10:00 PM PDT on Saturday, October 2, 2010

By JOHN ASBURY
The Press-Enterprise

The hip-hop band Cypress Hill and a production company are planning to host a designated smoking section for medical marijuana patients at the upcoming Smokeout music festival in San Bernardino.

The Guerilla Union promotional company has been approved by San Bernardino police to set up the area at the National Orange Show during the Oct. 16 concert.

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State lawmakers could vote Thursday on no-new-taxes budget
Don Thompson, The Associated Press
Created: 10/02/2010 09:12:35 PM PDT

SACRAMENTO – After a record-long impasse, California legislators are set to vote this week on a no-new-taxes budget that relies on a combination of spending cuts and optimistic financial projections to close a $19 billion deficit.

Details of the agreement between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders began emerging Saturday ahead of a vote by rank-and-file lawmakers planned for Thursday. If approved, it would end a budget stalemate that has already stretched for 94 days.

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Capitol Alert
The latest on California politics and government
October 2, 2010

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman told reporters this afternoon that she told her consultants about Nicky Diaz Santillan, an illegal immigrant and her former housekeeper, when she fired Diaz Santillan last year.

Asked if she did so because she anticipated it would be problematic for her campaign, she said, “I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

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10:00 PM PDT on Saturday, October 2, 2010

WASHINGTON

From Roll Call Report Syndicate, ©2010, Thomas Voting Reports, Inc. Here’s how area members of Congress were recorded on major roll call votes in the week ending October 1.

House

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Husing

05:45 PM PDT on Saturday, October 2, 2010

By JOHN HUSING

It is hard watching a town commit economic “suicide.” Unfortunately, that is the fate San Bernardino’s voters will again impose on themselves if they vote down Measure “C.” Why? Because given a choice, no employer will locate in a city with a political system so unstable that politicians spend more time fighting than governing. No firm wants to risk the political pressures and nutty decisions that City Hall might impose on them.

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By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Oct. 3, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

FRESNO – For weeks, Republican Meg Whitman demanded that Jerry Brown, her Democratic rival for governor, debate her in Fresno, clearly hoping it would shore up support in the GOP-leaning San Joaquin Valley and among Latino voters, but Brown stalled.

Whitman finally got her wish Saturday in a bilingual debate sponsored by Univision, but it quickly became a slugfest as Brown pummeled her on how she handled a former housekeeper who was an illegal immigrant – a case that had erupted just days earlier.

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By Dan Morain
dmorain@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Oct. 3, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1E
Last Modified: Sunday, Oct. 3, 2010 – 12:43 am

A really rich Republican candidate challenges a liberal icon in a year when the Democratic president’s popularity has plummeted.

Slick ads air nonstop. Polls show the Republican might win in this truest of blue states.

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Allred

By Howard Mintz

hmintz@mercurynews.com
Posted: 10/02/2010 08:25:35 PM PDT
Updated: 10/03/2010 03:56:22 AM PDT

By landing in celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred’s cross hairs last week, Republican Meg Whitman found herself in some lofty and, in some instances, infamous company.

Tiger Woods. Actor Charlie Sheen. Roman Polanski. The late pop singer Michael Jackson. O.J. Simpson. Death row inmate Scott Peterson. And, more recently, ousted Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd.

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Loretta Sanchez has kept the seat by wide margins since 1996, but polls and political handicappers see a possible upset by GOP Assemblyman Van Tran. Democrats are confident in Sanchez’s campaign.

By Jean Merl, Los Angeles Times

October 3, 2010

Ever since her headline-grabbing upset of conservative Republican icon Rep. Robert K. Dornan back in 1996, Rep. Loretta Sanchez has won reelection in her working-class district by wide margins. Now, however, Republicans believe they stand a fighting chance of unseating Orange County’s only Democratic member of the House.

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A budget plan must address pension reform or the governor won’t sign it, an aide says.

By Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times
October 3, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento —

The Legislature’s plans to limit the pay of local government officials in California may be dead for the year, after the governor vetoed a key bill inspired by the scandal in the city of Bell.

But some variation of lawmakers’ proposals to rein in excessive pensions still stands a chance of becoming law this year, even though the governor also rejected those measures.

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This year the budget vote drama arrives only weeks, rather than the customary few months, before election day. The timing is tough for legislators seeking higher office or locked in a reelection fight.

By Shane Goldmacher, Los Angeles Times

October 3, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento —

Final passage of the budget pact struck Friday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers could be complicated by the looming election, as anxious legislators, whose approval ratings have already sunk to record lows, prepare to face voters.

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