Posts Tagged: $50

News

California gets C-minus for integrity

One night in March 2014, state Senator Leland Yee stood before a fancy dinner thrown in San Francisco by the Society of Professional Journalists to receive the Public Official Award — for a second time. Yee, then a candidate for secretary of state, was saluted for “his courage to oppose his own Democratic Party leaders and the governor in 2013 with public criticism of efforts to weaken the California Public Records Act.” A week later, a handcuffed Yee appeared in federal court, accused of taking bribes, political racketeering and even running guns in the Philippines.

News

Special session: Fixing the potholes

Downtown Los Angeles, as traffic zips along. (Photo: Sean Pavone)

Gov. Brown’s call for a special legislative session to fix California’s crumbling roads, highways and bridges comes as music to the ears of those who build big projects. For months, groups representing labor, contractors, local governments, transportation interests and others worked on legislation to revamp the state’s roads and ease the movement of freight at the state’s ports. That legislation may serve as the centerpiece of the special session.

News

Support for death penalty at 50-year low

Gurney used for lethal injections, San Quentin Prison. (Photo: Department of Corrections)

Field Poll: Support for the death penalty as a punishment for serious crimes in California is now at its lowest point in nearly fifty years. The latest Field Poll finds 56% of voters in favor of keeping the death penalty and 34% opposed. The 56% supporting continuation of the state’s capital punishment laws is down from 69% in 2011. Throughout the 1980’s and early 1990’s eight in ten California voters favored keeping the death penalty.

News

Fleshing out the CalPERS scandal

After former CalPERS chief executive officer Fred Buenrostro pleaded guilty to bribery and fraud conspiracy last week, he now must earn a reduced sentence by helping prosecutors convict the man who allegedly bribed him, Alfred Villalobos.

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