Jerry Brown, other elected pols had seats for Giants' wins in S.F.

The Giants' World Series games against the Detroit Tigers last week in San Francisco were the hottest tickets in town, but while most Californians couldn’t get seats unless they were willing to pay brokers highly inflated prices,  the state’s elected officials were given special access to buy premium tickets from the ballclub.

That explained why Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom was sitting in the premium field club seats for Game 1 on Wednesday, where he got to see Pablo Sandoval hit three home runs. The special arrangement for elected officials allowed him to buy two tickets for $535 each, which an aide said was face value.

Gov. Jerry Brown and state Attorney Gen. Kamala Harris attended Game 2 on Thursday night, with Brown tweeting a picture from his seat with the message "Great Night in San Francisco."

"The governor attended Game 2 of the World Series with the first lady,'' said spokesman Evan Westrup in an email. "The two tickets were purchased at full face value from the Giants.''

Ditto for Harris, an aide said. On Sunday, after the Giants won the 4th and deciding game in Detroit, Brown tweeted from California, "Congratulations to California's San Francisco Giants!''

No doubt several elected officials will be in San Francisco on Wednesday. That is when the city celebrates the title with a ticker-tape parade down Market Street for the world champions.

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Photo: Members of the Giants celebrate their victory over the Tigers in Game 4 of the World Series in Detroit on Sunday. Credit: Paul Kitagaki Jr/Sacramento Bee/MCT

California lawmakers shelve bill restricting assault rifles

A last-minute proposal to restrict assault rifles in California in the wake of mass shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin has been shelved for the year by state lawmakers.

The measure would have prohibited semi-automatic weapons from having devices that allow them to be easily reloaded with multiple rounds of ammunition, but it had become the target of an intense lobbying campaign, including radio ads, by gun groups who said it would result in legal owners losing their firearms.

Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) said that his proposal would have closed a loophole in California’s strict gun law and that he is "deeply disappointed" to have been notified that it will not be heard by the Assembly Appropriations Committee by Thursday’s deadline.

“My greatest fear is that another senseless act of violence will happen before the loophole is closed," Yee said in a statement. "When California enacted our assault weapon law there was no intention of allowing such easily changeable magazines on military-style weapons."

Yee said he would explore alternatives including the possibility of the state Department of Justice adopting new regulations. State Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris had endorsed his bill.

The bill was shelved by the committee because it is a significant change in law introduced in the last month of the session without going through normal policy committees for public input, according to Geoff Long, chief consultant for the panel. "It has nothing to do with politics,'' Long said.

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Photo: Candles cover the sidewalk at a memorial across from the Aurora, Colo., theater where a gunman killed 12 people last month. Credit: Alex Brandon / Associated Press

California Senate leader, attorney general back gun-control bill

In the wake of the recent mass shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin, the leader of the California Senate and the state attorney general said Monday they support a gun control bill aimed at making it harder to reload assault rifles.

Senate President Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris said the measure addresses weapons like those used in the movie theater shooting in Colorado last month that left 12 dead. Another gunman killed seven people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin over the weekend.

Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has introduced a bill that would prohibit semiautomatic rifles or kits with features that allow easy release and replacement of large ammunition clips, either through the push of a button with a finger or use of a tool.

"No one will convince me it's anything other than a joke to say that having multiple clips in a semiautomatic weapon that shoots a hundred or more bullets at a time is necessary in this state and in this country," Steinberg told reporters at the Capitol. "It’s ridiculous."

Harris said her office is ready to implement the proposed new rules. “In recent years, the gun industry has developed a loophole that undermines California's assault weapons law,” Harris said. “I applaud the Legislature's interest in addressing this problem and support efforts to pass legislation needed to restore the law's original intent."

However, SB 249 is opposed by gun owner groups as unnecessary. "It’s a knee-jerk reaction," said Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California. "Citizens in this state for the last t10 years have obeyed the law."

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Photo: California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris  at a recent press conference. Credit: Justin Sullivan  / Getty Images

 

Kamala Harris 'pleased' with Supreme Court immigration decision

California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris on Monday praised the  U.S. Supreme Court for striking down key parts of Arizona’s immigration law.

The court rejected  parts that made it a state crime for illegal immigrants to ask for jobs or fail to carry immigration papers; the state can go ahead with having police officers check the immigration status of people during lawful traffic stops.

“I am pleased with the court’s decision, which strikes down some of the most egregious components of Arizona’s misguided law," Harris said in a statement. "It also signals potentially significant constitutional concerns with the law’s mandate on local police officers to act as enforcers of immigration law."

Harris said public safety requires trust and cooperation between law enforcement and the public it serves.

"I believe today’s decision is an important step forward in setting aside policies that divide law enforcement from the communities we serve," Harris said.

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Photo:  California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, pictured at a February news conference, supports the Supreme Court decision on immigration. Credit: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times

California lawmakers remain highest paid, so raises unlikely

Gov. Jerry Brown’s $173,987 salary is slightly lower than the pay of his counterpart in Pennsylvania, but California legislators still have much higher salaries than lawmakers in other states, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The state survey will be used by the voter-approved Citizens Compensation Commission to determine in the coming weeks whether to grant pay raises to elected state officials, but a couple of panel members said it is unlikely they would vote to hike salaries given the state’s current budget woes.

"I don’t think the state is ready to give any pay raises -- definitely not," said Commissioner Kathy Sands, a former mayor of Auburn.

The commission is scheduled to hold its annual meeting March 29. The survey conducted by the California Department of Personnel Administration said the Pennsylvania governor’s salary is $177,888, the highest in the country and nearly $4,000 more than the pay of Brown, who has the second biggest paycheck. New York's governor is legally entitled to a salary of $179,000, but voluntarily takes a 5% pay cut.

Brown's salary is higher than the pay of governors in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, North Dakota and Ohio, the survey found.

Commissioner Charles Murray said it is "most unlikely" that he would vote to give Brown or legislators a pay raise. "If he (Brown) can bring his salary down close to what Gov. [Arnold] Schwarzenegger received I’d be happy,’’ Murray said of the former chief executive who did not accept a salary.

The survey found that the $95,291 base salary for California legislators remains higher than in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, North Dakota and Ohio. The salary is $60,584 in the latter state. The survey does not include the state with the second highest pay for lawmakers, New York, where the base salary is $79,500, but where several legislators get premiums for serving in leadership jobs.

The survey also found the California secretary of state is the highest paid of eight states surveyed, but the lieutenant governor, controller and treasurer are also paid less than their counterparts in Pennsylvania.

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Photograph: Gov. Jerry Brown is the second highest paid governor in the country, according to a survey to be used to determine whether he should get a raise. Photographer: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Legislative leaders back Atty. Gen. Harris on mortgage settlement

Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris faced criticism from Occupy L.A. protesters but support from state legislative leaders on Thursday concerning her agreement to have California participate in a multi-state mortgage-abuse settlement with banks that could provide billions of dollars for Californians.

About 100 protesters were outside the state building in Los Angeles where Harris announced the deal, with some calling the settlement a "sellout" that lets banks off the hook for foreclosure abuses.

But state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Assembly Speaker John A. Perez (D-Los Angeles) praised Harris' decision to seek a better deal than the one originally offered to settle investigations into foreclosure misconduct, such as robo-signing.

"She could have easily signed on to the settlement weeks ago and claimed victory, but instead she dug in her heels and worked around the clock for a settlement that acknowledges the extent the banking industry's bad behavior had on California homeowners and our economy," Steinberg said in a statement.

Perez said the settlement "holds banks accountable,'' and that the state's "strong position in the enhanced settlement is due to the advocacy and tenacity'' of Harris.

Both said the Legislature will now work with Harris on a bill package to provide additional protection for homeowners and tenants of homes under foreclosure, which Steinberg said would include additional powers for the attorney general to crack down on misconduct.

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Photo: Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

California attorney general says DNA backlog is gone

The California Department of Justice will be able to analyze routine DNA evidence in only 30 days, up to four times faster than before, Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris announced Wednesday. 

“Crime scene evidence is too important to sit unanalyzed for months, while the victims await justice,” Harris said in a statement.  

Officials whittled down the backlog by shifting cases among the state’s seven crime labs that handle DNA testing. In addition, robotics helped reduce part of the process for analyzing sexual assault evidence from two days to two hours.

Last year the labs analyzed 5,400 evidence samples, up from 4,800 in 2010 and 4,100 in 2009, according to the department. The state is responsible for processing DNA evidence for prosecutions in 47 of California's 58 counties. 

The state's crime labs came under increasing pressure in January 2009, when Proposition 69 began requiring authorities to collect DNA samples from any adult arrested for a felony. But Jill Spriggs, who oversees the state forensic system, said that backlog is also gone. 

“That’s been eliminated for almost a year now,” she said.

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Photo: California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris at a news conference in December. Credit: Paui Sakuma / Associated Press

That’s been eliminated for almost a year now.”

Justice Department signs off on California redistricting

The citizens commission that drew California’s new political maps won an important nod Tuesday from the Department of Justice, which  signed off on the new congressional, legislative and Board of Equalization districts for four Northern California counties.

The counties—Kings, Merced, Monterey and Yuba—were under scrutiny because of concerns about past possible violations of the federal Voting Rights Act.   The maps required approval, or “pre-clearance” in government jargon, from the federal agency.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Thomas E. Perez delivered the news to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission’s attorney and to California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris in a two-paragraph letter.  “The Attorney General does not interpose any objection to the” new maps,  Perez wrote.

Stan Forbes, chairman of  the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, said in a statement that  the group was “pleased that the Department of Justice has found [the commission] complied with the Voting Rights Act in drawing the districts” for the four counties.

Forbes contrasted the approval  with the situation in Texas, where the federal court has intervened  in that state’s drawing of new maps.

The California commission drew the maps for the first time since voters took the redistricting job away from  the Legislature in hopes of getting less gerrymandered, more fairly drawn maps.

 Republicans, however, have challenged the commission’s state Senate district and congressional maps.  Elections officials are in the process of determining whether a proposed referendum on the  Senate maps  will qualify for the November ballot, and  a challenge to three Los Angeles-area congressional districts is pending in federal court.

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Photo: Two members of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission sign the new maps in August. Credit: Associated Press

 

 

 

California attorney general defends Obama's healthcare overhaul

With the U.S. Supreme Court set to decide the fate of President Obama’s sweeping healthcare law, California Atty. Gen. General Kamala Harris is putting the Golden State's weight behind the White House.

On Friday, Harris joined a dozen other attorneys general in filing a brief with the high court supporting the new law and its requirement that all Americans have basic health insurance by 2014. In March, justices will hear oral arguments on constitutional challenges to the entire law brought by top Republican officials from 26 states, who contend that the Democratic-controlled Congress overstepped its authority in passing the measure.

Harris' brief urges the Supreme Court to uphold the law that Republicans derisively refer to as "Obamacare."

"Though state governments and private actors have taken important and innovative steps to expand access to health care and to restrain the growth of health care costs, no remedy can be fully effective without action on a national level," the brief said. "The Commerce Clause empowers Congress to take such action, and Congress properly employed that power in addressing the nation's health care crisis through the reforms enacted in the Affordable Care Act."

The Republican governors and state attorneys who challenged the law argued that the power to regulate commerce does not extend to requiring unwilling buyers to purchase insurance. They also allege that the law’s expansion of Medicaid will force the states to take on extra burdens.

Harris said the new law was needed to deal with one of the fastest-growing segments of federal and state budgets. In 2008, she said, the uninsured cost hospitals, insurers and taxpayers $43 billion nationally.

"Federal health care reform is not only essential to improving access to quality health care in California, it also is central to the long-term health of our economy, as well as state and local budgets," she said.

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Photo: Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris. Credit: Paul Sakuma /Associated Press

Kamala Harris hires new chief of staff

Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris has a new chief of staff -- Nathan Barankin, who most recently served as communications director for state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).

In Barankin, Harris gets a seasoned Sacramento hand with experience in the attorney general's office. He spent 10 years under Bill Lockyer and then Jerry Brown before joining Steinberg's staff three years ago. Barankin will replace Terri Carbaugh, who served as Harris' chief of staff for the first months of her tenure.

Barankin's old job will be filled by Steinberg spokeswoman Alicia Trost, who will be promoted to job of communications director.

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