless war without Congress’ consent.

“I believe quite frankly, that history has borne that out,” Lee said.

A report from the Congressional Research Service requested by Lee shows the current authorization has been used to justify unclassified military action 37 times in 14 countries since 2001, including 19 times by Obama.

“This report only looks at unclassified incidents. How many other times has it been used without the knowledge of Congress or the American people?” Lee said.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) opposed Lee’s amendment, saying repealing the authorization “would unilaterally end the fight against ISIS and al Qaeda.”

“ISIS grew out of al Qaeda in Iraq, the president has determined that the 2001 AUMF allows the United States to target ISIS, both the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs agree that they have full legal authority to combat ISIS and Congress has supported that view by appropriating funds,” he said.

In February 2015, Obama proposed a new Authorization for Military Force that would allow fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria for three years. Congress has not brought up the measure, saying it is too limiting.

“A new [authorization] can not give President Obama any more authority to fight ISIS than he currently claims. It could give him less,” Royce said.

Royce said Obama still hasn’t laid out a broad strategy to fight the Islamic State.

“Once the president provides that strategy this House can have an informed debate over a new [authorization], but this amendment would leave us with no strategy and no authority,” Royce said. “That’s irresponsible.”

Rep. Mike Honda (D-San Jose) said in an interview between House votes that his staff was very excited about meeting the television show host and educator Bill Nye the Science Guy, who was on Capitol Hill to talk about space exploration and funding for NASA.

“He’s a very sensible, adamant, thoughtful person,” Honda said.

Honda, 74, said he had heard of Nye, but didn’t know who he was at first. When his staff tried to explain, Honda said he compared Nye to Don Herbert, the science show host from his childhood.

“Like Mr. Wizard? The science guy? You know,” he said.

On the eve of the California Senate acting on 10 gun control bills, state lawmakers on Wednesday said mass shootings, such as the one in San Bernardino last December, require legislative action to close loopholes in California’s already strict laws.

Eight members of the state Assembly touted a batch of proposals that include outlawing the manufacture and sale of semiautomatic rifles that have detachable magazines as well as those with “bullet buttons” that allow swift replacement of magazines.

Those already possessing such guns would have to register them with the state as assault rifles.

The bills were introduced after two terrorists killed 14 people attending a holiday event in San Bernardino.

“Death and injury arising from firearms violence by homicide, suicide and unintential shootings are on the rise,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) said during a Capitol news conference. “None of us are immune from the tragedies that guns deliver every day throughout the state.”

Leaders of the Senate are concerned that a gun control initiative proposed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom for November may persuade some lawmakers to withhold votes on the pending bills with the idea of leaving the decision up to the people.

Rendon declined to weigh in on that issue. “This is our process for going about that,” Rendon said of the Assembly bills pending in his house. “The Senate has their process for doing that. Obviously the lieutenant governor is following his process as well.”

The speaker said he isn’t worried that having the gun control initiative on the ballot may draw conservative voters to the polls to the detriment of Democratic candidates.

“As far as gun issues are concerned in general, our data shows that voters at the polls in November are more likely to reflect the views of the folks up here than they are of the ardent gun owners,” Rendon said.

U.S. Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Lucille Roybal-Allard called for President Obama to stop deportation raids of Central American children and their families Wednesday.

Young children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who fled violence in their home countries and are living in the Chicago area waved American flags and hugged the California congresswomen and Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) as they spoke at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol.

Hundreds of thousands of children have crossed the U.S. southern border in recent years seeking asylum. Because being present in the U.S. illegally is a civil offense, there is no right to an attorney during immigration or asylum proceedings. That means many children stand alone before an immigration judge when they ask to stay in this country.

“America’s response has fallen short,” Lofgren, a former immigration attorney, said. “There’s no other instance in American law where a child appears before a judge, facing off [against] a trained prosecutor standing for the government, by himself without access to any legal counsel.”

Roybal-Allard said the raids don’t live up to American values.

“Deporting Central American women and children who may have valid asylum claims but are unable to navigate the complexities of our legal system on their own is contrary to our American beliefs of fairness and justice,” she said.

House Democrats and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have repeatedly called on the Obama administration to stop the raids, which are targeted at Central Americans seeking asylum in the U.S. who already have been told to leave the country.

The newest wave of raids is expected to take place in May and June.

Lofgren and 77 of her House colleagues have put forth a bill to argue that, at a minimum, children and people with certain disabilities should have government-appointed attorneys to help them navigate the asylum process.

It has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee. Lofgren is the highest-ranking Democrat on the subcommittee.

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Gov. Jerry Brown appears at the Sacramento Host Breakfast on Wednesday.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

While Gov. Jerry Brown has declined to endorse a November ballot measure to extend current tax rates on California’s most wealthy residents, he made it clear on Wednesday that the proposal has some pretty good political odds behind it.

“If you have to go to the people and ask them to tax, the best tax is the one where 99% of the voters don’t pay it,” said Brown to laughter and applause at the Sacramento Host Breakfast, an annual gathering of state business leaders.

“They’re a very amenable constituency for that kind of taxation,” he said.

Brown never mentioned it by name, but just such a proposal will probably appear on the Nov. 8 ballot.

The proposal, crafted by a coalition of labor and healthcare groups, would extend for 12 years current tax rates on the state’s top earners. Those higher rates were imposed temporarily by a 2012 ballot measure championed by Brown.

The governor has avoided taking a position on the ballot measure. Nonetheless, a statewide poll last month found 62% of likely voters support the proposal.

In his remarks to the business group on Wednesday, Brown made a point of talking about historical economic trends that cycle between boom and bust. His advisors now believe that, absent the tax increase initiative, California could face annual budget deficits as soon as the summer of 2018 -- during Brown’s final few months in office.

Which led to another small joke from the veteran politician.

“As my father told me, timing is everything,” the governor said. “I timed my return to Sacramento to begin the business cycle upward. And I’ve timed my exit for its downward cycle again.”

Sure, he’s said he isn’t interested in running for the presidency. But maybe Gov. Jerry Brown would make a good running mate.

Times editorial writer Mariel Garza calls Brown an “obvious” choice with a “known and comfortable” brand that could cross party lines.

The real question, Garza points out, is whether Brown would want the job.

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