Capitol and California

Billionaire investor George Soros has given a half-million dollar boost to efforts to overhaul California's three-strikes initiative.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association paid a total $1.1 million to four political consultants and an political lawyer last year, according to documents the union filed with the state.

Legislative Democrats are back in Sacramento today after the California Democratic Party confab in San Diego.

State Democratic Party Chairman John Burton wasn't cursing much at his party's state convention over the weekend.

Want to run a state park?

California Attorney General Kamala Harris said Saturday she is "doubling down" on prosecutions of predatory lending and other cases of lender misconduct in the wake of the $25 billion mortgage settlement announced last week.

Shannon Grove, a Republican assemblywoman from Bakersfield, is sponsoring an embryonic ballot measure to return the Legislature to a part-time body, which it was before 1966.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein expressed disappointment Saturday in the compromise the Obama administration announced this week on its birth control coverage mandate but said the decision "can be lived with."

While segments of California's economy stumbled along on shaky legs last year, Golden State exporters rang up record numbers in 2011.

Britton "Jerry" McFetridge, a former Capitol staff member who helped state lawmakers pass major labor-related legislation, died Feb. 4 at his Clarksburg home, his family said. He was 72.

California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton agrees with Gov. Jerry Brown that Molly Munger's November tax initiative could hurt the governor's bid to raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California's highest earners.

Kit Miyamoto of Sacramento has been appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the state Seismic Safety Commission.

Distressed homeowners in the Sacramento region will get an estimated $1.2 billion over the next three years under a 49-state settlement with the nation's largest banks over foreclosure abuses.

When Molly Munger's name surfaced last year as a potential partner on efforts to provide more funding for schools, California State PTA President Carol Kocivar had to turn to Google to find out who she was.

California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye has assailed the Assembly for passing a bill that would strip power from the Judicial Council she controls, prompting opponents to suggest her tone is inappropriate for the state's top judge.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg says he isn't letting a nonprofit's decision to scrap a proposed ballot initiative targeting public employee pensions change his commitment to tackle that issue.

Redevelopment is dead after more than six decades as a multibillion-dollar government economic development tool.

California and Southern farmers renewed their case Thursday for some kind of an agricultural guest-worker program, but they're sailing against the wind. Make that a hurricane.

The cause of pension reform in California took a significant body shot Wednesday when a group hoping to put an overhaul measure before voters this year suspended its campaign.

Supporters of California's beleaguered high-speed rail project – principally contractors and the construction trades that could gain work through the project – are fighting back.

The California Valleycrat could be an endangered species. Or maybe it was mostly mythical all along.

A Democratic political strategist and a former Democratic assemblyman will help lead opposition to a proposed ballot initiative that would reduce California's Legislature to part-time.

In a landmark victory for gay rights advocates, a federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled California's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown is far more likely to allow the release of paroled killers from prison than either of California's two previous governors, newly released records show.

The California State Teachers' Retirement System is hopping on the infrastructure bandwagon, committing $500 million to roads, utilities and more.

The Great Recession has left more California families with mounting medical debt and a tenuous grip on the insurance needed to afford care, a new UCLA study revealed.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has a hard-won reputation for issuing sweeping, precedent-setting and liberal rulings that are often overturned by the more conservative U.S. Supreme Court.

Former Republican Sen. Sam Aanestad has decided to run for a vacant Northern California congressional seat, setting the stage for a same-party showdown with GOP Sen. Doug LaMalfa.

CalSTRS has issues with Facebook Inc. as the social networking giant prepares its epic initial public stock offering.

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's efforts to defuse the controversy over its funding dispute with Planned Parenthood hasn't done much to improve its standing with the California Legislative Women's Caucus.