Good Budget News: December Cash Collections Up More Than $100 Million

SACRAMENTO – After accounting for timing issues related to sales tax deposits, December’s tax receipts were $103.4 million above estimates contained in the budget for the current fiscal year ending June 30, according to  Controller John Chiang’s monthly cash balance report released January 9.

“While December’s figures were distorted by timing issues, the month’s revenues closely match budget projections and offer further evidence that California’s economy is slowly mending,” said Chiang.    Read more »

More

Memo From the Grammar Police to California Department of Justice Lawyers

On January 7, 2013 the Brown administration filed a document with a panel of three federal judges asking them to release the state from it’s obligation to lower the population at the Golden State’s 33 prisons to 110,000 inmates – 137.5 percent of design capacity.

(There’s a little under 120,000 inmates at the moment, which is down 43,000 from the peak of overcrowding several years ago.)    Read more »

More

As an Alternative, Eliminate the Archaic 30-Days-In-Print Rule

On January 7, 2013, Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat, violated one of the chief rules of public relations by trying to blunt potential criticism of the upper house by drawing attentiont o the opportunity for leveling it. 

As the Senate’s first floor session of 2013 drew to a close, Steinberg allowed that the public and might  be critical of the lack of legislative business conducted during the first months of the legislative session.    Read more »

More

Gov. Jerry Brown’s Annual “State of Disbelief” Speech — 9 AM Thursday January 24

More

So Far, 2013 Is The Year of the Well Read Legislator

On the January 6, 2013 Viewpoints page of the Sacramento Bee, Assemblyman Jeff Gorrell, a Camarillo Republican, opines that despite he and the members of his party holding less than one-third of the seats in both the Assembly and Senate for the first time in 80 years, they still influence the legislative process.    Read more »

More

Remembering John Quimby

John Phillip Quimby, a craggy Capitol fixture for five decades first as a legislator and then a lobbyist for the Inland Empire, died December 23, 2012 of complications from pneumonia. He was 77.

A Democratic Assemblyman from 1962 to 1974, he subsequently lobbied for the counties he previously represented, San Bernardino and Riverside.     Read more »

More

The Case of the Stolen Overcoat

The California Assembly’s Indomitable John Quimby Had a Lion’s Build, a Cheery Wit and a Hound’s Tooth Coat He Didn’t Own

By James R. Mills

San Diego Magazine, December 1983 

“Hire the handicapped,” John Quimby used to say. “They’re fun to watch.”

Upon his arrival in Sacramento in 1962, John had become the most popular member of the State Assembly, partly because he carried on so cheerfully and indomitably in spite of his own handicap.    Read more »

More

Can the Capitol’s Existing Hearing Rooms Handle the Capacity?

Assembly Speaker John Perez announced the membership of the lower house’s committees on January 3.

The smallest number of members in a committee is seven. The largest is the Budget Committee at 27 members. 

There are 19 members on the Health Committee, which will cope with implement of the Affordable Care Act, slated to take full effect in 2014.    Read more »

More

Green on the Outside But Not on the Inside

The cardboard box to the left, which is 14 inches long, 10 inches wide and 5 inches deep, arrived January 3 at the offices of California’s Capitol.  The green stamp on the lid proudly notes that “this carton made with recycled material for a better environment.”

Inside the 14 by 10 by 5 inch box were four 6 inch by 6 inch recyclable semi-inflated clear plastic AIRSPEED packing pillows, an 8.5 by 11 inch paper invoice and one  4 inch by 4 inch by 1.5 inch trapezoidal box containing one Hewlett Packard 61XL Tri-Color inkjet cartridge.     Read more »

More

Supporting Toni Atkins and Who Else?

Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, a San Diego Democrat, is holding a $1,000-per-head cocktail fundraiser January 16 at a Sacramento Irish pub near the Capitol. 

Atkins generously notes on the invitation below that under the terms of Proposition 35, approved by voters in 2000, “an individual, union, (Political Action Committee) and other entities may contribute a maximum of $4,100 to (her) committee per election, primary and general.      Read more »

More