Posts Tagged: Journal

Letters of intent: A bill’s author gets short shrift from the courts

The state Capitol in Sacramento. (Photo: Kit Leong, via Shutterstock)

by CHRIS MICHELI posted 01.03.2022

ANALYSIS: One of the long-running points of contention when California courts examine what’s known as  “legislative intent” is the judiciary’s general disdain for statements made by the authors of legislation. Those clear-language statements accompanying bills, common in the Capitol, seek to offer guidance and state the purpose and intention of an author’s legislation.

Inside the Capitol: Letters to the Journal

The state Capitol in Sacramento, home of the Senate and Assembly. (Photo: Kit Leong, via Shutterstock)

by CHRIS MICHELI posted 01.08.2021

One way to help figure out the legislative intent behind a particular measure is a letter written by the bill’s author that is published in the Assembly Daily Journal or the Senate Daily Journal.

‘Final form’ and the 72-hour rule

A roll call begins on a bill in the Assembly. (Photo: Anna Frazier)

by CHRIS MICHELI posted 06.16.2017

Friday, June 2 represented the Legislature’s house-of-origin deadline. To stay alive, Assembly bills were required to have passed out of the Assembly and Senate bills had to have been passed out of the Senate. During Assembly floor debate, the issue was repeatedly raised whether the Assembly had properly complied with the provisions of Proposition 54, which California voters approved in November as a transparency measure.

State Supreme Court to consider public pension cuts

The California Supreme Court, left to right, standing: Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, Carol Corrigan, Goodwin Liu, and Leondra Kruger. Seated: Kathryn Werdegar, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, and Ming Chin.

by ED MENDEL posted 11.29.2016

Calpensions: The state Supreme Court last week agreed to hear an appeal of a groundbreaking ruling that allows cuts in the pensions earned by current state and local government workers, including judges. When judges have an obvious conflict of interest and excuse themselves from ruling on a case, the legal term is “recuse.” But the seven Supreme Court justices seem unlikely to recuse themselves from a possible landmark ruling on this Marin County pension case.

Most folks around the Capitol know Ray well from his many years as a lobbyist and, since 2006, as the man behind Capitol Seminars, the lobbyist-training seminars that have shown a whole new generation of aspiring lobbyists how to do things the right way. What most don’t know is Ray’s daily obsession with rooting out the very best information on NBA basketball, which he presents on his increasingly-popular blog, Basketball Intelligence.

Kevin McCarthy: Political skills trump policy

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, shortly after being named House Majority Leader. (Photo: Associated Press)

by MIA SHAW posted 07.01.2014

Kevin McCarthy, the newly minted House Majority Leader, rose speedily through the GOP ranks during his time as a California legislator – and used political instincts he honed in Sacramento to achieve power in Congress. During his time in the state Assembly, McCarthy was known as a deal-maker. He became Assembly minority leader only two months after Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office in 2003, and worked closely with him to unite the party by engineering difficult votes on controversial issues.