Now this is politics at its best. According to The Roundup, a Web site for the Capitol Weekly and AroundTheCapitol.com:

"Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines will face off with Speaker Fabian Nunez in a sushi smackdown Tuesday in Sacramento to showcase California-grown rice. The speaker responded to Villines' challenge with a set of haikus:

"Land locked Clovis man
Makes worst Republican Rice
Since Condoleezza"

We await the results with bated breaths.

Posted by Russ Minick at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

George Skelton, veteran columnist for the Los Angeles Times, looks at Assemblyman Mike Villines, R-Clovis, the new Assembly minority leader. Here's a quote he got from Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez about the prospects of working with Villines:

"What concerns me," says Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles), "is that [Villines] may have an ideological swerve that gets in the way of addressing things in a bipartisan fashion.

"We've been in the process of setting an example for the rest of the country. We've shown that stalemate and stagnation don't improve peoples' lives, but bipartisanship does."

You can read Skelton's complete column here.

Posted by Jim Boren at 9:00 AM | Permalink

It appears that California legislators may finally be ready to give up control of drawing the boundaries of their own districts. Assembly and Senate leaders are ready to put a constitutional measure on the ballot in November that would give redistricting power to an independent 11-member commission.

The Associated Press reported today that an amendment to the California Constitution has enough votes to pass the Senate. It also should pass the Assembly and then go on the November ballot. The voters would have to approve the change.

“I don’t see a whole lot of opposition to this at this point,” Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez told the AP. “It’s a clear effort to try and do the right thing by way of allowing for broader citizenship participation in the political process.”

Last November, California voters rejected a redistricting reform plan that got overshadowed by a power struggle between Democrats and Republicans. But this measure seems to have bi-partisan support, which increases its chances of passing this November.

Continue reading "Redistricting reform gains new life" »

Posted by Jim Boren at 12:05 PM | Permalink