So the Guv says he doesn't think he's going to be able to gut CEQA this year. I think he's right: The party he supposedly leads (but doesn't tend to follow him) won't go for it, any more than the party Obama leads will got for cuts to Social Security.Read more »

For the first time in many years, Californians seem to like their governor. Jerry Brown's approval rating is now above 50 percent; actually, it's closer to 60 percent. And the Legislature is more popular, too. Read more »

Gov. Jerry Brown has finally done what the state Legislature refused for six years to do: He's eliminating the requirement that household furniture and children's cribs, car seats, and strollers be treated with toxic flame-retardant chemicals.Read more »

The state Senate Business, Professions, and Economic Development Committee was slated to hold a hearing Feb. 11 on Assemblymember Tom Ammiano's efforts to create a regulatory framework for medical marijuana. That's a fairly common practice when a new set of professional regulations is proposed; it's called a "sunrise" hearing, and the idea is to get all the players in the room and see what kinds of concerns they have. Read more »

We all know this, but I have to say it again: Jerry Brown is one strange agent.

His State of the State address was blessedly short: Jer doesn't waste a lot of time. In fact, a few minutes in, the crowd in the state Assembly chambers was applauding for the second or third time, and he told them to stop; "this is my longest speech and we're not going to get out of here." I clocked it, applause and all, at about 16 minutes.Read more »

The guv is quite proud of his new budget: He's eliminated the chronic deficits, he's giving some more money to the schools, and he's vowing that the state will live "within its means." Which sounds like no more taxes. Read more »

The Fair Political Practices Commission released a bit of information about who just dumped $11 million into the No and 30 and Yes on 32 campaigns, and on the surface, the disclosure doesn't tell much except that secretive PAC money moves around in tight circles. The head of the FPPC, Ann Ravel, called it "money laundering," which sounds like a fairly accurate description. Read more »

First, the bad news: Jerry Brown has vetoed a couple of important bills by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, showing that he's still a strange and unpredictable guy. He rejected a measure that would have provided some basic labor protections to domestic workers and another that would have opened up state prisons to a modicum of media access. Read more »

Jerry Roberts, who has long been among the best political reporters in California, has a nice, detailed piece on CalBuzz about Jerry Brown's history and legacy -- and how California got into the mess that the Guv is trying to get us out of. Read more »

A few good bills have emerged from the madness of the end of the Legislative session in Sacramento -- including measures by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and Sen. Leland Yee -- and now we have to wait for the governor, who isn't thinking much beyond Prop. 30.Read more »