Reporter's Notebook
Kevin McCarthy: the Benjamin Button of California politics
Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button. Image via YouTubeKevin McCarthy is the Benjamin Button of California politics. Began his career as an adult. Ended it as a baby.
Posts Tagged: Bakersfield
Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button. Image via YouTubeNews
Rosalynn Carter: A lifetime voice for improving mental health care
First Lady Rosalynn Carter, photo courtesy of APTributes to First Lady Rosalynn Carter invariably cite her lifelong commitment to improving care for people with severe mental illness. As she stumped for her husband during the closing days of the 1976 presidential campaign, she brought that advocacy to the unlikely locale of Bakersfield.
News
Rising Stars: Michael Dyar, office of Assemblymember Damon Connolly
Michael Dyar, photo by Scott Duncan, Capitol WeeklyMichael Dyar, 28 is legislative director for Assemblymember Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, where his duties include crafting legislative packages, overseeing co-author requests and training new staff.
Opinion
Greater transparency crucial for sound state budgeting
The California state Capitol in Sacramento. (Photo: Steven Frame) OPINION: Nearly two months into the new fiscal year. Four budget bills and approximately 50 budget-related policy bills later, Californians continue to wait for solutions to our state’s most pressing crisis — drought, water storage, and wildfire mitigation. Meaningful reforms to fix state agencies like EDD, or the replenishment of the $7.8 billion borrowed from the state’s Rainy Day Fund last year have not yet been addressed.
News
Big Daddy: Capitol staffers and the campaign trail
Hey, Big Daddy: I just started working in the state Capitol and am ready to dazzle the world with my policy analyses, but I’ve been dispatched to a campaign for the final weeks. Any tips for handling a farmer’s tan? —Bronzed in Bakersfield
News
Before Kevin and Devin, there was Bill
Former Congressman Bill Thomas at a political event in Bakersfield. <(Photo: Screen capture, YouTube.)Former Republican Congressman Bill Thomas, who capped a 28-year House career as chair of the Ways and Means Committee, has been out of Congress for more than a decade. His name is no longer familiar outside of his Bakersfield base. But two of his protégés are very well known – House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who served as Thomas’ district director, and Oversight Committee Chair Devin Nunes, who Thomas encouraged to run for Congress and who nurtured his career after he got there.
News
Bullet train: A dispute over stations
Artist's conception of the bullet train crossing an overpass in Anaheim. (Illustration: California High Speed Rail Authority)It’s a tale of two stations. Bakersfield, California’s ninth-largest city in terms of population with more than 380,000 residents, is trying to decide where to put a bullet-train station. This battle has lasted for years.
News
Potent brew: Hollywood and political cash
Hollywood Boulevard at dusk. (Photo: Sean Pavone, via Shutterstock)Hollywood and Sacramento are not cities that normally leap into our thoughts at the same time. Sacramento is leafy streets and politics and scorching heat. Hollywood is, well, Hollywood.
News
Time machine: Kevin McCarthy, Rookie of the Year
Former state Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy, from the August 2004 California Journal. (Illustration: Tim Foster)The most difficult job in the Legislature is that of an Assembly rookie. Mastering Sacramento is learning curve is akin to scaling Mount Everest, where the summit is shrouded in a fog of policy and politics and the climb must begin even before one is sworn into office. It must be made with a minimum of missteps, and there are few veterans to help show the way.
News
Dan Richard, bullet train conductor
An artist's rendering of the California bullet train. (Photo: HSR)Dan Richard, the chair of the California High Speed Rail Authority, is a man in the middle. The middle of court fights, the middle of political fights, the middle of a fight over California’s future. “The rest of the developed world has moved energetically to adopt high-speed rail. We will too,” Richard says. He may be right.