Posts Tagged: raid

Oral History Project: Clay Jackson

Clay Jackson, right, with his attorney, Donald Heller, in 1994 outside the federal courthouse in Sacramento. (Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press

by Capitol Weekly Staff posted 12.20.2018

Clay Jackson was once the most powerful lobbyist in Sacramento, representing the insurance industry and overseeing hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations to politicians. His firm billed $2 million annually. But Jackson wound up caught in the FBI’s undercover investigation of the state Capitol and he — along with 11 others — wound up going to federal prison.

Michael Peevey’s tale of turmoil

Michael Peevey at a December meeting of the state Public Utilities Commission. (Photo: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press)

by CHUCK MCFADDEN posted 04.14.2015

It’s almost impossible these days to see the name Michael Peevey without the word “embattled” attached to it. Peevey stepped down last December after serving two six-year terms on the California Public Utilities Commission, almost all of them as PUC president. He has been subjected to withering public criticism up and down the state for fostering a too-cozy relationship between the PUC and the utility firms he was charged with regulating, most recently Pacific Gas & Electric. “Don’t shoot, I surrender,” Peevey wryly told the commission at its December meeting, a comment that drew laughs.

In the months since the FBI raided the offices of Senator Ron Calderon, the most interesting thing that’s happened in the State Capitol is what hasn’t happened in the State Capitol. Unlike broader efforts for political reform that accompanied previous corruption scandals, there has been barely a peep from California politicians of either party about the need to clean up a system that has become consumed by non-stop fundraising.

–In addition, Calderon was assigned by Pérez to serve on the Appropriations Committee, Insurance Committee, Accountability and Administrative Review Committee, and the Human Services Committee