California is a young, ethnically diverse state represented by elected officials who aren't — political analysis by an LA Times writer who is >60 and white. The rush of interest by local politicos and would be politicos to succeed veteran Congressman Henry Waxman underscored an odd truth about California politics: in a state that prides itself
Votes are being cast in California’s first major election of 2014, and its outcome may set the tone for what happens in the state the rest of the year. As everyone knows, California Republicans have fallen on hard times – frozen out of statewide office, and holding fewer than a third of legislative seats and
Business tax receipts are falling at the same time hefty profits are being posted by major companies across the country. At $8 billion this year, the taxes collected from most of California’s major businesses are $4.4 billion less than what they were in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2005. In 2003, the Franchise
Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, profiled by the home-town journalist who covers her daily. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/jan/25/atkins-growing-into-leadership/
The white-hot political battle over public pension reform was supposed to go before a statewide vote this November with a constitutional measure championed by San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed. But now that suddenly is in question. Reed, who leads a group of California city leaders campaigning for the proposal as a solution to soaring retirement
Business tax receipts are falling at the same time hefty profits are being posted by major companies across the country. At $8 billion this year, the taxes collected from most of California’s major businesses are $4.4 billion less than what they were in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2005. Perhaps the chief culprit
California officials are on the verge of bringing back some form of “redevelopment,” the controversial 1940s-era urban-renewal system that died in 2011. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/jan/20/governor-senate-president-spar-over-redevelopment/
Law enforcement groups are endorsing incumbent Attorney General Kamala Harris, whom they opposed in 2010. http://www.sfgate.com/politics/joegarofoli/article/Kamala-Harris-wins-new-badges-of-respect-from-5158187.php
Neel Kashkari, newest candidate for GOP gubernatorial nomination: As an assistant U.S. treasury secretary ran the Treasury Department's controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program -- better known as TARP -- to bail out the nation's free-falling financial sector in 2008 and 2009. Proud that Congress worked across partisan lines to enact and maintain TARP, he says
"I believe we are about two steps away from a nightmare scenario where [some] Republicans begin to simply give up and throw in with Brown, with serious negative consequences," said Ron Nehring, former chairman of the California Republican Party. His concern is emblematic of the party's troubles in California. A Republican has not been elected