California Legislature

Delay of a plan for more renewable energy in California could carry a price tag for consumers.

A powerful teachers union and advocates of charter schools, battling to shape the future of California schools, ended in a stalemate this year in Sacramento.

Voters passed a law last year barring lawmakers from acting on bills until they've been available to the public for 72 hours. It was a game-changer this year.

As befits a good murder plot, California lawmakers target potential victims by placing the bills on what they call the “suspense file.”

It should come as no surprise that when the California Legislature recently began the process of divvying up proceeds from the state’s cap-and-trade auctions, a cavalcade of local officials, community activists and lobbyists rushed to Sacramento, with hands out. Billions of dollars burning a hole in the state’s pocket has that effect on people, and […]

The very reason Arnold Schwarzenegger called GOP Assemblyman Chad Mayes the “future of the Republican party”—his work on climate change—was what ultimately cost Mayes his leadership post.

The underbelly of cap and trade: Letting industries buy carbon credits or offsets, rather than modernize old equipment, means pollution in many poor communities could get worse.

(Update: On Sept. 12, the Senate voted down AB 186. Its sponsor, Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, said “I am committed to finding a way forward next year.”) Many California communities could open centers inviting addicts to shoot up hard drugs under a little-noticed bill that has cleared the state Assembly and now awaits a vote on the Senate […]

As the quieter ‘companion bill’ to Monday’s cap-and-trade extension legislation, Assembly Bill 617 sought to placate environmental justice advocates who have increasingly complained that the state’s globally ambitious climate policy overlooks a local problem: poor California communities living in the shadow of polluters. The bill, sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia of Bell Gardens, was […]

It has become a familiar routine for the Sears family: Gather the medical experts, trek to Sacramento, and tell another panel of lawmakers how their 6-year-old son died from the anesthesia a dentist gave him to pull a tooth. Then watch as legislators water down the solution that pediatricians insist would prevent other California children […]