Analysis

Bitterness over speakership fray permeates the Assembly

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. (Photo: Rendon's Twitter feed.)

Timing is crucial in politics, and the battle over the Assembly speakership is no exception. The clock is ticking. If Rendon continues through the end of the current two-year session, then any change in the speakership will be decided in the next session, following the November elections, when all 80 Assembly seats are up for election.

News

Lawmaker moves to oust Assembly Speaker Rendon

Assemblyman Robert Rivas, left, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. (Images: State Assembly and video screen capture, YouTube)

Assemblymember Robert Rivas, a Salinas Democrat who grew up in a farm worker family, moved Friday to capture the Assembly speakership. A formal transfer of authority may come as early as next week. He told Rendon that “I have the votes,”  adding that he hoped for an “orderly transition.”

News

Governor’s budget good for higher education — mostly

UCLA students at graduation ceremonies.(Photo: Joseph Sohm, via Shutterstock)

Times are flush in the Golden State, fiscally speaking. With a total budget surplus of $97.5 billion, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May budget revision prioritizes the funding of higher education. Just ask Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley, who helms the California Community Colleges.

News

“Killer cells” and conflicts at California’s stem cell agency

A laboratory pipette with fluid and test tubes for cancer research. (Photo: CI Photos, via Shutterstock)

Call it “The Case of the Killer Cells.”  It is an $8 million matter involving an effort by  California’s ambitious stem cell agency to develop cures for particularly tenacious and fatal cancers. The cash is snarled in an “embarrassing” conflict of interest, however, not to mention an irregular vote on the application for research funding from the stem cell agency.

Podcast

Kim Alexander: Voters, Ballots and the June 7 Primary

CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: With some 22 million ballots at large, should we be worried about voter fraud? When it comes to ballots and the California election process, Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation is the person to talk to. She joined us to talk about the upcoming Primary and California’s Vote-by-Mail process.

News

Historic state budget blueprint faces crucial hurdles

Gov. Gavin Newsom at a San Francisco event. (Photo: Jana Asenbrennerova, via Shutterstock)

Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing a multi-billion-dollar package of monetary goodies for Californians, but how much of it will become reality is now up to legislators. The clock ticks: Lawmakers have less than a month to approve the 2022-23 budget, an unprecedented, nearly $300 billion document, and send it to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

News

Helping mentally ill people: The debate over ‘involuntary treatment’

A woman in a medical ward ponders her situation. (Photo: Boyloso, via Shutterstock)

Lee Davis says flatly that without involuntary treatment for her raging psychosis, she would be dead. “It saved my life.” A mental health activist who chairs the Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board, which advises the board of supervisors and county officials on mental health policy, Davis acknowledges hers is not a popular view among disability rights advocates,

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