Friday, August 15, 2008

California News Roundup - August 15, 2008

Latest gambit in state budget impasse -- The Legislature is likely to vote Sunday on a new version of the Democrats' budget that includes more spending cuts and fewer tax increases than their previous version, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said Thursday.

San Francisco Democrats take a sharp turn to the left -- The San Francisco Democratic Party has veered dramatically to the left, telling voters that on Nov. 4 they should elect a raft of ultra-liberal supervisorial candidates, decriminalize prostitution, boot JROTC from public schools, embrace public power and reject Mayor Gavin Newsom's special court in the Tenderloin.


Q&A: Can California prison receiver get $8 billion for inmate medical care? -- California prison medical receiver J. Clark Kelso's motion to ask the federal courts to order the state to give him $8 billion for inmate care raises questions about what he's doing and how he's doing it. Does he have the authority?

Engineers won't sue CalPERS over policy -- After hours of intense talks, the union representing California's publicly employed engineers has withdrawn its threat to sue the California Public Employees' Retirement System over investment policy.

Dan Walters: California has more than one financial mess -- If you've been paying attention to California's chronic budget problems, you know that they fundamentally stem from a disastrous decision in 2000 by then-Gov. Gray Davis and legislators of both parties to squander a one-time windfall of revenue on permanent spending increases and tax cuts that could not be sustained over the long haul. It was, however, just one of three similarly irresponsible decisions during Davis' governorship, which was cut short by his recall in 2003.


Feathers fly over hens in cages -- The fate of the state's 19 million egg-laying hens is coming to a polling place near you. Same-sex marriage, parental notification of abortion – California's November ballot is studded with weighty issues, but none is ruffling feathers like Proposition 2, which would effectively ban farms from raising hens in cages.

Steady growth shown on California Standards Test -- The state's public school students improved yet again in reading, writing and mathematics, marking five years of near-steady growth on the tough California Standards Test, according to results released Thursday by the Department of Education.

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