California ends its legislative season having enacted some of the country's most aggressive social policies: Laws requiring student vaccinations, granting terminally ill people the right to take life-ending medications, and mandating equal pay for women were among dozens approved. The range of sweeping new laws in the most populous state reflects legislators' desire to set
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, who last year mounted an unsuccessful initiative campaign to assume more control over health insurance rates, said Thursday that he plans to run for attorney general in 2018. Jones, a Sacramento Democrat, begins his campaign for another statewide office with $2.6 million in campaign funds on hand and the support
Rep. Kevin McCarthy is the odds-on favorite to become the second House speaker from California in less than a decade, a remarkable run of clout for the nation's largest state. But McCarthy, a Bakersfield Republican expected to succeed Speaker John A. Boehner as the most powerful figure in Congress, must overcome a daunting array of
When Jim Cooper squared off against a fellow Democrat in last fall's race to represent part of Sacramento and its southern suburbs in the state Assembly, it wasn't clear at first who would win. Fewer than 1,000 votes separated them in the June primary. But several weeks before Election Day, campaign committees -- primarily funded
Four years after approving legislation that ended the anti-blight redevelopment program in California, Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed a bill giving local agencies a way to pay for similar projects. Assembly Bill 2, by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville, authorizes local governments in economically depressed areas to use certain tax revenue for public works and
After four parched years, most California voters seem to be taking the drought in stride, saying it has had little to no effect on their daily lives. They oppose sacrificing environmental protections to expand water supplies and generally approve of how Gov. Jerry Brown has handled the crisis, according to a new statewide USC Dornsife/Los
Hundreds of Californians with household incomes of $500,000 or more have collected state subsidies for buying electric and hybrid cars under a program that is criticized as a taxpayer handout to the wealthy. State regulators, in response, are restricting the subsidies to Californians who earn less than $250,000 or couples taking in less than $500,000.
Fresno Bee opinion piece by John Laird is California Secretary for Natural Resources and Asm. Henry T. Perea of Fresno. The drought has hit every part of California hard, but the Central Valley has been particularly devastated. A recent Fresno Bee article detailed the tragic case of East Porterville residents whose wells have run dry
California in 2003 was fifth among states ranked by the percentage of its Legislators who were women, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. But the state now finds itself mired in a surprising 20th place. All of the lost ground has come at the expense of Democratic women. At
California’s economy is especially sensitive to events in Asia. Its budget, meanwhile, is dangerously dependent on income taxes paid by a handful of wealthy Californians, largely on their capital investment profits. We saw, just a few years ago, what happens when the global financial system hiccups. The wealthy got a financial cold, so to speak,