Posts Tagged: leon

Kevin de León on policy, politics and the future

State Senate Leader Kevin de León on Feb. 1, 2014, at the Golden Dragon Parade in Los Angeles(Photo: Betto Rodrigues, via Shutterstock)

by ANTHONY YORK posted 03.02.2015

GRIZZLY BEAR PROJECT: After some hard feelings and bruised egos, De León accepted his defeat and ran for the Senate seat that he never really wanted. But in the Senate, de León has matured and grown as a legislator. Early on, he helped ease roadblocks between the Senate and the governor’s office. In the meantime, he reconstructed and expanded his personal relationships, and was elected by his colleagues last year as the new leader of the state Senate.

Speculation by Capitol insiders that Bob Hertzberg, one time Assembly Speaker, now running for a San Fernando Valley state senate seat, is already in the mix to be the next president pro tem of the senate, may intensify given recent political moves.

Hertzberg’s endorsement list is beginning to look like a small telephone book

For a while, at least, it appeared that state government was pitching a perfect game.

Proposition 39, a ballot initiative to change corporate state income tax policy by closing a $1 billion loophole approved years before during the Schwarzenegger administration, won 61 percent of the vote, despite the dim odds confronting any measure that