A street sign for voters. (Photo by Gustavo Frazao, via Shutterstock)It hasn’t attracted as much attention as some of the gaudier ideas on the November ballot, such as mandatory condoms in X-rated movies, but Californians will have one measure to decide on the June 7 primary ballot. The lone proposal is Proposition 50, which would allow legislators to eliminate pay and benefits for fellow members arrested or convicted of a felony.
A California Department of Water Resources geologist measures and records a pumping water level in a production well. (Photo: John Chacon,/DWR, 2013, via California Water Blog)Analysis: California’s single most urgent water policy priority is preserving our groundwater supply. In normal years, groundwater provides one-third of our state’s urban and agricultural water. In dry years, it provides up to nearly two-thirds.
On the eve of a dramatic Capitol hearing, the backers of legislation to allow dying people to end their lives with physician-supplied drugs abruptly sidetracked the bill Tuesday at least until next year so they could try and to round up more votes. Just hours before the committee hearing, which was to include public testimony from dying people in support of the bill, the decision was made to not bring the measure up. The last-ditch maneuver means SB 128 by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, could be pushed back until 2016.
Changing Proposition 13, the landmark, tax-cutting ballot initiative that California voters approved in 1978, is the goal of a constitutional amendment aimed at next year’s ballot. The plan by two Senate Democrats – Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles and Loni Hancock of Berkeley – would allow commercial and business properties to be regularly reassessed for tax purposes, with an exemption for properties worth less than $500,000. Under current law – Proposition 13 – those properties are only reassessed when there is a change in ownership.
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.