Providing up to 1.4 million driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants will cost $65 million for the Department of Motor Vehicles during the first six months after the law takes effect January 1, 2015, according to Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget plan. DMV plans five new temporary offices to handle the load.
Counties that completely flipped from red to blue include many suburban and inland counties, with significant changes among populous Los Angeles suburban counties, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura.
Like the city, Fletcher was once seen as a conservative, serving most of his four years in the Legislature as a Republican. But last year, in the same mayoral race where San Diegans deserted their right-leaning tendencies — and so did Fletcher. Republicans weren’t pleased and they have spent heavily against him, distrusting him since he changed his party.
Gov. Jerry Brown, acting before a weekend deadline on an array of major gun bills, signed into law measures to ban lead in ammunition and require tougher screening to keep weapons from the hands of the mentally ill.
The Democratic governor signed 11 of the gun bills on his desk, including a ban on lead
This time, it’s the Arts Council that benefits
Two special elections viewed as make-or-break contests for the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority had something in common Tuesday night – miserable turnout.
In the southern Central Valley, the high-stakes battle for the 16th Senate District pitted Kern County Supervisor Leticia Pérez, a Democrat, against Republican Andy Vidak, a Hanford cherry farmer.
With all the precincts at
California is the most ethnically diverse place in the world. From corner to corner, across its coastline, valleys, deserts and mountains there is just about every type of voter in the state. From the strong Republican rural communities along the Nevada border to urban Democrats in Los Angeles and San Francisco the state typifies diversity.
The California Republican Party has been on a downward spiral for 20 years now. There are young adults starting their first full-time job or entering college who have been born and raised in a state known only as a Democratic stronghold, barely reminiscent as the birthplace of the political careers of Richard Nixon and Ronald
For Republicans nurtured on a diet of tax cuts, a nightmare is coming to pass: The most immediate impact of Democratic supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature is to put Proposition 13 on a hit list.
But not directly.
There is no single plan — yet — to toss out or rewrite
One of the Legislature’s archaic rules that lawmakers say needlessly delays action on bills would be eliminated through a newly introduced constitutional amendment Republican and Democratic lawmakers hope to place on the 2014 ballot.
If voters approve, the change would end the Legislature’s 30-days-in-print rule, which requires exactly that: No hearing or vote can