Posts Tagged: commission
News
A union coalition contends that a proposed initiative is being falsely portrayed as only a potential cut in pensions for new employees, when in fact it could cut or eliminate pensions earned by current employees for work done in the future. One of the initiative authors, former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, disagrees with the union reading of the proposal. But it’s a key pension reform issue that could lead to another disputed initiative title and summary.
Opinion
Everyone knows about the pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors and other financial interests that dominate political spending in Washington, D.C. Because federal spending provides a big share of those businesses’ revenues, it’s not surprising they spend heavily for a Congress sympathetic to their interests. But fewer know about the financial interests that dominate political spending in Sacramento.
News
ANALYSIS: The Supreme Court is set to announce a decision in an Arizona redistricting case that could upend the California Redistricting Commission’s congressional lines and return to the legislature the responsibility for conducting each decennial redraw. Some prominent leaders in redistricting reform are preparing for this eventuality and urging the Legislature to stand down, allowing the current lines to be carried forward until 2022 and giving reformers a chance to develop a new method for independent redistricting of Congressional lines that wouldn’t conflict with the court’s decision in this case. This, however, may not be possible or even necessary.
News
Galena West, a veteran lawyer at the Fair Political Practices Commission, has been named chief of enforcement at the agency, which serves as the state’s campaign ethics watchdog. West replaces Gary Winuk, who left earlier to go into private practice. West, who has been on the FPPC staff for 10 years, has served as acting enforcement chief since March.
News
California and Arizona are two states that couldn’t be further apart in temperament and size. But in one crucial issue – the drawing of political boundaries – they are joined at the hip, as California’s redistricting commission made clear Friday to the U.S. Supreme Court.
News
California’s voter-approved commission that draws the boundaries for legislative and congressional districts is going to the U.S. Supreme Court to support a similar commission in Arizona, which is locked in a power struggle with that state’s Legislature.
News
Before the Nov. 4 general election, California’s political watchdog examined “every advertisement relating to state and local ballot measures” – a total of 172 state and local propositions – and ordered corrections in 19 of them, mostly for failing to make it clear who was financing the ads.
News
A California law intended to block secret decisions in the state bureaucracy actually prevents officials from talking to each other on crucial matters, according to their testimony before a state investigative panel. The issue, which intensified in the wake of recent activities at the California Public Utilities Commission, arises from changes in the 1967 Bagley-Keene Act, which is intended to assure the public’s access to the actions of state boards and commissions.
News
Under an unusual agreement reached between Senate leaders and a number of environmental groups just before the end of the legislative session, the period of time to consider the submitted list of candidates has been extended indefinitely. Such an extension is extremely rare, if not unprecedented.
News
A stealth move to rewrite state law to allow the newly elected Long Beach mayor to hold a seat on the California Coastal Commission has emerged in the final days of the legislative session.
School workers at a labor rally in Bakersfield. (Photo: Richard Thornton, Shutterstock)
