Politics is simply a game for California lawmakersFor most of the past two decades, the California Legislature has been under intense criticism for its inability to get anything done. Lawmakers can't get a budget out on time, and they have no idea on how to reach consensus on the biggest issues facing California.
Hey, you voters: Don't forget June 3 electionFresno's mayoral candidates may find that voters in the June 3 primary election are harder to find than big-box retailers on the Fulton Mall. The front-runners could be the candidates with the biggest families -- if all of them can be persuaded to vote in an election that hasn't inspired a lot of enthusiasm.
Can't Legislature do better than bills on dogs, donkeys?I heard Assemblyman George Plescia, R-La Jolla, on the radio the other morning explaining his legislation to allow employees to take their dogs to work on June 20. Now I know why Assemblyman Mike Villines, R-Clovis, was able to put together the votes two years ago to boot Plescia out of the minority leader's job.
Here's hoping new speaker represents all of CaliforniaThere's another Assembly speaker from Los Angeles about to take office and those of us out here in California's heartland wonder if state government will continue to cater to the Golden State's biggest cities at the expense of the rest of the state.
Six simple ways to fix an ineffective state governmentThe California Legislature has become so dysfunctional that I proposed last year to abolish it. My idea was to come up with a better system of governing the Golden State so that major problems would be solved instead of being ignored. It couldn't get any worse than what we now have.