A correctional facility in Salinas operated by The GEO Group. ((Photo: GEO Group website)So you think privately run prisons are a Republican thing? Perhaps in Texas and Tennessee. But in deep blue California, it is the Democrats who take in the most contributions from for-profit correctional corporations, primarily Florida’s The GEO Group and the Tennessee-based CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America.
The sign outside a Sacramento voting center. (Photo: Tim Foster, Capitol Weekly)Since 2015 Capitol Weekly has been conducting polling to inform readers about policy and politics in the Golden State. This latest installment is an exit poll of voters done by Capitol Weekly using data and tools from Political Data, Inc. This polling focuses on early voters who cast ballots in the mail or at early voting centers. The full survey includes more than 11,000 respondents surveyed over a three-week period of ballot returns.
A dead body in a county morgue. (Photo: John Gomez)Can law enforcement be trusted to fairly review law enforcement-involved shootings? Some state senators think not, citing the example of San Joaquin County, which saw two forensic pathologists resign after claiming that Sheriff Steve Moore pressured them to change their findings in officer-involved deaths. The pathologists claimed the sheriff pressured them to classify the deaths as accidents.
A posed image of a rape victim in a dark tunnel, with the shadow of the rapist in the background. (Photo: ChameleonsEye, via Shutterstock)Thousands of California women who said they were raped gave details of their assaults to investigators and provided critical data in “rape kits” — DNA, wounds, semen, hair, fibers — to identify their attackers. But many of the rape kits were not examined in a timely way, caught in a backlog that has angered some lawmakers and women’s groups.
An electric vehicle gets a battery recharge at the L.A. Auto Show. Photo: Juan Camilo Bernal) By the time today’s infants are in their early 30s, gasoline-powered cars that aren’t electric hybrids could be a rarity in California. That’s the goal of California policy makers who are doing their best to phase those cars out by 2050 and replace them with zero-emissions vehicles like electric cars, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
View of downtown San Diego and central rail yards. (Photo: welcomia, via Shutterstock)ANALYSIS: Something that isn’t too surprising for legislators or Gov. Brown as California continues to be on the forefront of environmental policies: A major survey shows strong majority (62 percent) of Californians believe air pollution is a problem in their part of California. Two-thirds (66 percent) believe the effects of global warming have already begun, while 58 percent believe it is a serious threat to California’s economy and quality of life.
Demonstrators protest the elimination of DACA at a September 2017 gathering at UC Berkeley.
(Photo: Sheila Fitzgerald) OPINION: Adriana and her six-year old daughter are like two peas in a pod, taking walks on the beach together, baking brownies, cuddling at home with a book, and occasionally splurging on a trip to Orange County’s Disneyland Resort. Arriving from Guatemala when she was five years old, Adriana has always lived here in Orange County.
CalPERS headquarters, downtown Sacramento. (Photo: CalPERS)Monrovia’s city manager, Oliver Chi, told the city council the budget could absorb the CalPERS employer pension rate increases enacted in 2012, 2013, and 2014 — but a large fourth rate increase last December could push the city into insolvency.
A closeup of the hands of an elderly patient suffering from Parkinson's disease. (Photo: SpeedKingz, via Shutterstock)A “new era” in the search for a cure for Parkinson’s disease was heralded this month in an article in a prominent scientific journal that explored research involving more than $52 million and an organization called GForce-PD. The news was accompanied by a cry for more support for Parkinson’s research from the $3 billion California stem cell agency, which has pumped $49 million in Parkinson’s studies over the last 13 years.
A wilted rose bouquet at the Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego. (Photo: Sherry V. Smith)The environment plays a big part in Capitol legislation, but here’s a topic rarely linked to the environment – cremation. Traditional fire-based cremation entails emissions and pollutants. But a little-known bill signed by Gov. Brown allows the use of a water-based method called alkaline hydrolysis, which has been used elsewhere since the 19th century.