Posts Tagged: Brown

News

Brown, lawmakers hunt parking spot for Tesla

World headquarters of Tesla Motors in Palo Alto. (Photo: Katherine Welles)

California lawmakers, who have fallen head over heels for Tesla Motors, once again are wooing their fickle sweetheart. Gov. Jerry Brown and two state senators – one a Republican, the other a Democrat — are working to entice Tesla to build its newest manufacturing facility in California, instead of going outside the state. It’s the latest in a long string of efforts in Sacramento that so far have managed to keep Tesla in the Golden State.

News

Locals pay tab for open government

State Capitol, Sacramento. (Photo: Franco Folini)

State lawmakers and voters agreed on one thing: transparency in government. Local government, that is. State government remains exempt. Did voters know that when they approved Proposition 42 on June 3?

News

Hunting retirees’ hidden health care debt

Calpensions: In a new step to expose hidden debt, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board last week proposed that retiree health care debt or “unfunded liability” be reported on the face of government financial statements, not buried inside.

Opinion

Restore benefits for IHSS care workers

OPINION People who use IHSS, their advocates and the legislature asked: Where are the 40,000 new people ready, willing, qualified and able to do this work, at low pay, with no sick time, no vacation time and usually no health benefits – to take the places of the people already doing the work – some of them for decades?

News

IE spending nearly $250,000 a day

State Capitol, Sacramento. (Photo: David Monniaux)

ELECTION 2014: Independent spending in California’s June 3 primary election has pushed above $23.2 million, with the political forces burning through about $250,000 a day. The largest single amounts from independent expenditure committees, or IEs, came from the California Teachers Association in the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction.

News

Survey: Special interests rule Capitol

California’s Capitol is ruled by a handful of powerful special interests, according to more than two-thirds of those surveyed by the Public Policy Institute of California. PPIC’s survey of likely voters also noted that despite a recent string of scandals that have tarnished the Senate, the public’s perception of lawmakers has remained constant.

News

Brown budget eyes full funding for teachers’ pensions

Lobby of the CalSTRS building in West Sacramento. (Photo: Paul Houseberg)

Gov. Brown has made a long-delayed proposal to get CalSTRS to full funding over the next three decades, giving the biggest rate hike to schools and smaller increases to the state and teachers. The nation’s largest teacher pension fund, which received $5.8 billion from the three sources last fiscal year, needs an additional contribution of about $4.2 billion a year to project full funding in 30 years.

News

MICRA battle heads to ballot

Election 2014: California voters will decide in November whether to raise the decades-old $250,000 cap on pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice lawsuits. The ballot initiative, which also calls for drug and alcohol testing for doctors, will join four other measures that already have qualified for the ballot.

News

W. Brown opposes online gaming

Former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, reversing an earlier position, says he has joined a group opposing online gaming because of concerns that young people could be harmed. “I was once on the wrong side of this issue – speaking for and supporting internet poker – but I have since learned about some of the tactics used by online gaming companies to lure young people,” Brown wrote in an open letter.

News

Dark money: Governor OKs disclosure rules

Election 2014: Gov. Brown on Wednesday signed into law new disclosure rules for nonprofits, a move prompted by the 11th-hour flood of stealth cash that roiled the November 2012 elections. The bill takes effect in July – after this year’s primary elections but in time for the general election.

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