News
Dianne Feinstein’s long political life has been marked by gunfire, victories, toughness and tragedy. The smart money says it’s not over yet. Dianne Feinstein, now 84 and the oldest member of the U. S. Senate, has announced she will run for re-election in 2018, seeking her fifth full term.
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Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law a sweeping package of criminal justice reform bills including a ban on the practice of billing parents for their children’s incarceration, which had been prevalent statewide for decades and was the subject of a Marshall Project investigation earlier this year.
News
Our recent Sextant Strategies & Research/Capitol Weekly poll of 1,554 likely voters shows just how significant a challenge Kevin de León faces in 2018. Nearly half the electorate has never heard of him, and of those who have, his favorability-versus-unfavorability ratings are about even. A hypothetical, Feinstein-De León matchup for both the primary and general elections shows Feinstein with better than a 2-to-1 advantage.
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With the toughest gun laws in the nation, California has a few regulations on the books that potentially could have lessened the carnage in the Las Vegas shooting if those laws had been enacted in Nevada. California outlaws bump stocks and large-capacity magazines, both of which shooter Stephen Paddock used to kill 58 people and wound more than 500 Oct. 1 at a country music festival on the Las Vegas strip.
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Throughout the 2016 election cycle, Capitol Weekly conducted several polls of California voters. Two surveys — one during the primary election and the other during the general — targeted voters immediately after they mailed in their ballots. More than 80,000 people responded to the surveys.
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In the wake of the sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein, scores of lobbyists, lawmakers and staff members signed an open letter detailing examples of sexual harassment in the political community.
News
When Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966, George Steffes joined his administration as legislative secretary and director of policy, a job he held until 1972. Steffes then helped form the first multi-partner lobbying firm in Sacramento. He is the senior partner of Capitol Partners.
Analysis
ANALYSIS: Moderate Democrats are nothing new — they have been around for decades. In the 1980’s a group of moderate Democrats called the “Gang of Five” unsuccessfully tried to unseat Speaker Willie Brown. Today, they are more organized and go by the name, “New Democrats.” Generally, a New Democrat is one who, like Republicans, is business-friendly on some key issues, such as taxes and regulation, and skeptical of some environmental controls that curtail economic growth.
News
Since Congress failed to take Obamacare away from 20 million people, the current President issued an executive order allowing young, healthy people to opt out and buy cheaper health insurance. This benefits them with cheaper payments, but as they might learn the hard way, you get what you pay for.
News
California’s health exchange said Wednesday it has ordered insurers to add a surcharge to certain policies next year because the Trump administration has yet to commit to paying a key set of consumer subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. The decision to impose a 12.4 percent surcharge on silver-level health plans in 2018 means the total premium increase for them will average nearly 25 percent, according to Covered California.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein during a Senate confirmation hearing for John Roberts as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
(Photo: Rob Crandall, via Shutterstock) 
