Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks before a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 3. Behind him are House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, left, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Tuesday, March 3, 2015. (Photo: BILL O’LEARY / Washington Post)

Opinion
By Debra J. Saunders
Published 4:39 pm – Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Photo: BILL O’LEARY / Washington Post

Nancy Pelosi was near tears. After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress Tuesday, the House minority leader sent out a press release informing the media, “I was near tears throughout the prime minister’s speech — saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States” and “saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran.”

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By JULIE PACE, AP White House Correspondent
March 4, 2015 | 1:33 a.m. EST + More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton is facing a new set of questions about ethics and transparency — the sort that have dogged her and husband Bill for decades.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2015 – 04:30 p.m.

Tonight on The Lou Desmond & Company Show, Cliff Cummings, president of Toyota of San Bernardino, former California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro and Lou’s favorite Liberal, Georgine Trujillo, join Lou to discuss a number of topics.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Christopher Cadelago
ccadelago@sacbee.com
02/26/2015 12:38 PM

Three months after being elected to their second terms, a pair of California Democratic congressmen are already hearing footsteps.

Read the rest of this entry »

Uncertainties abound as state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris emerges as the clear early front-runner in the 2016 election for an open U.S. Senate seat. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

By Michael Finnegan and Patrick McGreevy
February 25, 2015

With Antonio Villaraigosa no longer a threat to her campaign for U.S. Senate, some Democratic leaders see state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris as Barbara Boxer’s inevitable successor.

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Clinton Foundation fundraising, particularly from foreign governments, came up repeatedly at Hillary Rodham Clinton’s confirmation hearings for secretary of state. (Liam Richards/AP)

By Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger
February 25, 2015 at 8:54 PM

The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration, foundation officials disclosed Wednesday.

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Wednesday, February 25, 2015 – 08:45 a.m.

We won’t belabor the announcement by wasting time placing any media stories up on the blog.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Christi Parsons and Kathleen Hennessey
February 24, 2015

With the quick swipe of a pen on the way from one meeting to another, President Obama unceremoniously opened a fourth chapter of his presidency Tuesday — the veto era.

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Tuesday, February 24, 2015 – 05:30 p.m.

Tonight on The Lou Desmond & Company Show, Lou’s favorite liberal Georgine Trujillo joins Lou to make sense of liberal policies.

Read the rest of this entry »

By David Siders
dsiders@sacbee.com
02/24/2015 12:00 AM

Gov. Jerry Brown remains popular, according to a new poll

But not the big projects he supports, which appear to weigh him down.

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Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at Georgetown University in Washington. (Photo: Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press / AP)

Opinion
By Debra J. Saunders
Monday, February 23, 2015 – Published 4:02 pm

Tuesday Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses the Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women. The former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state comes to the Bay Area at a time when I hear more people — on the left and the right — cringing at the prospect of Clinton heading the Democratic ticket next year — and worse, squaring off against Jeb Bush in a Bush-Clinton rerun. To many, a Clinton nod has the grim inevitability of death and taxes.

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Feb. 22, 2015 – 4:25 p.m.
By CITY NEWS SERVICE

SANTA ANA — Former state Sen. Lou Correa raised multiple questions about mistakes and possible fraud in his narrow loss to Andrew Do for Orange County supervisor, but he said it would be too costly to try to overturn the results in a court.

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Senate Democrats will mount their fourth filibuster on the bill Monday afternoon.

By John Bresnahan and Burgess Everett
2/22/15 – 6:17 PM EST

Late Monday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will force the fourth vote in three weeks on a bill to fund the massive agency that protects Americans from terrorists, floods and incursions across the borders. Senate Democrats will almost certainly block it again.

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Sunday, February 22, 2015 – 01:00 p.m.

There’s no question mark required for this one.

The Democrat Party has another 2016 campaign issue to deal with.

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By Josh Richman
jrichman@bayareanewsgroup.com
Posted: 02/22/2015 10:16:32 AM PST
Updated: 02/22/2015 10:16:40 AM PST

Getting an early start is important for birds seeking worms and children hoping to get in a top college. But when it comes to prominent politicians angling for higher office, starting years in advance may simply allow more time for troubles to mount, political experts say.

So what the heck are Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom thinking?

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Former state Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello) was indicted last year on 24 felony charges, including accepting $88,000 in bribes. He has pleaded not guilty. (Manny Crisostomo / Sacramento Bee)

By Patrick McGreevy
February 21, 2015

A year after his indictment on federal corruption charges, former state Sen. Ronald S. Calderon awaits his day in court, working as a manager at a real estate firm and helping his attorneys sift thousands of documents that include transcripts from undercover FBI wiretaps.

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By David Lightman
McClatchy Washington Bureau
02/21/2015 12:22 PM

WASHINGTON — Democrats have become a confused political party with a muddled message and an inability to turn out enough of its loyal voters, a party task force charged with how to revive the embattled party said Saturday.

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Saturday, February 2015 – 09:30 a.m.

It just keeps getting worse for Democrats nationally. The Obamacare steamroller was operating at full speed this week.

Where do I start?

Read the rest of this entry »

By Charles Krauthammer
Opinion Writer
February 19, 2015 at 8:12 PM

I’ve been radicalized. By Harry Reid and Barack Obama. Goodbye moderation and sweet reason. No more clinging to constitutional and procedural restraint. It’s time to go nuclear.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rep. Pete Aguilar

By Neil Nisperos, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Posted: 02/18/15, 8:30 PM PST

RANCHO CUCAMONGA >> Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Rancho Cucamonga, held a roundtable discussion with the area’s business community on Wednesday at a job center where they shared issues relating to regulatory difficulties, and the need to train young people for important sectors of the Inland Empire economy, among other concerns.

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By David Siders
dsiders@sacbee.com
02/19/2015 12:05 AM

More than a year before the presidential primary reaches California, this much can be said about the voting public: Democrats like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Republicans like Scott Walker and Jeb Bush, and a lot of people still haven’t made up their minds.

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By Matt Fuller
Posted at 5:49 p.m. on Feb. 18

Two days after a Texas judge halted President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, nothing seems to have changed in the congressional showdown over funding the Department of Homeland Security.

Read the rest of this entry »

By John Myers
Feb 18, 2015

Not bad, but not a blockbuster: Consider that the real takeaway for Kamala Harris in the first statewide public poll in the 2016 race for the U.S. Senate.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Edvard Pettersson
February 17, 2015 – 10:56 AM PST

(Bloomberg) — A Koch brothers advocacy group can keep its donor list secret for now, with a federal judge ruling that revealing the identities would chill free speech.

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By Chuck McFadden
Posted 02.16.2015

ANALYSIS: There are rumblings beneath the surface about the danger of a race-tinged political war breaking out within the California Democratic Party.

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, February 16, 2015 – 11:00 a.m.

It looks as if Congressional Democrats have figured out what we’ve been saying here for over a year.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mark Gutglueck
Posted on February 14, 2015

(February 13) – A series of events has moved allegations of drug use by San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairman James Ramos front and center, together with suggestions that county officials have ignored or covered up indications of that activity because of his extensive personal wealth which has been used to support other elected county officials’ own political efforts.

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By Michael A. Memoli and Lisa Mascaro
February 15, 2015

After six weeks in session and 139 roll call votes in a House and Senate that feature some of the largest Republican majorities in generations, one of the most telling statistics from the new Congress is this: President Obama’s veto threats outnumber the bills Congress has been able to send him.

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David Brock (Credit: Stephen B. Thornton for The New York Times)

Maureen Dowd
Sunday Review | Op-Ed Columnist

February 14, 2015

WASHINGTON — I’LL pay for this column.

The Rottweilers will be unleashed.

Once the Clintons had a War Room. Now they have a Slime Room.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine
February 13, 2015

Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris may be leading the field statewide in 2016 race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer – we won’t actually know until we see some public polling data – but it appears that among Latino voters who say they’re likely to vote, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio “Tony V” Villaraigosa is the clear favorite.

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By Jean Merl
February 13, 2015

Getting an early start on shoring up at-risk members, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Thursday released a list of 14 it deems most vulnerable in next year’s elections.

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Published: Feb. 11, 2015 – Updated: 9:40 a.m.

Republican Paul Chabot believes a lack of money and GOP support hampered his campaign for an Inland congressional seat. He might have a point, at least on the money part.

To read post by Jeff Horseman in The PE Political Empire Blog, click here.

Former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom delivers a speech inside City Hall in San Francisco, after the U.S. Supreme Court made its ruling on gay marriage on June 26, 2013. (AFP / AFP/Getty Images)

By Seema Mehta
February 11, 2015

California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that he has opened a fundraising account to run for governor in 2018.

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The measure doesn’t appear to have enough votes to survive a presidential veto.

By Elana Schor
2/11/15 – 5:39 PM EST – Updated 2/11/15 – 9:14 PM EST

The House easily passed a bill on Wednesday that would allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, setting up President Barack Obama to issue the third veto of his presidency.

Read the rest of this entry »

Democrats would fold if Homeland Security shuts down, some House and Senate Republicans argue.

By Manu Raju and Jake Sherman
2/11/15 – 8:14 PM EST – Updated 2/12/15 8:17 AM EST

A faction of House and Senate conservatives is pushing Republican leaders to take the battle over the Homeland Security Department to the brink, arguing the party would win the public relations war with Democrats if a standoff over immigration led to a shutdown of the agency.

Read the rest of this entry »

02/09/2015 – 11:44 PM

WASHINGTON — A rare open contest for a U.S. Senate seat in California next year presents a long-awaited opportunity for some of the state’s more politically ambitious House members.

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, February 9, 2015 – 09:00 a.m.

First it was the “If you like your plan you can keep it” debacle.

Now everyone is just starting to get the second dose of Obamacare.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Jim Miller
jmiller@sacbee.com
02/06/2015 11:42 PM

Eureka, on California’s North Coast, is at least a seven-hour drive from Fresno, the northern tip of the Central Valley’s sprawling 14th Senate District. It’s even farther from Santa Ana, the Orange County city at the heart of Southern California’s 34th Senate District.

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Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at Georgetown University in Washington. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

By Anne Gearan and Dan Balz
February 6, 2015 at 6:06 PM

Hillary Rodham Clinton, who won’t yet say whether she is running for president, is assembling a massive campaign team-in-waiting that outstrips anything on a Republican side that remains factionalized and focused on knocking off one another.

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Antonio Villaraigosa, left, then mayor of Los Angeles, with Fabian Nunez, then speaker of the Assembly, in Sacramento in 2006. (Rich Pendroncelli / AP)

By Michael Finnegan
February 5, 2015

One of Antonio Villaraigosa’s closest friends and advisors said Thursday that all signs were pointing toward the former Los Angeles mayor declaring his candidacy for U.S. Senate within the next two weeks.

Read the rest of this entry »

George Skelton
February 4, 2015

Latinos feel insulted by blacks. Angelenos are suspicious of San Franciscans. Democrats are squabbling. It’s inevitable.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Carla Marinucci
February 3, 2015 4:31 PM

Could California’s open 2016 U.S. Senate race turn into a a tussle between two powerhouse Democratic ethnic voting blocs — Latinos and African Americans?

Read the rest of this entry »

By John Howard
Posted 02.03.2015

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, pondering a run for the U.S. Senate in 2016, has slightly better name recognition than rival Democrat Kamala Harris and could benefit from an energized Latino electorate, according to a survey released by the Legislative Latino Caucus.

Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Do on his first day on the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Do beat former state Sen. Lou Correa for the seat by a 43-vote margin; an official recount is underway. (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

By Anh Do and Matt Hamilton
February 4, 2015

A former state senator who lost a special election for a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors said he has asked for a recount because of concerns over “voting irregularities.”

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Party leaders change tune now that they are in minority.

By Burgess Everett
2/3/15 – 7:30 PM EST

Senate Democrats are falling back in love with the filibuster.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Sean Sullivan
February 3, 2015 at 8:28 PM

Congressional Republicans on Tuesday continued their assault on President Obama’s signature accomplishments and his ambitious budget proposal. But they faced stiff resistance from Democrats.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Matt Hamilton
February 2, 2015

Former state Sen. Lou Correa — who lost his bid for a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors to Andrew Do by a 43-vote margin — has officially sought a recount of last Tuesday’s special election.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hillary Clinton is running away from the potential Democratic field.

John McCormick
Jan 31, 2015 – 3:00 PM PST

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is surging, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is an also-ran and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is dominating in a new poll of Iowans likely to vote in the nation’s first presidential nominating contest.

Read the rest of this entry »

Republican Andrew Do defeated well-known Democrat Lou Correa by a razor-thin margin in Tuesday’s special election for the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

By Christopher Goffard and Anh Do
January 31, 2015

Few Orange County politicians command the name recognition of Lou Correa, who has held seats in both houses of the California Legislature and on the county’s Board of Supervisors.

Read the rest of this entry »

Saturday, January 31, 2015 – 01:00 p.m.

We’ve said it here many times.

If there’s one group who can routinely shoot itself in the head, it’s the GOP.

Read the rest of this entry »

By David Siders
dsiders@sacbee.com
01/29/2015 3:36 PM

SAN FRANCISCO – Even as it was reported that state investigators seized computers and other items from Michael Peevey’s home, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday offered only praise for the former president of the California Public Utilities Commission.

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He also took aim at Republican arguments that a lapse in DHS funding would not be ‘the end of the world.’

By Lauren French
1/29/15 8:50 PM EST

PHILADELPHIA — President Barack Obama vowed to House Democrats on Thursday night that he would “happily” veto any legislation that would “compound” the country’s immigration problems — posing yet another challenge to Republican efforts to pass a Homeland Security spending bill by next month’s deadline.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2015 – 05:30 p.m.

Tonight on The Lou Desmond & Company Show, Tom Del Beccaro, former Chairman of the California Republican Party and Georgine Trujillo, Lou’s favorite Democrat, join the program.

Read the rest of this entry »

A depot used to store pipes for Transcanada Corp’s planned Keystone XL oil pipeline is seen in Gascoyne, North Dakota in this November 14, 2014 file photo. (REUTERS/Andrew Cullen/Files)

By Sean Sullivan
January 26, 2016 at 6:18 PM

**This post has been updated**

Senate Democrats stalled the Republican-led push to construct the Keystone XL Pipeline on Monday, dealing the first significant blow to the new Republican majority less than three weeks after being sworn in.

Read the rest of this entry »

The financial crisis has passed and the economy is rebounding, but the fight over taxes is about to resume between Governor Jerry Brown and members of the California legislature. (Max Whittaker/Getty Images)

Juliet Williams | AP
January 25, 09:16 AM

Gov. Jerry Brown orchestrated the successful push for temporary sales and income taxes on Californians three years ago to help ease the state out of recession and close a multibillion-dollar budget gap.

Read the rest of this entry »

Friday, January 23, 2015 – 05:00 p.m.

Tonight on The Lou Desmond & Company Show, Lou is joined by Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) to discuss AB 150, which would amend Prop 47 to make the theft of a firearm under $950 a felony.

Read the rest of this entry »

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, shown in Sacramento in 2013, is weighing a bid for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Barbara Boxer. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

By Michael Finnegan
January 22, 2015

With billionaire Tom Steyer opting out of California’s U.S. Senate race on Thursday, the most likely major rival for Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris appears to be former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
01/22/2015 8:18 PM

For two weeks, ever since Sen. Barbara Boxer declared she would not run for a fifth term in 2016, hedge fund billionaire/environmental activist Tom Steyer had conducted a Hamlet-like soliloquy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Steyer

By Christopher Cadelago
ccadelago@sacbee.com
01/22/2015 1:10 PM

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer said Thursday he will not be a candidate to succeed U.S. Senate Barbara Boxer and instead will continue his focus on helping Democrats and working to reverse the effects of global climate change.

Read the rest of this entry »

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa(Ethan Miller)

Kamala Harris is getting national buzz, but there’s a counter-movement building on behalf of a potential rival.

By Andrea Drusch
January 21, 2015

With only weeks gone but years left in California’s Senate race, national Democrats appear eager to anoint state Attorney General Kamala Harris as the 2016 successor to Sen. Barbara Boxer’s seat. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee weighed in lauding Harris’ candidacy after she announced her decision last week, and high-profile sitting senators including Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Cory Booker also feted the new front-runner.

Read the rest of this entry »

Attorney General Kamala Harris , right with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, speaks at a news conference regarding criminal and civil responses to mortgage fraud in Los Angeles Monday, May 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

The rush by Democrats in Washington to back California’s Kamala Harris for Senate raises hackles.

By Alex Isenstadt
1/21/15 – 8:03 PM EST

The procession of prominent Washington Democrats who lined up last week to sing the praises of California Attorney General Kamala Harris for Senate had the feel of an anointment. Sen. Cory Booker said he was “so excited” about her candidacy. Sen. Elizabeth Warren called Harris, a favorite of the Obama White House, “smart” and “tough.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand told supporters she needed Harris “by my side.”

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By Debra J. Saunders
Updated 5:41 pm, Wednesday, January 21, 2015

As President Obama delivered his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, I saw all of 2015 flash before my eyes. It was a smart speech that wisely stuck to “middle-class” values and was shrewdly short on details. I saw another year of the president not compromising. For Republicans, it was Ground Hog Day — an endless loop of the president talking up bipartisanship without practicing it.

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WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 20: U.S. President Barack Obama waves before giving his State of the Union speech before members of Congress in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol January 20, 2015 in Washington, DC. Obama was expected to lay out a broad agenda to address income inequality, making it easier for Americans to afford college education, and child care. (Photo by Mandel Ngan-Pool/Getty Images)

By Julie Pace, AP White House Correspondent
Posted: 01/20/15, 7:28 PM PST | Updated: 28 secs ago

WASHINGTON >> Refusing to bend to the new Republican Congress, President Barack Obama unveiled Tuesday night an ambitious State of the Union agenda steeped in Democratic priorities, including tax increases on the wealthy, education and child care help for the middle class and a torrent of veto threats for the GOP’s own plans.

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Tuesday, January 20, 2015 – 10:00 a.m.

Some, not all ears, will be tuned to Tuesday night’s State of the Union address by President Barack Obama.

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Former Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, right, created a crew of former reporters to delve into thorny issues, and it generated some noteworthy reports, but Steinberg’s successor, Kevin de León, has disbanded it. (Paul Kitagaki Jr./pkitagaki@sacbee.com)

By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
01/19/2015 7:39 PM

Legislative leaders occasionally proclaim that they want to do more “oversight” – looking into how well state government agencies are serving the public interest.

At best, however, it has been spotty.

Read the rest of this entry »

Attorney General Kamala Harris is likely to face challenges from other Democrats coveting Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat.

By Matier & Ross
Monday, January 19, 2015

Having jumped into the U.S. Senate race “feet first,” state Attorney General Kamala Harris will be hitting the phones to score as much money and as many endorsements possible — all in the hope of keeping rival Democrats from jumping in as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Justin Sink – 01/19/15 08:45 AM EST

President Obama will head into Tuesday’s State of the Union with his highest job approval numbers in 18 months, according to a new poll released Monday by The Washington Post and ABC News.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Steyer, a billionaire environmentalist weighing a run for U.S. Senate in California, in San Francisco, Feb. 13, 2014. (Jason Henry/The New York Times)

By Christopher Cadelago
ccadelago@sacbee.com
01/18/2015 4:50 PM

Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate change activist weighing a run for U.S. Senate, is telling potential supporters he would commit to serving only one term if he can’t reach goals dealing with the environment, economy and education within six years.

Read the rest of this entry »

They fare much better than Christie and Perry in a survey of would-be contenders.
By David Cohen
1/18/15 6:48 PM EST
Updated 1/18/15 11:02 PM EST

Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney are the would-be candidates that Americans most want to run for president in 2016, while solid pluralities would prefer that Chris Christie and Rick Perry sit this election out, according to a new CBS News Poll released Sunday.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mark Gutgkueck
Posted on January 17, 2015

(January 14) — In local Democratic Party circles there is already peripheral discussion of the need to mount a challenge of Marc Steinorth in the 40th Assembly District in 2016.

Read the rest of this entry »

Then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa greets customers at Pink’s Hot Dogs as part of a farewell tour before leaving office in 2013. His next move could be to run for a U.S. Senate seat in 2016. That would require him to defeat Attorney General Kamala Harris, an ally in previous campaigns. (Nick Ut/Associated Press-file)

By Christopher Cadelago
ccadelago@sacbee.com
01/17/2015 11:12 PM

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa planned to use the year to, as he put it recently, continue on a journey of reflection.

Read the rest of this entry »

FILE – In this Dec. 3, 2014 file photo, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks in Gaston Hall at Georgetown University, in Washington. Neither Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Mitt Romney have yet said they’re running for president. But within a few hours on Friday, the likely candidates previewed a 2016 campaign that appears headed to a debate over who is best able to boost the paychecks of every day Americans. (Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo)

By DAVID SCOTT and STEVE PEOPLES Associated Press
01/18/2015 9:27 AM

CORONADO, Calif.

Not yet in the presidential race, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mitt Romney already are previewing the likely focus of the 2016 campaign, a competition over who’s better able to boost paychecks for working Americans.

Read the rest of this entry »

Published: Jan. 16, 2015 –  Updated: 9:26 a.m.

The newest members of the Inland House of Representatives delegation now have committee assignments.

To read post by Jeff Horseman in The PE Political Empire Blog, click here.

By Josh Richman
Thursday, January 15th, 2015 at 12:13 am

Hedge fund billionaire and environmental activist Tom Steyer said Tuesday he’s considering whether to run for California’s U.S. Senate seat in 2016, but apparently he’s been mulling this for a while: A polling memo shows he commissioned a survey on his chances in mid-December.

Read the rest of this entry »

George Skelton, Los Angeles Times
January 15, 2015
george.skelton​@latimes.com
@latimesskelton

Who will be California’s next U.S. senator, replacing the retiring Democrat Barbara Boxer?

It’ll be another Democrat, bet on that.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sen. Barbara Boxer’s retirement could set up a nightmare election scenario for Democrats.(Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Or the way Republicans could find themselves shut out of the general election altogether.
By Scott Bland
January 13, 2015

Democrats are far-and-away favored to keep Sen. Barbara Boxer’s California Senate seat when she retires in 2016. They may even be able to shut Republicans out of the general election altogether. But, with both parties still feeling their way through recent and radical changes to the state’s rules for primary races, Democratic insiders see a nightmare scenario in which they fumble away the seat before the general election even begins.

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Tuesday, January 13, 2015 – 03:00 p.m.

To answer a question from several readers.

In the event California Attorney General Kamala Harris (D) takes the seat being vacated by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D), Governor Jerry Brown (D), not voters, will pick her successor.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
01/12/2015 11:29 PM

Barbara Boxer’s decision to retire from the U.S. Senate dissipates some of the fog that has been obscuring California’s political landscape.

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, January 12, 2015 – 05:30 p.m.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris will run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Barbara Boxer, who announced last week that she would not seek another term in 2016.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Anthony York
January 11, 2015

During his press conference outlining his new $164.7 billion state spending plan, Gov. Jerry Brown made extensive remarks about Californians living in poverty, and the challenges the state faces in dealing with those who continue to struggle economically.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane
January 11, 2015 at 9:00 PM

Senior Democrats, dissatisfied with the party’s tepid prescriptions for combating income inequality, are drafting an “action plan” that calls for a massive transfer of wealth from the super-rich and Wall Street traders to the heart of the middle class.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Dan Balz, Chief correspondent
January 10, 2015 at 8:10 PM

AURORA, Colo. — It’s been a good few weeks for Jeb Bush, who has been setting the pace among prospective 2016 presidential candidates — at least in the view of some in the elite world of political donors, strategists and commentators. But even before the news that Mitt Romney is thinking about a third campaign, a dissenting view on Bush was registered here Thursday night.

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Congressman Raul Ruiz

January 9th, 2015 – 9:35 am

The election is over. But the heat remains on Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Palm Desert, as he starts his second term.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has issued at least three news releases this month attacking Ruiz, who ousted GOP incumbent Mary Bono in 2012 and represents a district where Republicans hold a slight edge in voter registration.

To read post by Jeff Horseman in The PE Political Empire Blog, click here.

By Joe Garofoli
January 8, 2015 – 12:51 PM

Nothing like a political power vacuum to elicit the quality present in all politicians: the innate ability to suck up.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
01/08/2015 11:32 PM

Feeding frenzy. Musical chairs. Horse race. Free-for-all.

Read the rest of this entry »