State Politics

To borrow from the "Three Bears" fable, are Californians taxed too little, taxed too much or taxed about right?

In his effort to fill the state's massive $26.3 billion budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is targeting social service programs he says are rife with fraud and abuse.

Critical issues come into sharper focus today as the first of this month's three "Furlough Fridays" idles tens of thousands of state workers.

Some California pot smokers don't understand why Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can't put down his stogie and work with lawmakers to solve the budget crisis by taxing the state's most maligned cash crop.

As the budget clock ticked, the state's school funding guarantee complicated talks this week due to questions over how much money the state owes education now and in future years.

Amid the great debates of the day over health care, global warming and economic recovery, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday there will be no pause in the action to honor Michael Jackson.

In a resounding victory for prison officials in California and throughout the Western states, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday that an institution's inmates may be confined to cells for months at a time, even though only some of them are to blame for heightened violence.

A legislative attempt to make peace in the state's chicken-house wars is fizzling, meaning the dispute between California egg farmers and the Humane Society of the United States over the interpretation of Proposition 2 is unlikely to be resolved this year.

The cost to attend California State University this fall could rise by 30 percent compared with the year just ended, an increase experts said could drive students out of school.

With a hard-line stance against marijuana crumbling at almost every level of government, advocates of the drug are pushing beyond legality for societal acceptance.

What started as a "Furlough Friday" business promotion has led to discrimination accusations and something you don't see every day: trial lawyers backing a bill that would eliminate some lawsuits.

Sen. Dean Florez is tired of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's grandstanding, and face it, who could possibly know more about grandstanding than Dean Florez.

Workers' compensation costs are going back up in California, but not nearly as much as an influential panel controlled by the insurance industry had urged.

State workers, brace yourselves for another furlough day.

Another effort by GOP Sen. George Runner to keep bad guys out of his sight has been thwarted.

Cancer patients unable to afford the latest, and perhaps more effective, forms of oral chemotherapy might have to wait only a few more months for relief.

If the May 19 special election scared Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers into action, they aren't showing it.

The state Franchise Tax Board said Tuesday that it will accept California reg- istered warrants – IOUs – as payment of personal and corporate taxes.

SACRAMENTO – The nomination period for candidates who want to fill the 10th Congressional District seat of retiring Rep. Ellen Tauscher is open, said Jill LaVine, Sacramento County registrar of voters.

Attorney General Jerry Brown has returned $52,500 in campaign contributions from an investment firm and relatives of two California businessmen he is investigating in a public pension fund corruption probe.

California Highway Patrol officers cited 15 demonstrators, most of them in wheelchairs, for blocking the hallway outside Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Capitol office Tuesday in protest of proposed cuts to health and social service programs.

Juliana Garcia of Alpaugh holds a sign in Spanish that reads, "All lives deserve clean potable water."

The state's ongoing budget crisis provides ample evidence that public employee unions wield immense – even hegemonic – influence over the Capitol's Democratic majority.

Newly minted IOUs could turn into an investment vehicle if the state budget crisis persists.

Fitch Ratings on Monday downgraded California's long-term bond rating from A- to BBB, citing the state's failure to close its budget deficit last week and its new reliance on IOUs to pay bills.

The powerful California Teachers Association launched an offensive Monday against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to suspend the Proposition 98 school-funding measure to help bridge this year's budget gap.

A Vallejo woman whose car was slammed from behind during a swerving freeway drive by then-state Sen. Carole Migden will get a $335,000 settlement from the state.

Two California lawmakers say it's time to apologize for how Chinese immigrants -- whose work building the transcontinental railroad was indispensable -- were treated, with the state's official sanction.

Since the passage of the 1989 Roberti-Roos Act, California has been home to the nation's toughest gun laws. Yet weapons can be legally purchased in Sacramento area gun stores that are functionally the same as some of the most famous military rifles in history.

The state's budget crisis could cost Sacramento's beleaguered economy more than a half-billion dollars in the next year.

The state's perpetual budget mess has certainly fueled interest in – and perhaps even passion for – fundamentally overhauling California's dysfunctional government.

The little yellow school bus may soon be coming to the end of the road.

A high-ranking state prisons official said Friday he will plead guilty to charges of drunken driving.

Anthony Woods may be a long shot to win a race for Congress, but his presence assures it will be a high-profile affair. It's already resulting in national attention.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." That, as any alert schoolchild knows, is one of the more famous lines in the Declaration of Independence, signed back in 1776. They just don't write 'em like they used to.

California is issuing IOUs and still doesn't have a balanced budget, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday that it's far from the worst state in the nation for business.

With California's budget gap growing by millions each day, Thursday marked a roller coaster of Capitol emotion that veered from optimism about prospects for a deal to eruption of a new fight over school funding.

Murderers are more likely to be sentenced to death in conservative California counties, particularly in the southern part of the state, according to a Bee analysis of recent data from the state attorney general's office.

For just the second time since the Great Depression, California began paying some of its bills with IOUs Thursday, as this year's version of the state's annual budget battle dragged on.

Remember the Arnold Schwarzenegger who, exactly five years ago, denounced state legislators as "girlie men" beholden to unions because they failed to pass a state budget? He's back, sensing that time is running out on his 2003 campaign promise to stop "crazy deficit spending."

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger blasted lawmakers for debating an anti-cow tail-docking bill amid the budget meltdown, Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, took umbrage:

State Controller John Chiang has some advice for Californians peeved about the IOUs he's about to issue: Don't blame me.

California's budget crisis is turning into a worldwide spectacle that could harm the state's business climate – and chase companies away.

Day one of the 2009-10 fiscal year brought no agreement on a plan to close what is now estimated to be a $26.3 billion state budget deficit. Here are some of Wednesday's key developments:

Budget cuts have torn chunks off many state workers' paychecks, but other government employees so far have been financially unscathed.

Causing the state to issue IOUs could lead to a comprehensive budget deal. Or it might just further wreck California's reputation and credit rating.

A California financial company on Wednesday agreed to repay $2 million to New York state's giant public pension fund after one of the company's former partners was implicated in paying a kickback to secure investment deals from the fund.

"No excuses, but there are clear reasons why the budget isn't done yet. We are living through a historic economic crisis that has resulted in people and government having less money. Since I began as leader of the Senate, the combined budget deficit has amounted to almost $60 billion. This fiscal reality, combined with the extraordinary two-thirds requirement to pass a budget, is the reason the job is not done yet."

It was supposed to be a dry public hearing on a "notice of proposed regulations," a meeting to let citizens speak about technical aspects of how lethal injection is administered to condemned inmates.