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Our take

Editorials

Gov. Brown goes in search of common ground: The left may fume and the right may gloat at Jerry Brown’s professed willingness to deal with the Trump administration. But California and Washington depend on each other.

Republican bill would let companies get way too personal: The Obamacare repeal blueprint is bad enough. Some Republicans want follow-up legislation to include a proposal to let employers impose financial penalties on workers who refuse DNA testing as part of wellness programs. The bill is far too coercive and too much of a danger to privacy.

Columns

Dan Walters: When he ran for governor the first time in 1974, then-Secretary of State Jerry Brown made political reform the cornerstone of his campaign, particularly a ballot measure, Proposition 9. Since returning to the governorship after a 28-year absence, however, Brown has been very reluctant to update his signature measure.

Andrew Malcolm, McClatchy-DC: As you may have noticed already, Donald Trump does not like presenting a patient public persona. That’s not how he was successful in real estate and building. Hopefully, he will learn in time to calibrate his manner with friends more than enemies.

Op-eds

Dennis Neufeld: Sacramento’s convention center investments have been economic disasters. Other options are to do nothing, or get out of the convention business entirely.

Ana Zamora: California district attorneys should take a cue from their colleague in Florida and review and reconsider their support of the death penalty.

Take a number: 12.3 percent

In California, there are an estimated 2.66 million undocumented immigrants, 800,000 of whom live in Los Angeles County. Imagine you’re a kid heading off to school, not knowing whether your mom or dad would be at home at the end of the day, or held in some detention center. The Public Policy Institute of California, citing research by Pew Research Center and others, writes that 12.3 percent of California’s K–12 school children have an undocumented parent. How could those kids possibly concentrate at school?

Their take

San Jose Mercury: Dwight Clark’s heartbreaking disclosure Sunday that he has ALS was accompanied with a request to the NFL to work with the league’s players to “make the game of football safer, especially as it relates to head trauma.” Don’t hold your breath.

Los Angeles Times: How many high-paying out-of-state students is enough for UC? It’s a complicated picture. Obviously, if UC accepted more students from out of state, those seats didn’t go to Californians. But if it hadn’t drawn those extra dollars, the results wouldn’t have been good for in-state students either.

Orange County Register: FBI Director James Comey revealed that the bureau is investigating possible Russian interference in the 2016 elections, but he offered no details or evidence of wrongdoing. That left room for each party to try to bend news of the FBI probe to its own purposes, which Democrats and Republicans both did.

Arizona Republic: Sens. John McCain and Rand Paul royally dislike each other. But their debate over America’s role in the world is one worth having.

Takes on Trump

Charlotte Observer: Donald Trump’s gleeful disdain for governmental process and policy detail became a virtue among his supporters and was a prime reason he won the White House. It may become just the thing to sink his presidency.

Raleigh News & Observer: The president’s increasingly bizarre behavior really raises a question as to how much more tweeting and how many more random allegations the leaders of his party, or rather their party, will tolerate.

Las Vegas Sun: In producing President Donald Trump’s budget, his staffers said they “wrote it using the president’s own words.” Funny, we could have sworn they took dictation from Vladimir Putin. There’s certainly a lot in the budget for the Russian leader to love.

Denver Post: How telling it is that the directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency have confirmed — only two months after Inauguration Day — that President Donald Trump can’t be trusted.

Syndicates’ take

Kathleen Parker: Donald Trump should be sending champagne to Judge Neil Gorsuch – for life – for projecting enough grace to benefit those who haven’t a knack for it.

Dana Milbank: FBI Director James Comey may have handed Donald Trump the presidency with his announcement just before the election that he was reopening the Clinton email investigation. But he redeemed himself somewhat Monday with a lyrical defense.

David Leonhardt: The ninth week of Donald Trump’s presidency began with the FBI director calling him a liar.

David Brooks: Many people don’t know what this country is here for, and what we are here for. If you don’t know what your goal is, then every setback sends you into cynicism and selfishness.

Mailbag

”Seasoned police officers are not leaving because of money. It’s because the City Council and the mayor don’t respect the rule of law and don’t trust the city’s officers.” – Stephen James, El Dorado Hills

And finally,

As President Donald Trump, Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy herd their House Republican cats to vote for the bill that will gut the Affordable Care Act, California’s Republican congressional delegation includes four members – Jeff Denham, David Valadeo, Steve Knight and Paul Cook– who are undecided, while Darrell Issa is leaning toward a no vote, according to an LA Times nose count. The other nine are either leaning yes or voting for it, including Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove.