Jerry Brown

The state and federal governments have been in collusion with Big Oil in California for decades - and people concerned about the future of fish, wildlife and the oceans are fed up with the fact that Southern California's oceans were fracked at least 203 times over the past 20 years.

Child refugees from South America have become a hot-button issue. And while many border-abutting states like Texas are taking a hard line, putting up fences and calling in the big guns, California is actually trying to help.

While the odds have been better for Democratic legislation under Gov. Brown than the previous administration, some Democratic legislators have been a little frustrated with Gov. Brown's vetoes of major legislation. With that being said, the two year session that ended last year ended up with the Governor vetoing about 13 percent of the 1,866 bills that reached his desk.

The key to the Senate Democrats' plans to get real reform in California's corrections system was a three year delay on the court ordered return to 137.5 percent of prison capacity. Gov. Brown has now gone ahead and asked the court for the delay. If it's rejected, the administration would spend $315 million this fiscal year to house the inmates in private prisons and county jails instead of turning them loose.

A bill passed the California legislature that would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for and receive drivers' licenses. This is part of the effort local and state officials are making toward immigration reform. The same reform has stagnated at the federal level.

Once there was a real split in the environmental community over fracking legislation. The National Resources Defense Council, CLCV and a number of other organizations were supporting Sen. Fran Pavley's SB 4 to regulate the process. Others were calling for a complete moratorium to ensure safety while sufficient data was gathered.
It seems that split ended when the oil and gas friendly amendments made it into the bill in the Assembly.

With increased federal pressure, time is running out on much-needed funding and planned prison transfers in California. Though State Senator Darrell Steinberg has compromised, the plan appears to be very similar to Gov. Brown's original plan.

In the midst of California's continued budget woes, once again it's the mentally ill and financially troubled citizens who are getting lost in the bureaucratic shuffle.

The panel hearing the cases Wednesday consists of Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1985, Judge Susan Graber, a 1998 appointee of Bill Clinton's, and Judge Morgan Christen, a 2012 appointee of President Barack Obama. The judges do not have a deadline for issuing a decision.

Something smells when an agency purposefully cripples its own enforcement abilities. One good example is the Department of Toxic Substances Control. The DTSC exists to protect communities like Richmond from toxic harm. And for years, it's done a very poor job of it.