Capitol Alert

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tapped four new members and reappointed a sitting member to the 11-person State Compensation Insurance Fund Board of Directors today.

Francis Quinlan was reappointed to his current position and another appointee will replace current board member Vincent Mudd, whose term expired earlier this year.The three additional appointments -- Don Garcia, James Richardson and William Zachry -- fill vacant seats that were created by a 2008 bill.

Filling the positions so that the membership includes all nine administration appointees could improve the governor's shot at securing its approval of a partial sale of the quasi-public State Compensation Insurance Fund.

Lawmakers and the governor counted on a $1 billion sale of a piece of the fund as part of the July plan for closing the $24 billion budget gap. But the board's approval of a July resolution opposing the sale and several other roadblocks,have raised questions about whether the sale -- and the $1 billion it was projected to reap -- will come to fruition.

The vote against the sale, which was conducted during a closed session, has been a sticking point between the board and the governor's office. Board members have contended that their stamp of approval is needed to sell part of the fund, while the governor's finance officials say the board doesn't have veto power of the sale.

"The administration continues to believe that it can achieve a higher value for the state by selling a portion of the fund," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Mike Naple. "Specifically with regards to the actions of the board, the governor is confident that they will pursue policies that ensure a stable workers' compensation system for California."

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom clashed with CBS 5 reporter Hank Plante this week when he was asked about him avoiding the press and missing some public events since he dropped his gubernatorial bid last month.

An irritated Newsom responded that he'd been working hard, while Plante repeatedly confronted him with media criticism of him.

The mayor responded, "I don't read the press. It is comical some of the things that have been written. It's beyond laughable. Damaging? No. I think only to the credibility of some of the news organizations that have written it. And to the extent that I care? I don't."

See the video here.

An anti-tax recall movement against Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Hesperia, has failed to gather enough valid signatures to go to the ballot, the California Secretary of State's office announced Friday.

The recall effort was launched after Adams provided one of three GOP votes needed in the Assembly to pass a temporary income tax increase last February.

Using the legally required random sampling method to test signatures, Los Angeles County found that out of 500 randomly sampled signatures only 327 were valid. In San Bernardino County, out of 1,339 signatures sampled only 661 were valid.

Out of 58,384 signatures that recall organizers gathered in both counties, elections officials projected that 24,579 would be valid. That fell short of the 35,825 needed to qualify for the ballot.

As California's legislators stare down a forced 18 percent pay cut next month, many of them can say they have already volunteered to fall on the sword before.

As of Nov. 1, though, one legislator who volunteered for a 5 percent cut last July rescinded her decision. Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Santa Monica, asked for her original salary to be restored as of this month, according to Deborah Hoffman, Pavley's spokeswoman.

Hoffman said Friday she didn't know why Pavley had a change of heart, and said she couldn't get in touch with Pavley to ask her to explain.

Last summer, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg asked fellow senators to take one for the state budget by agreeing to a 5 percent cut from the $116,208-a-year salary most earn.

If all 40 senators had taken the cut, it would have saved $235,000 out of the Senate's $100 million annual operating costs.

All but two agreed to follow Steinberg and accept the drop in their salaries.

Those resisting were Sen. Rod Wright, D-Inglewood, who declined to talk about his decision, and Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, who said a cut would only contribute more money to "the Democratic majority for more game playing."

For now - at least for this month - Pavley now joins Wright and Ashburn. Next month, though, none of them will have a choice.

Last July the California Citizens Compensation Commission voted to cut legislators' pay by 18 percent in December 2010. But an opinion issued Thursday by Attorney General Jerry Brown paves the way for salaries to be slashed next week.

Democratic state Sen. Rod Wright , whose residency claims are the subject of an investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, has opened a campaign account to pay for potential legal costs.

The Los Angeles District Attorney's office searched two homes last September in connection with an investigation into whether Wright lives in the 25th Senate District that he represents.

Taxpayers for Rod Wright Legal Defense Fund, which was opened in early November, can be used to pay for attorney fees and other costs that arise because of the investigation.

Legal defense funds, which aren't subject to contribution limits, came under scrutiny in recent years after The Bee reported lawmakers were tapping into the accounts to pay for Hawaii getaways and fundraising expenses at ritzy locations. In 2007, the Fair Political Practices Commission voted to tighten disclosure and spending rules. Now, candidates must identify why the fund was needed and can only use the cash for legal fees.

LA District Attorney Public Integrity Division head David Demerjian said his investigation is continuing. Wright couldn't be reached for comment.

As we wait to hear who Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger taps for the vacant lieutenant governor spot, one 2010 "guv lite" hopeful appears to be bowing out of a bid for the job.

"I'd rather be in the Senate for the next couple of years ... if I was going to have to decide right now," Democratic Sen. Alan Lowenthal told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

Lowenthal, who's termed out in 2012, had raised $27,000 for a lieutenant governor bid as of his last campaign finance report, with only one late contribution of $6,500 reported since the July filing deadline.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn seems to be getting closer to launching a full-fledged run.

Hahn, who's raised $168,000 in contributions of $5,000 or more since opening an exploratory committee in September, sat down with the liberal blog Calitics last weekend for an interview about her potential run.

The other Democrat vying for the seat is Sen. Dean Florez. , who's stored up more than $872,000 for his bid.

Sens. Sam Aanestad and Jeff Denham have thrown their hats in the ring for the Republican nomination.

No shortage of news around the Capitol this week.

The Legislative Analyst's Office delivered more bad news about California's future fiscal shortfalls.

The Assembly moved up its race to finish "Race to the Top" legislation before the New Year.

A decision to increase student fees by 32 percent sparked student protests at UC campuses.

Attorney General Jerry Brown gave the green light for cutting legislators' pay mid-term.

And, of course, there was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's overseas trip to watch.

But it looks like the Capitol will be calm today, so maybe it will finally feel like the Legislature is out of session.

HEARING: The Assembly Select Committee on Workforce Development Within the Developmentally Disabled Community meets in San Francisco today.

TOWN HALL: Assemblyman Steve Bradford, D-Gardena, and Sen. Rod Wright, D-Inglewood, are teaming up for back-to-back town hall forums in Lawndale and Los Angeles Saturday.

GOV2010: Tom Campbell is talking to the Santa Barbara Area Republicans in Montecido today. Steve Poizner will be the first guv hopeful to participate in the Greater Fresno Area Chamber of Commerce's "Gubernatorial Candidates on Parade" lunch series. He's also holding a small business roundtable in Modesto.

BIRTHDAY: Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, turns 61 today.

Ed Reinecke, who was California lieutenant governor some 40 years ago until being forced to resign after being touched by the Watergate scandal, has endorsed Meg Whitman for the Republican nomination for governor, the Whitman campaign announced today.

The announcement didn't mention Reinecke's conviction for giving perjured testimony to Congress - a conviction later overturned on appeal - in its recitation of Reinecke's business and political career, which included a stint in Congress. But a Whitman spokesman said the campaign was aware of that aspect of his career.

Reinecke was a Southern California congressman when then-Gov. Ronald Reagan tapped him to become lieutenant governor in 1969, succeeding Bob Finch, who resigned to join the Richard Nixon administration. Reinecke served as lieutenant governor until 1974, when he was compelled to resign.

"I am honored to have the support of Ed Reinecke who shares my deep concern for our state,'' Whitman said. "Having served with one of the great leaders of our time, Ed recognizes the need for new leadership in California and agrees we should focus on job creation, economic growth and limiting government spending."

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Campbell announced today he's passed the $1 million mark in fundraising, nearly doubling what he had raised by the end of June.

The former congressman has largely been seen as an experienced but poorly funded challenger to his two GOP opponents, wealthy former Silicon Valley CEOs Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, who are spending much of their own wealth on their candidacies. Whitman has already given $19 million to her own campaign.

Despite the money disadvantage, Campbell has consistently placed second to Whitman in polls, with Poizner running a distant third.

Attorney General Jerry Brown said today that the California Citizens Compensation Commission can cut state legislators' salaries mid-term.

Secretary of the Senate Greg Schmidt and Assembly Chief Administrative Officer Jon Waldie had asked Brown to look at whether the commission's proposed 18 percent salary reduction was legal.

Jim Sanders has more on the opinion at SacBee.com.

Read the full letter after the jump.

California's poverty rate is almost exactly that of the nation as a whole, the Census Bureau says in its latest massive data release, while its median household income of $57,988 is higher than all but a dozen states.

The poverty rate, calculated for 2008 based on Census Bureau surveys, is 13.2 percent, while California's is 13.3 percent. Within the state, however, there are very wide variances, ranging from a high of 23.6 percent in Del Norte County, in the state's northwestern corner, to a low of 6.7 percent in Placer County east of Sacramento.

The poverty rates were calculated by the Census Bureau's traditional method, and California's is roughly in the middle of the states, but the National Academy of Sciences has proposed a more detailed method that would, among other things, take into account differences in the cost of living.

A Washington-based advocacy group called the Center for Law and Social Policy has applied the proposed NAS formula to the states and then added another factor: differential housing costs. The result is that California's poverty rate, 34th highest under the current formula, drops to 32nd under the NAS methodology but soars to 50th when housing costs are included in the calculation.

The new Census Bureau data sets are available here while the county-by-county poverty comparisons can be found here.

The alternate report on poverty from the Center for Law and Social Policy is accessible here.

With nearly a year until the general election, a new Rasmussen Reports poll puts GOP gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman and still-undeclared Democratic contender Jerry Brown locked in a tie with 41 percent support apiece.

The results show Whitman gaining traction since a September Rasmussen survey, in which Brown outpolled Whitman 44 percent to 35 percent.

Whitman's two rivals for the Republican nomination, former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner trailed Brown in the telephone survey of 500 likely voters.

Brown comes out nine points ahead of Campbell -- 42 percent to 33 percent -- in a hypothetical match-up. Brown leads Poizner by 11 points, 43 percent to 32 percent, according to the poll.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back to work after spending several days overseas.

He'll be in Los Angeles today, urging the Assembly to act on legislation aimed at ensuring California schools are eligible for hundreds of millions of dollars in "Race to the Top" federal stimulus funds.

With a mid-January deadline for applying for the competitive grants around the bend, Assembly leaders announced yesterday some early December dates for wrapping up work on the proposed school reforms. But Schwarzenegger's office says that's not fast enough.

"Applications for hundreds of millions of dollars for California schools are due very soon, and the governor believes the time for the Assembly to act is now, not three weeks from now," Schwarzenegger spokesperson Camille Anderson said.

The state auditor has launched a new Web site to gin up interest and clear up confusion for Californians applying to serve on the Citizens Redistricting Commission.

The 14-member panel, which will be tasked with redrawing state Senate, Assembly and Board of Equalization districts after the 2010 census is complete, was created by the 2008 ballot initiative Proposition 11.

The application period opens up Dec. 15, but officials are hoping to jump-start the search for qualified applicants who aren't disqualified by one of the many connections that count as conflict of interest.

What constitutes a conflict of interest? If you or an immediate family member has worked for someone who's run for or served in state or federal office, given more than $2,000 to a campaign or served an elected or appointed position yourself, you're out. Working as a registered lobbyist or on a political party committee is also an automatic out.

The site, www.WeDrawTheLines.ca.gov, will get its official unveiling at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria today.

California is in the middle of the pack in state-by-state comparisons of health, but moved up one notch from 24th to 23rd in the last year, in part because its cigarette smoking rate is the second lowest in the nation.

The annual report, which covers a variety of health-related issues -- including high school graduation rates -- is called America's Health Rankings and is produced by a coalition of health advocacy groups. The state's fabled air pollution and its high proportion of medically uninsured residents were two factors that prevented California from ranking higher. Over the years, California's ranking has ranged from 18th to 28th but has been stuck in the mid-20s for several years.

Vermont was rated as the nation's healthiest state and Mississippi as the least healthy.

The full report is available here. The detail on California can be found here.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reiterated today that he has no plans to run for elected office after his term as governor ends.

"I have never labeled myself as a politician, so I am not going to run for anything else," he said at a stop in Milan, according to the Associated Press.

Schwarzenegger had ruled out running for the U.S. House or Senate at a March Cal Expo conference, saying that the decision gave him the freedom to make policy decisions without worrying about his political future.

"The point was that I am not running for anything, so no one could threaten me, because I'm not running for Senate, I'm not running for Congress, I'm not running for another term as governor," he told The Bee at the time.

Of course, if the White House were an option, it would be a whole different ballgame.

As Schwarzenegger, who has often talked about his presidential aspirations, quipped to U.S. troops outside of Baghdad this week, if he wasn't an immigrant he "would be running for president or something."

Another tidbit from his trip:

We already knew what Schwarzenegger eats for breakfast.

Come to think of it, he's also tweeted his top meal.

But what dish does the governor gobble up when he's visiting his childhood home of Graz, Austria?

"A typically Austrian dinner that included Wienerschnitzel," the AP reported.

Yum.

PHOTO: CreativeCommons.

The California Teachers Association has not yet begun gathering signatures for two ballot initiatives to generate billions for public schools, but opponents already are lining up.

Joel Fox, president of the Small Business Action Committee, said Wednesday that homeowners and small businesses would be hurt despite provisions designed to appease them.

"The folks behind this initiative want to raise taxes on a large scale, and to do that, everyone is going to have to pay the piper," said Fox, also a member of Californians Against Higher Property Taxes.

The two CTA measures would alter Proposition 13 to raise taxes on commercial property, either by assessing it at current market value every three years or by imposing an additional 0.55 percent ad valorem property tax.

Separately, both measures offer targeted tax breaks.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said today that the Assembly will likely be back to work in mid-December to vote on legislation that would improve California's chances at winning "Race to the Top" federal stimulus funds.

The Assembly Education Committee will hold a Dec. 9 hearing to consider legislation aimed at ensuring California schools are eligible to receive between $350 million and $700 million of the $4.3 billion in competitive grants up for grabs. Bass said she would call the Assembly back for a vote shortly after the legislation is approved by the committee.

As we noted in today's AM Alert, the Legislative Analyst Office today released a report predicting that the budget gap will swell to $21 billion in 2010-2011.

Click here to read the report.

Kevin Yamamura sums up some of the assumptions in the fiscal report at sacbee.com. Click here to read that piece.

The Horseshoe game of musical chairs continued today as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office announced replacements for Cabinet Secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Victoria Bradshaw, who was tappedto head the Labor and Workforce Development Agency.

State and Consumer Services Agency Secretary Fred Aguiar will step in as deputy chief of staff and senior advisor. Aguiar was tapped for a second round as SCSA head in March when then-SCSA head Rosairo Marin stepped down in the wake of reports that she gave paid speeches.

Aguiar, a former Republican assemblyman, has also served as cabinet secretary and on the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. The salary for his new job is $175,000.

The governor also tapped SCSA Undersecretary Scott Reid as his next cabinet secretary. Reid, who's also worked for the Department of Consumer Affairs and as chief of staff to Aguiar during his terms in the Assembly and on the San Bernardino Board of Supervisors, was Schwarzenegger's chief deputy cabinet secretary in 2006. Reid will earn $147,900.

Stephen Colbert set out last night to test whether Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier truly has the "Rice-A-Roni" to represent California's 12th Congressional District. As typically the case in Colbert's "Better Know a District" segments, hilarity ensued. Here's the clip:

Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby came in as the top vote-getter in yesterday's special primary to replace ex-Assemblyman Mike Duvall.

Norby won 37 percent of the votes cast in the low-turnout election. Democrat John MacMurray came in second with 27 percent, while Norby's GOP rival Linda Ackerman trailed at a distant third, snagging 19 percent of the votes cast. Click here to see the results.

Since no candidate finished the night with more than 50 percent of the vote, Norby, MacMurray and Green Party candidate Jane Rands will face off in a Jan. 12 runoff election to determine who fills the vacant seat.

Exactly how big is next year's budget hole going to be?

The Legislative Analyst's Office is expected to announce that California faces a $21 billion state budget shortfall over the next year and half when it releases the California's Fiscal Outlook, its annual look at the health of the General Fund and forecast for next year's budget bind.

For those of you dying to hear the dire news, the report will be available on the LAO Web site at 10 a.m.

The Assembly Committee on Education for the special session on schools is meeting in Los Angeles today. The point of the informational hearing is to take a look at the recently released application guidelines for states seeking a piece of the $4.3 billion in "Race to the Top" federal stimulus funds.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass announced earlier this week that the committee was moving up its hearing schedule in an attempt to pass legislation before the Jan. 19 deadline for applying for the competitive grants. Bass and the commmittee's chair, Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, are expected to release later today more details on the timeline for taking up "Race to the Top"-related legislation.

AWARD: The California State Association of Counties is bestowing its top honor on Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis. The group says Wolk was picked as this year's Presidents Award recipient because of her work to help counties combat money woes and to protect the interests of the Delta region.

Gov2010: GOP gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman is in San Luis Opisbo today talking to the local Lincoln Club. Still-undelcared Democratic candidate Jerry Brown will be collecting checks from Hollywood elite at a big-ticket fundraiserbash.

TOWN HALL: Assemblyman Mike Eng, D-Monterey Park, is sponsoring a forum on mental health issues in Asian American communities. The Los Angeles event is a follow-up to a report released earlier this year, "The State of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Health in California."

The state's still relying on Furlough Fridays to save cash. But it's also continuing to hire new workers, increasing the total size of the state workforce.

Phillip Reese and my fellow Capitol bureau blogger Jon Ortiz have put together an interactive look at the total savings the state has achieved so far.

Click here to view the graphics.

Also, give your take on whether Furlough Fridays are worth it in The Bee forum.

The California Teachers Association continues to grapple with whether to pursue either of two proposed ballot initiatives it filed this month to generate billions for schools from large businesses.

CTA President David A. Sanchez said a final decision will be made in January by the group's state council.

"They'll take a look at the two initiatives that we filed and they will give us further direction as to whether or not to proceed," Sanchez said Tuesday at a news conference lamenting the effects of this year's school budget cuts.

California, for the second straight year, has received a "C" grade by the March of Dimes for its premature birthrate - but that's not as bad as it sounds.

No state received an "A" grade on programs to prevent premature births. Only one, Vermont, got a "B," while the nation as a whole earned only a "D" grade.

California's premature birthrate, 10.9 percent of live births, is up slightly from 10.7 in 2008, and is still markedly lower than the national rate of 12.7 percent. The March of Dimes goal is 7.6 percent.

"While we are working diligently to fight growing rates of premature birth, our state's grade indicates that more needs to be done to give these babies a chance at a healthy start in life," said Dani Montague, director of the March of Dimes California chapter. "Nearly 58,000 babies are born too soon in California every year, and many of these births result in ongoing health problems and months of hospitalization for these tiny newborns."

Seven states improved their scores by one letter grade and two states declined. The March of Dimes recommends that states attack premature births, the leading cause of infant deaths, through such programs as reducing smoking among women of childbearing age and improving access to prenatal medical care.

An interactive map of the United States is available here while the detailed report on California can be found here.

From Rob Hotakainen in Washington

President Barack Obama today nominated Edith Ramirez, who served as his Latino outreach director in California during last year's presidential primary campaign, to a seven-year term on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

She took a leave from her position as partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges in Los Angeles to work on Obama's campaign. She's a 1992 graduate of the Harvard Law School.

A big chunk of the money that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger collected last year to finance a political reform ballot measure came from a man now being accused of running a massive Ponzi-style fraud in Florida.

When federal investigators raided the offices of Fort Lauderdale, FL, attorney Scott Rothstein, looking for evidence to bolster civil and potentially criminal charges of running a huge Ponzi-style fraud, they found many pictures of Rothstein with prominent politicians.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Rothstein appeared to be particularly close to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist but among other political figures in the photos were former President George W. Bush and Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger's relationship with Rothstein was more than photographic, however. The law firm founded by Rothstein was one of the biggest contributors to Schwarzenegger's 2008 drive to reform California politics by shifting legislative redistricting from the Legislature to an independent commission.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association released its annual legislative report card yesterday.

The anti-tax group ranked lawmakers based on their votes on 35 bills, with legislation that the group considered an attack on Prop 13 or 218 given extra weight.

So how'd they fare?

Not so well. Fifty-one assemblymembers and 22 senators flunked HJTA's test.

Republican Assemblymembers Joel Anderson and Diane Harkey broke the bellcurve with perfect scores.

Lawmakers who voted for tax provisions in the the February budget deal were automatically docked 20 points, meaning the Dems and six Republicans who cast an aye vote all came in with low scores. The top-scoring Democrat was Sen. Lou Correa, of Santa Ana, who was given a 64.9.

Click here to read the report card. See a breakdown of the scores after the jump.

Get excited -- It's Election Day for the umpteenth time this year.

The battleground du jour is the 72nd Assembly District , where several candidates are vying to replace ex-Assemblyman Mike Duvall. That would be the Duvall who stepped down in September after a tape surfaced of him describing dirty details of sexual flings with two women (the married Republican has since said his resignation isn't an admission that he had an affair).

There's been no shortage of mudslinging and money spending by supporters of the two frontrunners for the seat, GOP rivals Chris Norby, an Orange County supervisor, and Linda Ackerman, a Republican National Committeewoman who's married to former Senate GOP leader Dick Ackerman.

Democrat John MacMurray, Green Party candidate Jane Rands and GOP newcomer Richard Faher round out the cast of pols competing in this "old-fashioned Orange County family feud."

Assuming no candidate is able to snag more than 50 percent of the vote, the top vote-getter from each party moves on to a January 12 runoff election, meaning either Ackerman or Norby will likely face MacMurray and Rands.

Supporters of legalizing same-sex marriage have launched an online signature-gathering campaign for putting an initiative to repeal Proposition 8 on the 2010 ballot.

The initiative, backed by a coalition called Love Honor Cherish, was approved for signature gathering today. Proponents must collect nearly 700,000 valid voter signatures by mid-April 2010 in order to ask voters to overturn Prop. 8, the 2008 ballot measure banning same sex marriage that passed with 52 percent of the vote

Organizers billed the new Web effort, www.SignForEquality.com, as the first time social networking has been used for an all-volunteer drive to qualify an initiative for the ballot. Visitors to the site can download petitions to sign, view volunteer training videos and connect with other volunteers and signature gathering efforts in their area.

"Everyone in California can sign for equality and do their part to repeal Prop. 8, even if it means just gathering your own signature, your husband's signature and your neighbor's signature and sending them in," Love Honor Cherish Executive Director John Henning said. "It just takes a few minutes and a postage stamp."

If the all-volunteer effort is successful, it will mark the first time since 1982 that proponents have qualified an initiative without relying on paid signature gathering, Henning said.

After visiting Israel and Iraq the past few days and going to his Austrian hometown Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will stop in Milan, Italy on Wednesday to speak about climate change ahead of the World Regions Forum.

The conference will focus on issues that "subnational" governments are facing, similar to the two Governors' Global Climate Summits that Schwarzenegger has held, according to spokesman Aaron McLear.

The conference does not open until Thursday, so Schwarzenegger will hold a press conference in Milan and give a speech about what California and other subnational governments can do to combat climate change, McLear said. He is expected to return home Wednesday night.

The governor's travel is being paid for by the California State Protocol Foundation, a nonprofit financed by business groups. CHP is providing security for the trip.

Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge was elected over the weekend as president of the National League of Cities.

Loveridge is the first Californian since 1974 to head the advocacy organization, which represents about 19,000 cities and towns across the country.

He said in his acceptance speech that he would focus on building national partnerships to create greater resources and opportunities for cities.

"In the past we've said don't take money, funds or programs away from cities -- cities want to be at the table. Now we are at the table and there to help shape national decisions," he said in a statement. "Cities shouldn't be seen as another pleader [in Washington, D.C.] but as the place where most of the population lives."

Loveridge won a fifth term as Riverside mayor earlier this month.

UPDATE 5:07 p.m.: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement congratulating Loveridge on the post:

"Ron is a fantastic leader who has built a distinguished and notable career as the mayor of Riverside," he said. He is a committed public servant and I am confident that he will work to rebuild local economies and create opportunities for cities throughout the nation while building important national partnerships."

PHOTO: City of Riverside Mayor's Office

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley received a letter today from Attorney General Jerry Brown asking her to investigate covert recordings of conversations with news reporters made by a former Brown spokesman.

Brown's office first told the district attorney by phone Friday that it would ask for the investigation and confirmed that request today in the letter, O'Malley said.

"We just got the letter today, so we'll be looking into it," O'Malley said.

The Alameda County office is getting involved because former Brown communications director Scott Gerber is believed to have made some of the recordings from the attorney general's Oakland offices, O'Malley said.

The Assembly Education Committee is picking up the pace on its effort to ensure California schools qualify for "Race to the Top" federal stimulus funds.

Days after the Obama administration released the final application requirements for states seeking a piece of the $4.35 billion in competitive grants, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass announced that a Dec. 16 hearing on proposed changes to California schools will be moved up to Dec. 2.

Bass said the Assembly would come back before the new year if necessary to act on legislation in time for the state to meet the Jan. 19 deadline to apply for the first round of funding.

"We will continue to do whatever we need to do to put California schools in the best possible position to be competitive for this funding," Bass said in a statement.

In August, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called a special session to ask the Legislature to make sweeping changes to the California education system so the state could be eligible for up to $700 million through the awards. One bill aimed at ensuring California's eligibility for the funds -- SBX5 1 -- was approved by the Senate earlier this month. The Assembly is still working on its own legislation.

"We are reviewing regulations as quickly as possible and we are continuing to work with all education stakeholders and holding hearings," Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, said in a statement. "We are committed to ensuring this application is competitive and successful."

Click here to read Kevin Yamamura's story about the governor's stop at Camp Victory.

VIDEO: Multi-National Corps Iraq Public Affairs

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's trip to visit with U.S. troops outside of Baghdad is underway. Click here to see more photos.

PHOTO: Ali Al-Saadi/AFP

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass announced Friday the membership of a select committee created to examine ways to ease the strain the transition from prison into society can have on former inmates and their communities.

The Select Committee on Re-Entry, created in May, is tasked with responding to issues raised in a RAND Corporation report, "Understanding the Public Health Implications of Prisoner Reentry in California."

Bass said in a statement that the committee's work "is critical to our efforts to improve public safety, reform our overburdened corrections system and reduce costs to the state budget."

Assemblyman Isadore Hall, D-Compton, has been tapped to head the committee, which plans its first hearing in February. Assemblymembers Tom Ammiano, Marty Block, Steve Bradford, Nathan Fletcher, Felipe Fuentes, Warren Furutani, Dave Jones, Jim Nielsen, Sandré Swanson, Alberto Torrico and Norma Torres were also selected to serve on the committee.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's first trip as governor to visit with U.S. troops in Iraq is set to take place early this week.

He planned a stop in Jerusalem yesterday to take part in a moderated Q & A at a forum sponsored by the Brookings Institute.

Here in the Capitol, the Assembly Select Committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse is holding an 11 a.m. hearing on a bill that would create new certification and licensing program for drug and alcohol abuse counselors.

Several attorney general hopefuls will participate in a town hall sponsored by a Democratic PAC called the Asian American Fund. Assemblymen Pedro Nava, Alberto Torrico and Ted Lieu are on board for the Los Angeles event.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Campbell made his way down the western flank of the Capitol this morning -- unaccompanied, as usual, by any staff members and donning a sharp business suit.

A handful of reporters, a student from Sac State and some others were waiting for him at the foot of the Capitol steps.

The former congressman and state senator had invited us to meet him on this chilly morning to talk about health care and other issues and, as usual, greeted each of us at the foot of the Capitol's western steps with extreme courtesy before launching into his policy points.

Fresh (?) on the heels of last week's late-night/all-night marathon legislative sessions over the big water package, Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries, R-Lake Elsinore, has added a provision to his ACA 8 that would permit legislative meetings only between the hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.

Alert Capitol types will recall that ACA 8 would amend the constitution to prohibit legislative houses or committees from considering any issue (except in emergencies) that hadn't been noticed to the public at least 72 hours in advance. Moreover, no bill could be voted on before it had been in print for at least 24 hours.

"This past year's all-night sessions (there have been four of them) were an embarrassment to the institution," Jeffries wrote in a recent letter.

Not to mention hard on the constitutions of tired old reporters...

No matter which of the four declared and all-but-declared gubernatorial candidates wins next year, one company will have an inside track to the winner.

That company is California Strategies, one of the state's biggest public affairs consulting firms, with 20 partners in seven cities from both major parties. At least four of the company's principals and associates are supporting one of the candidates, all in a free-of-charge, advisory role, said Jason Kinney, a principal and spokesman for the firm.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has tapped the former head of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency for another round at the job.

Victoria Bradshaw was secretary of the agency from 2004 to 2008, when she left to replace then-cabinet secretary Dan Dunmoyer in the horseshoe. She'll continue that job until a replacement is named, according to a release from the governor's office.

"With her tremendous knowledge and expertise in state government and in the labor and workforce development field, there is no better person to take on this position," Schwarzenegger said in a release.

The position, which requires Senate confirmation, entails advising the governor on policy issues and managing the agency, which handles job training programs, occupational safety laws, the state workers' compensation program and other workforce-related programs. She'll earn $175,000 a year.

Both the governor and Bradshaw said they wanted the agency to focus its efforts on encouraging the use of the "green" developments to jump-start economic recovery.

"Just as California led the world into the information digital age and became the leader in biotechnology, we will help our state translate cutting edge environmental policy into economic opportunity that will lead this emerging wave of entrepreneurship," Bradshaw said in a statement.

California's Milk Advisory Board's latest ad campaign claims that "great milk comes from happy cows, happy cows come from California."

Well, happiness for producers of those spots apparently exists more than 6,000 miles away.

That's right, the board isn't heading to the Golden State's dairy farms to film a new series of ads boasting about California's cows.... they're going to New Zealand. In fact, a better deal on production costs is sending them to Auckland, the sister city of California's entertainment industry hub.

The Los Angeles Times' Richard Verrier reports in a pun-laced piece that the decision "cheesed-off" some groups.

"It's totally out of line," said Ed Duffy, business agent for Teamsters Local 399, which represents location managers, studio drivers and casting directors. "If they're promoting California products, they should be shooting in California."

Milk board officials said the New Zealand shoot represented a "minor portion of production" and was a matter of simple economics. The board solicited bids from around the world, and the New Zealand site was the lowest, said Michael Freeman, the board's vice president of advertising.

"It was a no-brainer," he said. "The dairy industry is facing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. We have a fiduciary responsibility to spend their hard-earned dollars as efficiently as we can. In this particular case, we found significant cost savings by shooting a portion of this product overseas."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's has backed new financial incentives to keep film and television production projects in California, but commercials aren't eligible for the credits.

Freeman told the Times that the board "would never misrepresent California cows by shooting them elsewhere."

Hm. So what are they shooting there?

UPDATE 1:35 p.m.: Amy Kull, a representative for the Milk Advisory Board, called to answer our question about what sort of filming was set to take place in New Zealand.

The commercial's California production staff will film cows in front of a green screen during a four-day production trip, she said. (The theme of the campaign is cows from around the world auditioning to move to The Golden State, so these will be the "unhappy" cows seeking happiness in California).

Kull reiterated that the board was trying to save money at a time when the economy has forced 10 percent of California dairy farmers out of business this year. She also noted that six to eight weeks of post-production work will be done back in California for each of the 10 spots being shot.

"Basically it's 100 times the work that's done in California than is done in New Zealand," Kull said. "They looked at every possible way they could save, and this is one way they could save on only 10 percent of the production value."

Video: One of the spots from this year's California Happy Cows campaign.

The Milken Institute is based in Southern California, but its annual survey of business conditions in the nation's cities has almost nothing good to say about California.

It heaps praise on Texas - the Austin area was ranked No. 1 on Milken's list of "best-performing cities," released today, while three other Texas cities were listed in the top five, with only No. 3 Salt Lake City cracking that elite list.

Cities in recession-wracked California, meanwhile, saw their rankings decline - especially those hit hard by the collapse of the housing market.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is kicking off his overseas trip this weekend, traveling to Jerusalem for the Saban Forum, an annual conference organized by the Brookings Institute.

Schwarzenegger is scheduled to participate in a moderated conversation about using alternative energy sources to fight climate change, his office said Friday. He'll also meet with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to talk about environmental protection and other issues.

The stop in Israel precedes Schwarzenegger's scheduled trip to visit with U.S. troops in Iraq.

Wondering who's in charge while Schwarzenegger is out of town? With the lieutenant governor's seat still vacant, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg assumes the role of acting governor while Schwarzenegger is out of the country.

The San Diego Union-Tribune is reporting that Assemblyman Joel Anderson, R-Alpine, has returned more than $100,000 in contributions that are the center of a probe into his campaign-related financial transactions.

The Fair Political Practices Commission is investigating a series of transactions in which Anderson and his supporters wrote large checks to county Republican committees days before the committees deposited similar amounts into Anderson's campaign coffers.

There is no legal cap on on how much cash a candidate or individual donor can give to a county party committee or how much a committee can donate to a candidate's campaign chest, but advance coordination on such contributions is illegal.

The Schwarzenegger administration submitted to a panel of federal judges last night a revised proposal for reducing California's prison inmate population.

The three-judge panel, which ruled that the state must come up with a plan for cutting the prison population to address overcrowding, rejected the state's first proposal last month on the grounds that it did not meet their requirements.

Meg Whitman's campaign manager Jillian Hasner has responded today to a letter from the Steve Poizner campaign accusing Whitman of falsely saying Poizner hadn't responded to her invitation to do three debates with him in the fall.

Former San Francisco Mayor and current newspaper columnist Willie Brown suggested recently that California First Lady Maria Shriver might jump into the race to replace her husband as governor next year.

But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't buying it in an interview today with The Sacramento Bee editorial board.

Attorney General Jerry Brown railed against what he said was an "unending escalation of pervasive legal prescription" Wednesday, according to a news report, striking some of the same notes played by the Republican gubernatorial candidates he may go up against if he formally declares his candidacy for governor.

By Jack Chang

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner's campaign manager, Jim Bognet, accused rival Meg Whitman today of falsely asserting she had never received a response from Poizner earlier this year after inviting him to three debates in the fall.

Turmoil in the California housing market has dramatically dropped home sale prices, and that means that buying a house in the state is becoming easier for those with steady incomes and good credit ratings.

The California Association of Realtors reported today that the proportion of households that could afford to buy an entry-level home was 64 percent in the third quarter of this year, up sharply from the 55 percent level a year earlier.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed Matthew Bettenhausen secretary of the California Emergency Management Agency.

Bettenhausen formerly served as director of the California Office of Homeland Security, which was combined with the Office of Emergency Services to create Cal EMA in 2009. The former federal prosecutor has served as acting secretary of the new cabinet-level agency since its creation.

"As a valued member of my administration, Matt has played a key role in ensuring that we are prepared to protect Californians from potential emergencies and disaster situations," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "With his experience and capabilities, I am confident that Matt will continue to provide Californians with the highest levels of security, emergency preparedness, response and recovery."

The salary for the position, which requires Seante confirmation, is $175,000.

Photo: Cal EMA Web site.

Updated at 3:40 p.m. with comment from Jerry Brown senior adviser Steven Glazer.

GOP gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner have joined the third Republican candidate Tom Campbell in demanding an independent inquiry into Attorney General Jerry Brown's office taping several conversations with news reporters.

As many California homeowners continue to face foreclosure, Assembly Banking & Finance Committee is holding a hearing on the role of loan modification programs in preventing residents from losing their homes.

Democratic Assemblyman Pedro Nava, who chairs the committee, has introduced a bill to create a new loan modification program for California homeowners. Under the proposal, homeowners who have been served a notice of default could enlist the help of a state-appointed monitor to negotiate mortgage payments with lenders. Lenders would be prevented from foreclosing on the home until the loan modification program was completed.

Nevada State Assembly Speaker Barbara E. Buckley will be on hand to talk about how a similar program has affected foreclosure rates there.

Californians are worried about deterioration of the state's higher education system and rising costs to students and their parents, but lack confidence in the ability of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators to deal with their concerns, a new Public Policy Institute of California poll indicates.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Campbell is asking that the state auditor investigate the covert taping of conversations with journalists done by a spokesman in Attorney General Jerry Brown's office.

That office released a memo Monday finding that spokesman Scott Gerber, who resigned last week, did not break state laws by taping six conversations with five reporters this year. The memo also found that Gerber had been told not to tape such conversations but did it anyway.

EdSource, a think tank that studies California's education system, has weighed in on the long-simmering debate over whether the state needs to beef up its vocational education offerings as a way of reducing its high school dropout problem.

EdSource, based in Mountain View, has generated a detailed study about an approach that purports to increase vocational training without limiting students' opportunities to attend college.

The string of lawsuits challenging special fund raids and bookkeeping gimmicks in the state's current budget has grown longer with a suit by beverage container recycling centers.

Californians notoriously eschew walking for driving, which may explain why the state doesn't have a particularly high pedestrian fatality rate, a new report by Transportation for America, a transportation advocacy group based in Washington, indicates.

The four most dangerous major metropolitan areas are found in Florida, led by Orlando, with a "pedestrian danger index" of 221.5. The least dangerous metropolitan area (over one million residents) for pedestrians is Minneapolis-St. Paul, which also topped a recent survey of overall hazardous circumstances by another organization.

The most dangerous large California region is Riverside-San Bernardino, ranked 18th on the national list, with Sacramento at No. 22, San Jose at No. 26, Los Angeles-Long Beach at No. 27, San Diego at No. 33, and San Francisco-Oakland at 40.

When smaller communities' scores are tallied, however, Bakersfield, with a pedestrian danger index of 128 (equal to seventh place on the national list), ranks as the state's most perilous. It's followed by Stockton, Redding and Fresno and then by Riverside-San Bernardino. The safest of the 26 California communities for walkers is San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles with an index of just 15.4.

The full report is available here while the California breakdown can be found here.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will travel to Iraq early next week to visit U.S. troops for the first time as governor, communications director Matt David told The Bee.

Schwarzenegger previously visited troops on United Service Organizations-sponsored tours in 2002 to Bosnia to preview his movie, "Collateral Damage," as well as in 2003 to Iraq to show "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines."

"He's been wanting to visit the troops for the last few years but hasn't had the opportunity to," David said. "He thought now would be a good time to make a short trip over there."

The governor will be in the Middle East for a couple of days, David said. Asked whether Schwarzenegger planned to make any other stops, David said it was possible but that the governor had no further plans at this point. He said he could not provide more specifics for security reasons.

The California Highway Patrol will provide security for the governor in Iraq. But the state does not disclose how much CHP spends on Schwarzenegger for security reasons, according to spokeswoman Fran Clader.

In 2004, Schwarzenegger visited Israel, Jordan and Germany in a four-day overseas tour. He met with political leaders and embassy workers in Israel, had lunch with King Abdullah in Jordan and then visited troops wounded in Iraq at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

The governor is considering another visit to Israel during this trip, sources said.

With the lieutenant governor seat vacant for the first time in Schwarzenegger's tenure, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg is in line to serve as acting governor when Schwarzenegger leaves the state.

Schwarzenegger said Wednesday in a Veterans Day address in Los Angeles that nearly one in nine U.S. troops comes from California.

The governor has not said much on Iraq this year, but in 2007 he parsed his own views on the war there. That year, he supported a timeline for troop withdrawal but also warned that a public authorization of withdrawal may not be wise because it could send a "signal to the enemy." He also supported President George W. Bush's increase of troops to Iraq that year.

Schwarzenegger vetoed Democratic-backed legislation in 2007 that would have placed an advisory measure on the ballot asking voters whether they wanted to withdraw troops from Iraq.

"The decision to engage in or withdraw troops from war is a federal issue, not a state issue," Schwarzenegger said in a statement at the time. "Placing a non-binding resolution on Iraq on the (presidential primary) ballot, when it carries no weight or authority, would only further divide voters and shift attention from other critical issues that must be addressed."

California's state government spends about $3 billion a year on "information technology" - the acquisition and operation of computer systems - but has been criticized for its chronic inability to get new systems operational at a predictable cost.

The most recent example is a statewide computer system for courts whose costs have multiplied without completion.

The Legislature's budget analyst, however, says that the state might be more successful if it changed its procurement system for computer equipment and software to allow what it calls "multi-stage procurement" that would divide large projects into stages and create competition among vendors, termed a "bake-off," for each stage. It cites Netflix, which rents movies, as a private sector example of how the system can make procurement more cost-effective.

"Complex systems integration projects should not follow a one-size, fits-all approach," the report from Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor's office says. "Instead, the unique characteristics of each project--its complexity, scope, size, and requirements--should help determine its procurement approach. As it reviews such projects, the Legislature should take into account various procurement options available to the state; their benefits, risks, and consequences; and the conditions under which one procurement approach would be more advantageous than another."

The full report is available here.

California's state budget crisis is so severe that the Pew Center on the States, a Washington-based policy think tank, is using it as an example of conditions that imperil other states.

Nine other states, the Pew report says, are facing "some of the same pressures that have pushed California toward economic disaster," adding that they also could see furloughs of public employees, severe cuts in education and reductions in the social welfare safety net.

"A challenging mix of economic, political and money-management factors have pushed California to the brink of insolvency. But while California often takes the spotlight, other states are facing hardships just as daunting," Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said in a statement accompanying the report. "Decisions these states make as they try to navigate the recession will play a role in how quickly the entire nation recovers."

The report was issued just two days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger acknowledged that the state's current budget, enacted last July, is as much as $7 billion in the red already. He is expected to propose ways to close that gap and deal with the projected deficit in the 2010-11 budget no later than Jan. 10.

The other nine states threatened with California-style fiscal crisis, the Pew report said, are Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. With California, they represent one-third of the nation's population and economic output.

The report identifies California's fiscal problems as loss of revenue, the relative size of its budget gap, high home mortgage foreclosure rates, legal obstacles to balancing the budget, and "poor money management practices."

Although the nine other states have some similar problems, several of them "already have responded aggressively to their budget crisis, although it is too soon to tell whether their actions will put them on solid fiscal footing."

The full report, titled "Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril," actually looks at the finances of all 50 states but concentrates on California and the nine states deemed to be in most fiscal peril. The report is
available here.

First Lady Maria Shriver got up close and personal with "The Colbert Report" host Stephen Colbert last night. Here's the clip:

Rex Babin is the political cartoonist for The Bee. You can see a collection of his work here.

Retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Col. and two-time CD-04 candidate Charlie Brown is headed to Washington after all.

Brown, who lost his 2008 bid against Republican Rep. Tom McClintock by less than 2,000 votes, announced yesterday that he is accepting an appointment to work under the Obama Administration at the Department of Homeland Security.

"It was one year ago that a record number of Americans stood together to take our community, and our country in a new direction. There is no denying the important strides we've made," he wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "But it is also clear that very significant challenges remain, both at home and abroad. Everyone can and must play a role to help get our country back on track."

Several lawmakers are participating in Veterans Day events in the region today.

Congressman John Garamendi will be back in the 10th Congressional District to participate in Antioch's Veterans Day Parade today. It's Garamendi's first public event in the district since he was sworn in to office last week.

Republican Assemblyman Ted Gaines is mixing up 22 lbs. of pancake batter for a Veterans Day Breakfast out in Roseville and Democratic Assemblywoman Alyson Huber is scheduled to swing by an event celebrating women in the military at the Sacramento VA Medical Center.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will also deliver remarks at the Los Angeles National Cemetery Veterans' Day Program.

BIRTHDAY: Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, turns 61 today.

California expanded health insurance for children earlier in this decade, reducing the uninsured ranks by 12 percent, but additional progress has been stalled by the state's chronic budget deficit, according to a new statistical report by the California Healthcare Foundation, and coverage declined in 2008.

Reductions in Healthy Families and other programs aimed at working poor families lacking health insurance has been a major issue as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators deal with its ongoing fiscal crisis.

Just last month, Schwarzenegger signed an emergency bill under which hospitals agreed to pay
$2 billion in fees to the state to qualify California for $2.3 billion in new matching money to hospitals and boost funding for children's insurance by $320 million and public hospital financing by another $310 million.

The Healthcare Foundation report says that expanding children's coverage dropped the state's uninsured rate to just above the national average of 11 percent, even though 80 percent of California's children are eligible for public programs.

It also notes that California's proportion of uninsured school children, 32 percent, is also slightly above the national average, and that as private employers cut back on employees' insurance, more children are being shifted to public programs.

The full report is available here.

Take this with a grain of salt since October is projected as the lowest revenue month of the fiscal year, but California actually beat expectations for tax collections last month by $285 million, or 7.1 percent, according to state Controller John Chiang.

Most of that was due to far more corporate taxes than expected -- $248 million above the anticipated $164 million in revenues. Personal income taxes were roughly on par with projections, while sales taxes were about 9 percent off.

California remains $854 million behind in general fund receipts in four months through October, according to Chiang.

The news comes a day after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger estimated the state will face a $5 billion to $7 billion deficit in the 2009-10 fiscal year alone due to flagging revenues, court challenges and other roadblocks to budget solutions. If it is $7 billion, that amounts to roughly 8 percent of the state's $84.6 billion general fund budget.

Schwarzenegger continued his call Tuesday for more spending cuts to bridge the state's budget deficit, in response to a question at a water bill-signing event in San Jose. He said nothing will be off limits.

"I think there will be across the board cuts again," Schwarzenegger said. "We will not pick and choose."

An investigation by the Attorney General's office has found that actions of a former spokesman who secretly recorded phone conversations with six reporters "do not warrant further investigation as a violation of the law."

Former AG spokesman Scott Gerber resigned Nov. 2 after admitting that he recorded an interview with San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci and other reporters without their consent.

California law prohibits recording confidential phone conversations without the consent of all parties on the call. Chief Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette deemed Gerber's actions legal because the taped calls were "on-the-record" conversations.

"An 'on-the-record' interview with a news reporter is the antithesis of 'confidential communication,'" Gillette wrote in the report.

The report, released last night, also reveals that Gerber was told not to record calls with reporters without consent.

Click here to read the full report.

Read transcripts of the recorded interviews, posted by Consumer Watchdog, here.

Sen. Dave Cogdill, R-Modesto, said today that he will not seek a second term in 2010.

The news that Cogdill wouldn't seek re-election, first reportedby The Fresno Bee's E.J. Schultz, came one day after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that the former Senate Republican leader is on his short list for the impending lieutenant governor pick. Cogdill indicated in the release that his plan is to return to work in the private sector and spend more time with his family.

"Representing the citizens of the Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada for almost a decade has truly been an honor and a blessing. I have always valued public service and giving back to the community, so the decision to return to the private sector for the time being has not been an easy one," he said in a release sent out this afternoon.

Cogdill said with the passage and signing of the $11 billion water bond proposal, which now must be approved by voters, he felt he has met one of his key legislative goals.

"The pinnacle of my legislative career is the recent passage of a comprehensive solution to rebuild California's water infrastructure. While more work lies ahead to complete this goal, I am confident that Californians will support an investment in a reliable water supply for this generation as well as our children and grandchildren," he said.

Cogdill, who served in the Assembly before being elected to the 14th Senate District Seat in 2006, was formerly the Senate Republican leader. He was stripped of that leadership role after working with Democrats on the February budget agreement, which included tax increases.

This post and the headline was updated at 2:15 p.m. with a statement from Cogdill's office.

Were California's 500-mile-long Central Valley a separate state, it would be the nation's most productive agricultural state, but its per capita personal income would be the nation's third lowest, according to the latest assessment of the region by the Modesto-based Great Valley Center.

The center, which is affiliated with the University of California, Merced, annually generates a statistical and observational portrait of the region and the newest version is similar to those of the past in describing it as one of great potential but equally great economic, social and environmental challenges.

"In 2007, the per capita income of the Central Valley was $29,790, 29 percent below the state average of $41,805," says the report. "To put this in perspective, if the Central Valley was to be taken as an individual state, it would rank 48th in the nation in per capita income."

The full report is available here.

In case you missed it, here's the video of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking with the editorial board of The Fresno Bee after yesterday's water bill signing. The governor will be whipping out his pen again later this morning to sign another piece of the package in San Jose. Click here to watch the 11:45 webcast of that signing ceremony.

Related:

• Fresno Bee editorial writer Jim Boren picks up on a cinematic reference the governor made while touting his water plans.


• Bee colleague Kevin Yamamura has a recap of the governor's remarks.

Rex Babin is the political cartoonist for The Bee. You can see a collection of his work here.

Related: Columnist Dan Walters writes in today's Bee that political "pork" could hurt efforts to pass the $11 billion bond proposal that's headed to the ballot. Read that piece here.

On the penultimate stop of his water bill-signing tour, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will swing through San Jose to slap his John Hancock on a piece of the package that sets statewide water conservation requirements.

After a long afternoon of speechifying and back-patting at yesterday's bond measure signing in Fresno, the governor made a stop to talk to the editorial board at The Fresno Bee.

Amid fielding questions about the water package he was in town to tout and California's continuing fiscal issues, Schwarzenegger spoke briefly about his impending lieutenant governor pick, which he said will be announced within the next two weeks.

"It could be faster also. I could be going home tonight and all of a sudden something comes to my mind and, I'm very improvisational, I go on the 'Tonight Show' and make an announcement," he joked, referring to his own late-night announcement that he was jumping in the 2003 recall election.

So what's he looking for in a No. 2 to replace former "guv lite" John Garamendi?

"Someone that will follow through with the plan that I set out," Schwarzenegger offered, confirming that Republican Sen. Dave Cogdill, who was by his side at the meeting, has made the shortlist.

Schwarzenegger went on to complain that "it just doesn't work" to have a lieutenant governor from the opposite party. Click here for a who's who of some of the potential appointees.

Bee colleague Kevin Yamamura has more on the governor's comments, including what he had to say about the growing budget shortfall the state is expected to face, in today's Bee. You can watch a video of the interview here.

Another item for the constant cash dash file: Board of Equalization member Jerome Horton has been on the job just two months, but the business community's making it clear that he's the guy they want to stay in the spot.

On the two-month anniversary of his confirmation to the seat, the former Democratic assemblyman is set to be feted tonight at a reception hosted by the California Cable & Telecommunications Association, the Personal Insurance Federation of California, the California Association of Realtors and The California Chamber of Commerce.

It's no surprise that Horton, who has a reputation for being a business-friendly moderate, has the backing of the business lobby. The former lawmaker was appointed to the state tax board by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in July and is up for re-election for a full term in 2010.

With Senate President pro tem Darrell Steinberg, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Board of Equalization Chair Betty Yee, Sen. Leland Yee, Sen. Rod Wright and Sen. Ron Calderon, who also chairs the Senate Banking Finance and Insurance Committee, listed on the invite as "special guests," the fundraiser's sure to attract plenty of folks willing to write the requested $1,500 to $6,500 checks to fill Horton's campaign coffers.

I mentioned in an earlier post Bee colleague Jim Sanders' profile of Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano.

As noted before, the piece highlights the wise-cracking stand-up comedian-turned-lawmaker's reputation for speaking his mind on a wide range of political issues. Here's a video of Ammiano exhibiting his trademark passion at a summer press conference about proposed cuts to funding for AIDs programs.

Assemblywoman Alyson Huber made a bulk delivery to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning.

The Democrat from El Dorado Hills dropped off 2,000 postcards from Californians who oppose the governor's plan to build a peripheral canal to route water around the Delta to other parts of the state.

The mass mailing was prompted by a stop in Stockton at which the governor touted the freshly passed water package, saying the state was going to "fix the Delta and to build a canal around the Delta."

That remark didn't go over so well with attendees and local officials, seeing as the event was located in what the Stockton Record describes as "the heart of anti-canal country."

"It's a little like wearing a Dodgers' jersey at a Giants game," Huber quipped this morning, repeating a line she's used in several statements on issue.

The water package doesn't explicitly call for the construction of a canal --an undertaking already authorized by state law -- but the 7-member Delta Stewardship Council tasked with proposing fixes for the Delta's needs could include a canal in its plans. Huber attempted to counter claims that the water package will streamline the process by introducing legislation that would require legislative approval of any plans to construct such a canal, but the bill failed to make it up for a vote.

Championing the anti-canal cause makes sense for Huber, who's expected to face a tough re-election battle in the 10th Assembly District. Huber, who won the seat by less than 500 votes, trailed her 2008 Republican opponent (and potential 2010 challenger) Jack Sieglock by 3,600 votes in San Joaquin County, which encompasses Stockton and the rest of "the heart of anti-canal country."

By the way, Huber isn't the only lawmaker who's been using baseball team analogies to describe what they see as the governor's faux-pas when it comes to knowing his audience.

Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano compared Schwarzenegger's October drop-by at a San Francisco Democratic fundraiser to "if Tommy Lasorda had showed up at a Giants event." (Yes, that would be the same fundraiser at which Ammiano reportedly greeted the governor with, "You lie!" and "Kiss my gay ass!")

Bee colleague Jim Sanders profiles Ammiano, a "saucy-spouting jester with a no-nonsense political agenda" known for speaking his mind, in today's Bee. Read that piece here.

Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner today rejected, for the second time this year, an insurance industry request for a hefty increase in workers' compensation premiums, saying it would exacerbate the state's economic recession.

The Workers Compensation Insurance Bureau, citing rising medical costs and the projected effects of two recent Workers Compensation Appeals Board decisions, proposed a 22.8 percent increase in benchmark premiums.

But Poizner, a Republican candidate for governor, rejected the request, saying, "One in eight Californians is unemployed. Countless others are also suffering and have either given up looking because they cannot find work or have taken part-time jobs while they seek full-time work. Any increase in costs for employers will only make our already dire economic situation worse."

Poizner said the request lacked "clear evidence" that a big increase was warranted and said employers who self-insure for job-related illnesses and injuries had demonstrated that under terms of a 2004 overhaul of the system, big cost savings could be realized.

"These increases requested by the WCIRB give insurers an excuse to raise rates in concert without fully utilizing all of their cost containment tools or increasing efficiency." Poizner said in a statement. "I will not consider an increase in the claims cost benchmark until I see substantial efforts being made by insurers to use all available tools to constrain costs and improve efficiency."

The 2004 overhaul, pushed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, tightened up eligibility for both cash compensation and medical treatment, leading to howls of protest from labor unions and attorneys who specialize in work comp cases.

Earlier this year, the Workers Compensation Appeals Board declared that the new rules governing compensation were not as absolute as employers had assumed and could be breached if individual case circumstances warranted. That sparked fears among insurers that their costs would start to rise after years of decline and led to the proposal that Poizner rejected.

"I do not entirely reject the possibility that these WCAB decisions will increase permanent disability costs and it appears that the decisions may change further," said Poizner. "Given the lack of actual data and differing assessments, along with the economic challenges faced by California's employers, I believe the proper course of action is to further monitor the data on permanent disability costs, properly analyze the effect of these decisions, and await the resolution of further legal appeals."

In theory, insurers could ignore Poizner's rejection, since he doesn't exercise total control over premiums, but insurers that ignore his decision run the risk of becoming uncompetitive with other insurers.The premium benchmark has fallen 63.4 percent since its high in 2003.

In July, Poizner rejected a 23.7 percent increase proposal that also cited the new work comp appellate decisions. But last year, while rejecting a 16 percent proposal, he granted a 5 percent increase, one year after calling for premium decreases. His actions have pleased employers as much as they have created a gulf between him and insurers.

Riverside County Board of Supervisors appointee Sen. John Benoit is going to serve a few more weeks in the state Senate before leaving the Capitol for his new job.

Benoit, who submitted a letter of resignation Friday and had planned to be sworn in as supervisor today, has decided to push back his last day in the Senate to Nov. 30.

Members of the board had been pushing the administration to name someone to the open seat in recent weeks, complaining that the vacancy was making it hard for them to get anything done.

But Benoit decided to delay the move a few weeks to save the county cash in planning special elections. The Riverside Press-Enterprise's Jim Miller reports:

"Officials had raised concerns last week that Benoit's quick resignation would require the county to hold up to two standalone special elections to fill Benoit's Senate seat, at a cost of as much as $2.6 million. The delay means the county will need to hold only one standalone special election, on April 13."

Click here for a roundup of who might run for the soon-to-be vacant 37th Senate District seat.

The Los Angeles Times and the University of Southern California rolled out the results of their first co-sponsored statewide poll over the weekend.

Its findings?

Voters aren't feeling hot about the direction the state is headed (79 percent of respondents said the state is on the wrong track) or the prospect that things could pick up soon (54 percent said they didn't think things in the Golden State would improve when the national economy gets better). They also didn't give good marks to the lawmakers leading the state down that wayward path.

But when asked about proposals for changing the way the state is run, respondents weren't too keen on overhauling the revenue and spending system.

Fifty-four percent of respondents support requiring a two-thirds vote for passing a state budget, and 66 percent said they wanted to keep the supermajority requirement in place for raising state taxes. When it comes to making changes to Proposition 13, 62 percent of respondents said leave the property tax law alone.

So what did respondents point to as the root issues causing the state to go to shambles?

State government spending too much (37 percent) and special interests holding too much sway (24 percent).

Respondents were also split on whether any of the current crop of gubernatorial hopefuls could bring "real change" to California. Click here to read the poll, or read a roundup of what respondents said about the 2010 races after the jump.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, on his water-deal celebration tour, is headed to Fresno for more bill-signing today.

This is also the week aides expect him to name a replacement for now-congressman and former Lt. Gov. John Garamendi.

Wondering about the political pitfalls involved? Remind yourself here.

If Schwarzenegger leaves the state in the meantime, Senate President pro tem Darrell Steinberg is in charge.

With Veterans Day coming up this week, the Assembly Veterans Affairs Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing today on the State Auditor's audit of the California Department of Veterans Affairs.

The report, released in October, highlighted several areas in which the department could make improvements for better serving California's 2.1 million veterans, including increasing coordination with outside groups that provide direct services and making changes to ensure the CalVet program addresses the needs of homeless veterans.

Read the report here.

An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that the The Assembly Select Committee on 9-1-1 Service hearing is today. The hearing is Thursday at 1:30 p.m. The Bee regrets the error.

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman will follow in the footsteps of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and decline her salary if she's elected governor, press secretary Sarah Pompei said today.

Whitman is worth about a billion dollars and is pouring millions into her gubernatorial campaign.

The current annual salary for governor is $212,179 and will fall to $173,987 assuming an 18 percent salary cut for state officials takes effect as approved by the California Citizens Compensation Commission.

Jon Waldie, chief administrative officer of the Assembly, and Greg Schmidt, chief executive officer of the Senate, have asked Attorney General Jerry Brown to look into whether the pay and benefit cuts were legally approved. Read about that request here.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Campbell, a former congressman, said Friday he would accept a salary if elected. "How else would I eat?" Campbell said in a written statement.

The third Republican candidate Steve Poizner, the state insurance commissioner who also has about a billion dollars in personal wealth, will accept a salary with a possible pay cut, said communications director Jarrod Agen.

All but a few Republican legislators had perfect voting records this year as far as the state Chamber of Commerce is concerned, whereas only a few Democrats voted with the chamber even half the time.

The business organization published its completely predictable voting records on 13 key business measures, including the chamber-opposed "job killer" bills, in today's edition of its weekly bulletin.

Twenty-five GOP members of the Assembly were given perfect 13-0 voting records while first-term Assemblywoman Alyson Huber of El Dorado Hills had the highest score by a Democrat, 10-3. At the other end of the scale, six Democratic Assembly members had 2-10 ratings.

Senators' voting record showed a similar split. Eleven of the Senate's 15 Republicans had 13-0 marks while the highest Democrat was Lou Correa of Santa Ana at 10-2 and Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, was the lowest at 1-11.

A complete bill-by-bill and legislator-by-legislator scorecard is available here.

Board of Equalization candidate Alan Nakanishi has gotten a bit of a boost in his bid to replace termed-out board member Bill Leonard.

The former Republican assemblyman and practicing doctor was recently hired by one of his key endorsers, BOE District 3 Member Michelle Steel, as an "assistant to the board member."

In addition to pulling in an additional $7,852 a month, the new title means Nakanishi will be able to request that his gig with the board be listed as his profession on the ballot and play up the "experience" card in the crowded GOP primary for the safe Republican seat.

Nakanishi could not be reached for comment.

Nakanishi's been running hard for the seat since the outset, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get his name on slate mailers for the election. The added bonus of his new ballot designation could make a difference in a race where most voters aren't familiar with the candidates, or even what a position on the board, which administers state tax laws, entails.

"The only thing [voters] are going to be aware of is what is their name, what is their party, what is their occupation and did I get a slate card from a group telling me to vote for this candidate," said Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of The Target Book, which handicaps races across the state.

Listing an occupation that suggests experience at the job (as opposed to Nakanishi's current title of doctor) could have an extra impact because one of Nakanishi's main rivals in the race is former state lawmaker Barbara Alby, a longtime deputy to Leonard, the member both are vying to replace.

Steel knows first-hand the boost a staff job at the board can give a BOE hopeful. Early in her 2006 BOE bid, her predecessor Claude Parrish brought her on staff as a deputy. She said at the time that she believed the experience and better ballot designation would help her candidacy against her opponent, former Republican Assemblyman Ray Haynes.

Steel's Chief Deputy Lou Barnett said Nakanishi was brought on board to track legislation, perform outreach to various groups and serve as a policy adviser. He noted that Nakanishi is the second former state legislator to serve on Steel's staff.

"Michelle is very happy to have him on board," he said. "She likes to hire highly competent, experienced people, and a former assemblyman certainly has experience handling legislation, certainly has experience handling constituent groups and certainly has experience as a policy adviser."

Nakanishi's campaign adviser, Tim Clark, said in a statement that the job won't impinge on Nakanishi's campaign time "because he's been campaigning nights and weekends anyway and did not plan to be a full-time candidate. Alan has a passion to serve, and his expertise with state tax and budget policy (gained from his time in the Assembly), will be a tremendous help in Michelle's office.  It will probably help Alan to gain more familiarity with the interworking of the Board of Equalization."

The Fresno Bee's E.J. Schultz points out that the cautious approach to the just-passed water package from GOP gubernatorial candidates illustrates a Republican split over the issue.

San Francisco's KGO-TV's investigative unit decided to take a look at the cash California spends on assigning California Highway Patrol officers to protect some of the state's constitutional officers.

So how much is the state shelling out to keep these public figures safe? Well, it's not chump change.

In the last fiscal year alone, the CHP spent just over a million dollars guarding the five constitutional officers -- $224,193 for [Superintendent of Public Instruction] Jack O'Connell, $139,954 for Treasurer Bill Lockyer, $172,225 for Secretary of State Debra Bowen, $309,436 for Controller John Chiang, and $214,335 for Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.

Watch the video report or click here for more of the story on the news team's blog.

The head of the California Citizens Compensation Commission said Friday that he's not bothered by a legal challenge to his panel's spring decision to slash state lawmakers' pay and benefits by 18 percent.

Commission chairman Charles "Chuck" Murray said in a telephone interview that state legislators have the right to challenge anything anybody does in California, including decisions by his own panel, adding: "That's their job."

The Legislature's top administrators recently asked Attorney General Jerry Brown to decide whether the pending cuts in compensation were legal, suggesting the commission had exceeded its legal jurisdiction.

Murray said that while he doesn't mind the lawmakers appeal to Brown, he still thinks it's a bad idea given the state's troubled finances.

"It makes no sense whatsoever for them to be doing this," he said.

The Governor appoints all seven members of the commission. Murray cited the state's dire financial condition when in May members of his panel voted to cut lawmakers' pay by 18 percent, beginning in December 2010 after the next round of elections.

Later, the commission also slashed lawmakers per-diem payments, car allowances and medical and other benefits by an equal amount - effective December of 2009.

Murray acknowledged that the state Department of Personnel Administration gave him a legal opinion stating that his panel didn't necessarily have a 100 percent right to cut per-diem and car allowances. "But that's just one opinion," Murray said.

Murray said he secured additional verbal legal opinions from an unidentified judge and four Southern California attorneys. They all told him he had authority to order all cuts, he says.

Before voting to make the cuts, Murray said, he went even further and consulted a retired lawmaker and reviewed historical legislative and archival bill files on the issue.

Murray said his own review convinced him that his commission was meant to have the power to cut both pay and fringe benefits. Per-diem and car allowances fit that bill.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to sign into law two of the water bills passed early Wednesday morning.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass is also scheduled to attend the 10 a.m. signing ceremony at the Tujunga Wellfield Groundwater Recovery Project in Los Angeles.

News that Republican Sen. John Benoit was appointed to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors set political circles buzzing about who might run for his seat.

Republican Assemblyman Bill Emmerson has already said he's in.

The assemblyman, who had been raising cash for a 2012 bid for the 31st Senate District, told the Press-Enterprise yesterday that he plans to move from his current home in Redlands to Hemet so he will be eligible to run for Benoit's seat.

Assemblyman Jeff Miller, R-Corona, also appears to be eying a run.

"I'm taking a very serious look at the Senate seat," he said in a statement. "I believe that my conservative voting record combined with having served a big chunk of the district for more than a decade now make me a very strong candidate."

One person who doesn't have plans to jump in anytime soon? Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries, R-Lake Elsinore.

"Congratulations to Supervisor Benoit! And yes, I'm still NOT running in the special election for his vacant Senate seat," he tweeted yesterday.

The Desert Sun has a roundup this morning that includes some additional candidates, including two Democrats: Palm Springs unified school board member Justin Blake and Arthur Bravo Guerrero, who lost to Benoit in 2008.

Once Benoit steps down, the governor will have 14 days to call a special election, meaning a primary election is likely to fall sometime in mid- to late-January.

GOV2010: GOP guv-hopeful Steve Poizner is holding a small business roundtable in Walnut with the Tri-Counties Association of Realtors. Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, and Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills, are also scheduled to attend.

An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Benoit's successor will serve his remaining term and be eligible to serve two additional terms. The Bee regrets the error. This post was also updated to include a link to the Desert Sun piece.

A day after officially launching her U.S. Senate bid, Carly Fiorina's campaign rolled out the endorsements of eight Republican senators.

Topping the list is Arizona Sen. John McCain, whose presidential bid Fiorina supported as a campaign surrogate.

Also announced today were the endorsements of Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

"I am humbled to have earned the endorsement of each one of these distinguished Republican Senators. They are all dedicated public servants and it is a true honor to have their support. I look forward to working with each of these Senators to get our economy moving again and to restore fiscal accountability to Washington," Fiorina said in a statement.

None of the names should come as a shock; all eight of those Republicans had already signed on to host a Nov. 17 fundraiser for the candidate.

Fiorina's rival for the Republican nomination, Irvine Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, announced the endorsement earlier this week of Sen. Jim DeMint and his Senate Conservatives Fund PAC.

DeVore spokesman Joshua Treviño said he wasn't concerned that Fiorina had snagged the endorsement of "liberal senators" from the Washington political establishment.

"If Carly Fiorina wants to convince California Republicans of her conservative credentials by trotting out Snowe, Collins, Graham and McCain, we welcome that," he said.

This week's election featured the usual array of local ballot measures dealing with commercial and residential development and slow- and no-growth advocates appear to have won more than they lost, according to the California Development and Planning Report, an authoritative newsletter of urban planning issues.

"All in all, voting on November 3 local ballot measures provided the usual mixed bag," the newsletter said. "The slow growth side won eight of 12 easily classifiable contests, but that total is skewed by Modesto voters rejecting all five proposals to extend sewer service into potential new growth areas."

The community-by-community rundown on Tuesday's development issues is available here.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has built a sizable lead over her two GOP rivals about a month and a half after she began running statewide radio advertisements, according to a poll by the Capitol Weekly newspaper and the private firm Probolsky Research.

The poll, described here in the Capitol Weekly, found Whitman, the former CEO of online auction firm eBay, winning the support of 34.3 percent of 269 Republican respondents while former Congressman Tom Campbell won 12.5 percent and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner had 5.5 percent of Republican support.

A Field Poll released last month found Whitman winning 22 percent of Republican support with Campbell at 20 percent and Poizner at 9 percent. That poll surveyed 373 Republican primary voters.

Whitman spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said about the Capitol Weekly poll, "California voters are supporting Meg Whitman because she has a successful business record and real-world experience creating thousands of jobs. She's not just another career politician."

Poizner spokesman Jarrod Agen said Whitman's ads were buying her name identification and that most voters weren't paying attention yet. Both Poizner and Whitman are wealthy former Silicon Valley executives self-financing much of their campaigns.

"The score only matters after the ninth inning, and we're not even out of the second inning yet," Agen said. "We've got several months ahead of campaigning around the state on our message of cutting taxes, creating jobs and reducing spending."

Campbell spokesman Jamie Fisfis agreed that the radio ads were paying off for Whitman but said "We're happy with where we are."

Read the poll here.

What was one of Republican Sen. John Benoit's first moves as a freshly tapped member of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors member?

Issuing invitations for a celebratory lunch -- at $1,000 a plate.

Benoit, whose appointment runs through the January 2011 end of late former supervisor Roy Wilson's term, was widely expected to run for the seat's next full term in 2010.

The first-term senator has about $31,000 stashed in his officeholder account and has reported about $219,000 in late contributions for his 2010 supervisor bid, including a $200,000 loan from the late Wilson's election fund, since he opened that account earlier this fall.

Looks like he's building up his campaign coffers in case he's challenged by one of the many appointment hopefuls who had their eye on the vacant seat.

Click the image to see a larger copy of the fundraiser invite.

This post was updated at 12:30 p.m. with late contributions from Benoit's supervisor campaign account.

California's largest cities and counties spent more than a half-billion dollars to deal with lawsuits during a two-year period, according to a survey by California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA).

CALA describes itself as a "nonpartisan grassroots movement of concerned citizens and businesses who are fighting against lawsuit abuse in California," but it's part of the business-insurance coalition that wages perpetual political war with plaintiffs' attorneys, environmental and consumer groups over the rules governing litigation. The latter maintain that broad access to the courts is a guardian against abuse by private and public entities.

CALA looked at monies spent on verdicts, settlements and outside counsel in fiscal years 2007 and 2008 for the counties of: Alameda, Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, and Santa Clara and the cities of: Anaheim, Bakersfield, Fresno, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Jose. It said those cities and counties spent $504.1 million during those two years.

"California has 58 counties and 480 cities, so this is just the tip of the iceberg," said Tom Scott, CALA executive director. "With devastating budget cuts hitting cities and counties up and down the state, there are countless other ways this money could have been spent."

The full report is available here.

California got an environmental black eye when the American Lung Association ranked the air quality of American cities and placed six of the state's urban areas on the list of those with the highest levels of ozone pollution.

Now Forbes magazine has expanded the environmental rankings to include such factors as the number of Superfund toxic waste cleanup sites and the number of industrial facilities releasing toxic chemicals into the air to generate an "overall toxic cities ranking" of the nation's 40 largest urban areas. And California does pretty well.

Although Los Angeles ranks near the top in toxicity, 34th on the list, the other five California communities do well. The Sacramento area, in fact, is rated the second least toxic community, just behind Las Vegas, while the Riverside-San Bernardino area is third, San Diego is sixth and San Jose is eighth. San Francisco is near the middle of the pack at No. 15.

Los Angeles' famous smog - which caused it to top the Lung Association list of cities with bad air - is cited as the main reason for its high toxicity rating by Forbes.

"Los Angeles is in a geographic basin surrounded by mountains," Brian Turnbaugh, policy analyst for the Environmental Right to Know project at OMB Watch, a government watchdog organization, is quoted by Forbes. "The pollution doesn't go away; it kind of just sits there, creating these horrible smog days."

The Forbes article is available here and the city-by-city chart can be found here.

John Garamendi will be sworn in as California's 345th member of Congress today.

Garamendi defeated Republican David Harmer in Tuesday's special election to win the 10th Congressional District seat.

A swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for noon ET at the U.S. Capitol.

Wondering what happens to the now-vacant lieutenant governor's seat? Kevin Yamamura breaks down the next steps in this post.

The Senate Health Committee and the Select Committee on Obesity and Diabetes will hold a joint-hearing in Los Angeles today on the link between sugary drinks and obesity.

The hearing was called in response to a study by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research that showed that adults who throw back one or more cans of non-diet pop a day are 27 percent more likely to be overweight. (Bad news for legislators and staffers who used sugar-saturated, carbonated beverages to make it through the all-night water vote marathon).

That statistic, coupled with the finding that California kids are chugging sugar-sweetened drinks at high rates (62 percent of youth ages 12 to 17 and 41 percent of kids ages 2 to 11 have at least one sugary drink a day), raised concerns among the amount of soda Californians are ingesting.

But many proposals to curb soda consumption (for example, a tax on sugary drinks) are likely to face strong opposition from anti-tax groups and the soda industry.

Read the study, "Bubbling Over: Soda Consumption and Its Link to Obesity in California", here.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced this afternoon the appointment of Republican Sen. John Benoit to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors.

Benoit, who is serving his first term in the Senate, will fill an opening created by the August resignation of former Supervisor Roy Wilson.

"As an experienced elected official and former public safety officer, John J. Benoit has a proven history of dedicated public service and is absolutely the best person to fill this important position," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "I have no doubt that John will continue to promote the interests of the people in Riverside County to the best of his ability in this new role."

Wilson, who died just days after he stepped down, had requested that the governor pick Benoit to serve out the remainder of his term. The remaining supervisors also voted to endorse Benoit for the job, which pays $143,031 a year.

The appointment came just hours after Benoit cast key votes for Schwarzenegger's water bond. Benoit earlier told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that there was no connection between the appointment and the water package.

Benoit's appointment will trigger a special election for voters in the 37th Senate District to select a replacement to serve the remaining three years of the senator's first term.

After months in the public spotlight, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has vanished since he dropped out of the gubernatorial race Friday and is reportedly spending the week in Hawaii with his wife and baby daughter.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Newsom had been scheduled to speak today to thousands at an Urban Land Institute conference in San Francisco and appear at an all-day conference organized by a city agency that promotes trade with China.

Instead, Newsom will be out of town until Sunday.

Here's a television report about Newsom's absence.

Now that Lt. Gov. John Garamendi has won the 10th congressional district race, here's what happens next:

1) Garamendi could head to Washington to be sworn in as soon as Thursday morning. The House has a 9 a.m. floor session scheduled, and Democrats hope Garamendi will be there to provide a health-care vote within the next week. While Garamendi and Speaker Nancy Pelosi believe a Thursday swearing-in is possible, certification by Secretary of State Debra Bowen could take as long as 10 days, according to Bowen spokeswoman Allie Schembra. Still, Rep. Jackie Speier was sworn in last April two days after her special election victory.

2) Garamendi's chief of staff, Mona Pasquil, will serve in an acting capacity as lieutenant governor until a Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointee is confirmed, according to Garamendi spokeswoman Beth Willon.

Pasquil will serve an administrative function, carrying out the lieutenant governor's functions at the State Lands Commission and other panels. But Willon said that if the governor vacates his office or leaves the state, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg would become the state's acting governor based on the state's line of succession.

In past instances when constitutional officers have vacated their positions, chief deputies have taken over until a replacement was appointed. Willon and Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said that while a chief deputy in this case would fulfill administrative duties, their offices believe the line of succession does not allow her to serve as acting governor.

3) Schwarzenegger can appoint a new lieutenant governor, but the Legislature has 90 days to confirm or reject his choice. That 90-day clock would begin when the Legislature reconvenes regular session in January. Or the governor could set the clock in motion earlier by calling his eighth special session for the purpose of confirming the lieutenant governor.

We examined some potential appointment options for Schwarzenegger yesterday.

The Los Angeles Times and the University of Southern California announced today that they will co-sponsor six statewide public opinion polls leading up to the 2010 election.

"In a state as large and diverse as California, accurate and timely polling is a key tool to allow people to learn what their fellow Californians think about major issues. Making that sort of information available is a central part of our journalistic mission," Times editor Russ Stanton said in a statement.

The polls, which will ask Californians about a variety of political, social and cultural issues, will be released over the next 14 months. Professors from the USC Department of Political Science will work with the Times on the project, and discussions on methodology and analysis of the poll results will be incorporated into graduate and undergraduate classes at USC, according to a press release.

The results of the first poll are set to be released in Sunday's Los Angeles Times.

California's local government and school district tax and bond measures fared relatively well in Tuesday's election, especially those requiring less than two-thirds vote margins.

Michael Coleman, a fiscal advisor to the League of California Cities, compiled the preliminary report on dozens of local ballot measures, finding that about two-thirds of local tax and bond measures were approved.

The full report is available here.

After another all-night marathon of debating, waiting and arm-twisting, lawmakers approved the five-bill water package early this morning.

The Bee's Jim Sanders and Steve Wiegand wrap up the final hours of action in a story on Sacbee.com:

The five-bill package, including an $11 billion bond measure, ended months of tense negotiations involving scores of interest groups over how to bolster supply, improve delivery and solve environmental problems plaguing the water system.

"This vote will be remembered years from now," Assembly Republican leader Sam Blakeslee said after an all-night session that ended shortly before 6 a.m. today.

"This Legislature has been able to accomplish something that no Legislature has been able to accomplish in decades," (Senate President Pro Tem) Steinberg said. "We all know that people ask, 'Can this Legislature actually take on the biggest, most intractable problems, and find solutions?' The answer is yes."

A nearly 90-minute impasse in the Assembly, with the proposed $11 billion bond measure lacking a handful of votes for approval, ended minutes after Steinberg agreed to drop from the bill a $10 million earmark for a nonprofit tolerance center in Sacramento.

After the jump, read what lawmakers have to say about the passage of the plan. We'll be updating the response roundup throughout the day. You can send your statement to tvanoot@sacbee.com.

The ink has barely dried on the election results from contests waged across the country yesterday, but there's no shortage of buzz on the 2010 front.

Republican Carly Fiorina is planning to make a "major announcement" in Garden Grove today.

There's been no shortage of speculation lately that this is the week Fiorina will officially launch her bid to take on Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010.
The former Hewlett Packard executive said back in March that she was considering a run and the snazzy Web site that accompanied her dive into exploratory mode caused quite a splash (as well as some snickering).

A webcast of the 10 a.m. town hall forum will be aired at this link.

Assuming Fiorina officially jumps into the race, she'll face Irvine Assemblyman Chuck DeVore in the June 2010 GOP primary.

DeVore, who's been actively campaigning for months, was touting an announcement of his own last night: the endorsement of South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, leader of the
the Senate Conservatives Fund Political Action Committee .

That endorsement wasn't really a surprise, considering DeVore, the more conservative of the two, posted a 90 percent landslide in an online poll conducted on the PAC's Web site last month. (He got 2,429 votes to Fiorina's 184). The big question is whether the boost DeVore gets from DeMint's seal of approval brings enough cash into his campaign coffers to allow him to compete with the quite wealthy Fiorina, who is considered the candidate of choice among party insiders. (One sign: she's got a fundraiser hosted by a slew of Senate Republicans on tap later this month).

With seven months to go until the primary, the two Senate hopefuls are neck and neck, with the majority of voters yet to take a side. Twenty-one percent of respondents to a Field Poll conducted last month said they backed Fiorina, with 20 percent saying they supported DeVore.

Bad news for Republicans seeking to unseat the big B? Both candidates trailed Boxer by double digits.

Update 7:35 a.m.: Fiorina penned an op/ed in the Orange County Register this morning to announce her campaign and explain the reasons she's decided to run for Senate.

"Throughout my career I've brought people together, and I've solved problems. And that is what is needed in our government today. People who are willing to set aside ego and partisanship and instead work to develop solutions to our problems. .... I believe big change is not impossible, but it does require leadership, innovative thinking, teamwork and tackling the most obvious and pressing problems first. My campaign is going to be about solutions that work for the people of California," she writes in the 600-word piece.

The DeVore campaign issued the following statement in response to Fiorina's announcement:

"I look forward to engaging Carly Fiorina on the issues Californians care about: out-of-control federal debt, soaring government spending on bailouts and stimulus, a pending
government takeover of healthcare, and Barbara Boxer's huge energy-tax increase disguised as cap-and-trade."

The Senate reconvened earlier this afternoon, taking up two budget bills and moved on to the remaining pieces of the water legislation members failed to approve last night. The entire package will then move to meet its fate in the Assembly, which is expected to convene for votes after a 3:30 p.m. Democratic Caucus wraps up.

Watch what Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg had to say about the process and prospects for approving the plan. And in case you missed yesterday's action, click here to read Steve Wiegand's wrap up of last night's events.

Video by The Bee's Hector Amezcua,

Two Republican state lawmakers sent a letter today calling for an investigation into reports that Attorney General Jerry Brown's top spokesman recorded phone conversations with reporters without their consent.

Brown spokesman Scott Gerber resigned yesterday, after admitting that he recorded an interview by San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci, as well as conversations with other reporters. California law prohibits taping confidential conversations without notifying all parties on the call.

"Given the disturbing nature of these crimes and the far-reaching implications, we urge you to work swiftly and judiciously to appoint a special prosecutor to look into this matter and clear your office of these crimes," Assemblyman Ted Gaines and Sen. George Runner wrote in the letter, which you can read here.

Related: Joe Mathews writes at Fox & Hounds Daily that the California law itself is what needs a second look.

California has long had one of the nation's higher poverty rates, as calculated by the federal government for decades on a formula tied to food prices. But it may actually be the highest in the nation under one proposed new way of calculating it.

The National Academy of Sciences has recommended a new methodology for calculating poverty in the 1990s, using costs of housing and other factors in addition to food. It has gained impetus because President Barack Obama, as a White House candidate, advocated a change in formula.

A Washington-based advocacy group called the Center for Law and Social Policy has applied the proposed NAS formula to the states and then added another factor: differential housing costs.

The result is that California's poverty rate, 34th highest under the current formula, drops to 32nd under the NAS methodology but soars to 50th when housing costs are included in the calculation.

"This report provides a hint of how poverty rates might change if a more comprehensive poverty measure was implemented," The author of the CLASP report, Dorothy Smith said in a statement as results were released today. "While a new poverty measure itself won't change the circumstances of Americans, it will better help policymakers and advocates understand the full dimensions of poverty at the national, state and local levels, and it can help inform policy decisions on how to tackle poverty."

The results for California - relatively little change under the NAS proposal but much change with housing costs - were mirrored in many other states with high housing costs. New Jersey, for instance, had the second lowest poverty rates by the first two measures but jumped to 31st with the housing cost adjustment. New York wound up with a poverty rate second only to California's.

At the other end of the scale, New Hampshire has the nation's lowest rate of poverty by any measure. The different methods are explained here while the state-by-state comparisons can be found here.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday morning that he was "very happy" that the state Senate passed water bonds Monday night and appeared pleased with the progress legislators were making on water legislation.

Schwarzenegger was speaking to a breakfast hosted by political veteran Willie Brown in San Francisco and attended by Republican gubernatorial candidates Steve Poizner and Tom Campbell and undeclared Democratic gubernatorial front-runner Jerry Brown.

Schwarzenegger used the phrase "very happy" three times as he applauded legislators in their efforts to pass water legislation.

He brought up the water issue in the middle of his speech, saying, "I'm very happy to say that they are working together now, Democrats and Republicans, in Sacramento and it's very encouraging the development that's going on."

He later said, "I'm very happy to say that last night the Senate passed the infrastructure bond part of this whole package" and added about the whole legislative package, "If that all works out, which I think it will, this will be an historic accomplishment in the Legislature."

He summed it up with "I'm very happy now that they're getting the water done." The governor also said Republicans and Democrats would criss-cross the state to try and convince voters to pass water infrastructure bonds.

The bad news is that six California cities appear on the American Lung Association's list of the nation's 10 most ozone-polluted cities, including the four most polluted.

The good news is that the association says ozone pollution appears to be lessening in Los Angeles and the other California cities on the list, while it's growing in non-California cities such as Phoenix.

Los Angeles leads the list of ozone-heavy cities, followed by Bakersfield, Visalia and Fresno, with Sacramento at No. 6 and El Centro at No. 10. Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Charlotte and Phoenix round out the top 10.

At the other end of the scale, Fargo, ND, and nearby Wahpeton, MN, appear to have the nation's cleanest air, measured not only by ozone levels but those of short-term and year-round particle pollution, while California cities appear prominently on the lists of those with high levels of particle pollution.

Fresno, Bakersfield and Los Angeles hold the second, third and fourth places on the list of cities with the worst short-term particle pollution, with Pittsburgh topping the list. Sacramento is No. 7. Bakersfield, meanwhile, is said to have the nation's worst year-round particle pollution, with Los Angeles at No. 3, Visalia at No. 4, Hanford at No. 6, and Fresno No. 7.

The pollution rankings are contained in the Lung Association's annual "State of the Air" report, available here.

Attorney General Jerry Brown may be the last man standing in the Democratic race for governor, but he said Tuesday morning he's not ready yet to announce his candidacy.

"Anytime soon? Sure," Brown said when asked by a reporter about when he was planning to announce. "Soon within a kind of elongated sense."

Brown spoke to the press during a breakfast held Tuesday at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco that was hosted by political veteran Willie Brown and attended by politicians including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican gubernatorial candidates Steve Poizner and Tom Campbell.

Brown hit a range of topics, including the Friday departure of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom from the gubernatorial race. Brown opened an exploratory committee for governor last month and has already amassed millions of dollars of campaign money. He widely led all three Republican candidates in the latest Field Poll.

One person who was particularly impressed by that profane missive spelled out in the governor's veto message to Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano?

"The Colbert Report" funnyman Stephen Colbert . Here's the clip:

[Hat tip: Shane Goldmacher]

Rex Babin is the political cartoonist for The Bee. You can see a collection of his work here.

From Rob Hotakainen in Washington

Republican Rep. Dan Lungren sent his staffers out this morning to deliver copies of the House Democratic health bill to libraries in his 3rd District. It's a big delivery: H.R. 3926 weighs nearly 20 pounds, has 1,990 pages and a price tag of roughly $1 trillion, give or take a few billions.

"At a time of trillion-dollar deficits, a time when the nation's unemployment rate is nearing 10 percent, California's is over 12 percent and some 3rd District counties are experiencing unemployment levels over 14 percent, how can citizens bear the additional cost of $900 billion?" asked Lungren. "Instead of trying to revamp the whole system all at once, let us strategically focus on the problem areas that will immediately show benefits in the system."

Lungren said the top concern in his district is "the unsustainable rise in health care costs" and that the bill does nothing but increase costs, both directly and indirectly.

" My constituents deserve to know how this will affect their bottom line now and in the future," Lungren said. " That is why I believe it is necessary for my constituents to have access to the text of this bill."

Lungren plans to host a district-wide tele-town hall on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 5:30 pm PST to hear views on the issue. And he'll be back in the district next week to meet face-to-face with constituents at the Carmichael Town Hall at the La Sierra Community Center (John Smith Hall), 5325 Engle Road - at 7 p.m., Nov. 12.

It's election day in the 10th Congressional District, as voters pick a replacement for former Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher. (She gave up her seat for a gig with the State Department.)

Recent polls and Democrats' 18-point edge in voter registration point to a win for current Lieutenant Gov. John Garamendi , but the GOP is hoping its candidate, Republican businessman David Harmer, can pull off an upset.

Don't look to turnout at the polls to indicate much one way or the other, however. Most of the ballots were expected to be cast by mail.

Click here to read more on the race from Jack Chang.

Supporters on both sides of the Proposition 8 debate are keeping an eye on the political action on the East Coast today.

Voters in Maine are going to the polls to take up Question 1, a measure that will decide whether to repeal a law legalizing same-sex marriages in the state.

It's "breakfast club" at the Willie L. Brown Jr. Institute on Politics and Public Service. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, GOP gubernatorial candidates Tom Campbell and Steve Poizner and Jerry Brown, the sole Democrat currently expected to run for governor, are all scheduled to talk at the San Francisco event.

The 8 a.m. start time might seem early for lawmakers and staffers who spent another late night working on those water policy and bond bills. Jim Sanders and Steve Wiegand have an update on the action in today's Bee.

No need to set your TiVo to catch the governor's appearance on Jay Leno's new 10 p.m. slot -- Schwarzenegger has rescheduled the taping to stick around and work on the water issue, spokesman Aaron McLear says.

Here's cartoonist Rex Babin's take on one use for some of those recently purchased state-owned trucks that have been sitting idle:

Attorney General Jerry Brown's communications director Scott Gerber submitted his resignation Monday after admitting last week that he had secretly taped conversations with reporters.

In the letter to Chief Deputy Attorney General James Humes, Gerber said he was resigning "with a heavy heart" but emphasized that "neither the Attorney General nor any other attorneys from our office were aware that I was recording interviews without permission."

The questionable, perhaps illegal, behavior came to light after Gerber contacted a San Francisco Chroncile editor to question whether the full scope of Humes' comments were reflected in an article and sent the editor a transcript of a conversation between Humes and political writer Carla Marinucci. Gerber had been placed on administrative leave after the Chronicle wrote about the incident Friday.

Recording private conversations without consent is illegal under California law.

The episode quickly emerged as an embarrassment for Brown, who is the sole Democratic hopeful in next year's governor's race. Brown has yet to declare his candidacy. Gerber did not handle communications for Brown's political campaigns.

"I want to apologize to (Humes) and Attorney General Brown for failing to live up to the standards of the Office," Gerber wrote. "I also apologize to the reporters whose interviews I taped without permission. They deserved better from me."

Read Gerber's letter of resignation here.

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Gerber accused the Chronicle of misquoting Humes. The Bee regrets the error.

Federal authorities said today that they will not file charges in connection with tapes in which ex-Assemblyman Mike Duvall brags about sexual trysts with two women who are reportedly lobbyists.

Duvall, a married Republican, resigned in September after the comments, made during a July Assembly committee hearing and recorded by a hot microphone, surfaced in several news reports. The Yorba Linda Republican has since said his resignation is not an admission that he had affairs, characterizing his offense instead as "inappropriate storytelling."

Today's statement, issued by United States Attorney Lawrence G. Brown and FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Drew Parenti, said that the preliminary investigation had concluded and that its finding did not warrant "prosecutive action" from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The FBI confirmed last month that agents had contacted two Duvall aides following his resignation. At the time, an agent characterized the investigation as "preliminary."

Government watchdog groups have called on various law enforcement agencies to investigate whether the actions detailed in the tape could qualify as "sex for votes" or other criminal offenses relating to the Political Reform Act.

But the California Attorney General's office said there was not evidence any laws had been broken, and an Assembly ethics panel query was halted after legislative counsel said the committee could not investigate the actions of a former lawmaker once he or she has left office. A request that the Fair Political Practices Commission investigate whether the alleged mistresses violated the Political Reform Act was also denied.

UPDATE 2:12 p.m.: The utilities company lobbyist identified in media reports as the woman described in the tapes issued a statement through her attorney denying allegations of an affair and calling her experience a "nightmare." Read that story here.

From Rob Hotakainen in Washington:

It's Barbara Boxer's big moment on Capitol Hill, and Republicans want nothing to do with it.

The California Democrat, who heads the Senate's environment committee, wants to begin marking up her long-awaited climate-change legislation on Tuesday. But Republicans are planning to boycott the meeting.

Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top-ranked Republican on the environment committee, said Republicans will boycott the meeting because the issue has not been studied enough. Among other things, he wants the Environmental Protection Agency to do more analysis of the bill, which would place mandatory limits on the emission of greenhouse gases.

Boxer today urged Republicans on the committee to "come back to work" and help Democrats pass the legislation.

"Now is the time for action to move America toward clean energy and away from foreign oil, to create jobs, and to protect our children from pollution," Boxer said. "The committee Republicans should rethink their approach. As long as they refuse to come to work, they are not participating in one of the most important issues facing our generation."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's finance director, Mike Genest, will leave office this year before the governor produces his final January budget proposal, Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer said Monday.

Genest is the governor's third finance director and has served the longest of the three, dating back to Dec. 1, 2005.

He oversaw the governor's timeliest state budget in 2006, signed on June 30 of that year. He also served when the governor and state leaders set a new record with an 85-day budget delay in 2008. And he has led the Finance Department through two tumultuous budget plans in the past year when the state dealt with a two-year deficit of $60 billion below projected spending.

"He believes it's a good time to step off the mound," Palmer said. Genest is traveling out of the country this week on vacation and was unavailable for comment.

Genest plans to leave once Schwarzenegger picks his next finance director, Palmer said. The governor must propose his final budget plan to the Legislature by January.

Schwarzenegger's previous two finance directors were Donna Arduin, who served from Nov. 2003 to Oct. 2004 and Tom Campbell, a GOP gubernatorial candidate and former congressman, who served from Dec. 2004 to Nov. 2005. Genest had worked as Department of Finance chief deputy director before he took over in Dec. 2005.

If Lieutenant Gov. John Garamendi wins tomorrow's special election in the 10th Congressional District, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will have the option of tapping a replacement to fill the 'guv lite' gig until the November election.

The governor isn't required to name a replacement, and anyone he does pick is subject to confirmation by the Legislature, a complicating factor considering four state Senators have already thrown their hat in the ring to vie for the seat in 2010.

In today's Bee, Kevin Yamamura sorts through through a handful of names political consultants have pointed to as possible picks, including one Republican choice that could set off yet another special election that some say could be a big boost for Democrats seeking to secure a two-thirds majority in the Senate.

But there's another twist: Senate Democrats may have great incentive to cut a deal with Schwarzenegger to confirm [Republican Sen. Abel] Maldonado, said Tony Quinn, a former GOP legislative aide and editor of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which handicaps political races.

A Maldonado appointment would cause a special election for the 15th Senate District, a seat that would not otherwise open until 2012. Democrats now hold a six-point registration advantage there, and President Barack Obama won the district by 20 points. If Democrats think they can win it, they would pick up a 26th seat next year, one shy of a two-thirds majority.

[Republican consultant Matt] Rexroad said it would be a hard-fought race, "certainly not a slam-dunk for Democrats." But Quinn said, "If they think it through, it could be an important factor because it's an excellent opportunity to pick up 26."

Click here to read the full story.

The Legislature could cast votes on water policy and bond bills as early as today.

The plan to address the state's water storage and supply needs and make fixes to the environmentally damaged Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has been split into two parts -- a policy bill that requires a majority vote and a $9.4 billion water bond proposal that must be approved by a two-thirds vote.

There are now several competing versions of the package floating around both houses. No surprise there, given the differing demands of Republicans and Democrats. Dems want a policy bill palatable to environmentalists, and Reeps want assurance that the bond money will go to dams and other storage projects. Add the competing interests of the home turfs of lawmakers hailing from different regions of the state, and then things really get complicated.

Both houses have scheduled floor sessions at noon, meaning the action will likely start sometime mid-afternoon.

Here was the game plan for the Senate side as outlined Friday by a spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg:

The Senate plans to convene at noon and refer the bond proposal authored by Republican Sen. Dave Cogdill to the Senate Budget Committee.

That committee will then route the bill to the Budget Sub-Committee 2 on Resources, which will vote on the bill then send it back to the Budget Committee for another vote. If it survives that round, it will move to the Senate floor.

If the bond bill makes it to the floor for a vote, the Senate will likely take up an amended version of the policy bill Steinberg introduced last week.

Steinberg said Friday he's hoping to see the votes come through today or tomorrow. But of course, both houses must approve anything that makes it through the legislative obstacle course, so it could be a long day of action, or inaction.

One thing's for sure, we'll keep you posted.

On another special session watch: The Senate Education Committee is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. to vote on two education reform bills. The measures, authored by Education Committee Chair Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, and Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, are among the proposals that supporters say would help California qualify for federal "Race to the Top" stimulus money.

Click here and here to read the education measures.