"Secretary of State
Bruce McPherson has dropped efforts to sue his predecessor,
Kevin Shelley, for $3 million in federal funds that auditors claim were misspent or mismanaged."
"McPherson, who lost to Democrat
Debra Bowen in the Nov. 7 election, has decided not to hire private attorneys to sue on behalf of his agency in the final six weeks of his term."
"'At this point, it's up to (Bowen) to recover the money,' said
Nghia Nguyen Demovic, a spokeswoman for McPherson, a Santa Cruz Republican and former state legislator."
"Bowen has insisted that McPherson's push for a civil suit against Shelley, a Democrat, was a pre-election political stunt."
"'She's focused on moving the office forward, and implementing a number of policies and programs she laid out during the campaign, not carrying out the grandstanding proposal of her predecessor,' said
Evan Goldberg, Bowen's spokesman."
"Gov. Schwarzenegger's Cabinet secretary, former San Bernardino County lawmaker
Fred Aguiar,
will be leaving his post early next year," reports the P-E's Jim Miller.
"One of Schwarzenegger's first appointees following the 2003 recall election, Aguiar was promoted to Cabinet secretary last December in a staff shakeup. He previously had been state and consumer services secretary."
"As Cabinet secretary, Aguiar has been the main liaison between Schwarzenegger and the dozen members of his Cabinet. He is the highest-ranking former Inland official in the governor's inner circle.
"
Bob Dutton credited Aguiar with helping him craft the $19.9 billion transportation-bond legislation that voters approved this month, as well as helping secure the appointments of several Inland residents, such as UC Regent
Bruce D. Varner of Riverside."
Bob Dutton wrote the transportation bond?
Matthew Yi looks at the
training program for new members of the Assembly. "In this era of term limits, high turnover in the state Legislature has become the norm, and one resulting challenge has been quickly getting the new legislators up to speed on the ins and outs of how the state government operates."
"That's where the Robert M. Hertzberg Capitol Institute, a boot camp of sorts for new lawmakers, comes in. Its sole purpose is to provide training for legislators on wide-ranging topics such as ethics, putting a staff together, what button to push at their desks when they vote on a bill, and even a session for significant others to help them understand what their newly elected partners are getting themselves into for the next two years."
"The institute will continue to conduct classes through the first half of next year, but the highlight of the program is a week of sessions that started right after the Nov. 7 election."
"'We were celebrating our win and partying until 2 a.m. the day before, and we had to get there the next day for the training,' said
Jean Fuller, a Republican member-elect from Bakersfield. 'It was pretty overwhelming at first, but once you get past the vocabulary, then it got easier.'"
Hey, at least we now know -- Jean Fuller likes to party!
"Two parole officials
lied to lawmakers about their role in moving sex offenders from motel to motel in violation of California law, the state Office of the Inspector General has found," reports Brian Joseph in the Register.
"The findings, released Tuesday, confirm the suspicions of two Orange County legislators who investigated the shuffling of sex offenders when reports of it first surfaced in the Los Angeles area in February."
"The office, which provides independent oversight of the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, found two administrators falsely told lawmakers they didn't order the sex offenders moved."
"'(The report) cleared up issues I had all along that individuals were being untrue,' said Assemblyman
Rudy Bermudez, D-Norwalk, whose district covers part of Orange County. He and Assemblyman
Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, led the Legislature's inquiry into the sex offender shuffling."
The good news for
Lou Correa is that he won a hard-fought Senate race against Republican
Lynn Daucher. The bad news?
Look what he has to give up, according to the Register's Peggy Lowe: "Imagine a job where you earn about $200,000 a year – a package that includes $59,000 in benefits, a $600 monthly car allowance and all the free gas you can guzzle. You get a staff of at least six people, an annual operating budget of about $800,000, 12 paid holidays and a BlackBerry."
"This same job offers you two free parking spots in a covered, secure garage. You also get a semi-private elevator – used by just you and four other people – to whisk you up and drop you at the back door of your large, fifth-floor office."
"Oh, and you can take on a few other side jobs that will pay you stipends of several thousand more a year. And you don't have to pay Social Security taxes."
"Looking for that special something to give a Texas politician this holiday season? Don't fret: A
suitcase stuffed with $100 bills is perfectly fine," reports Miguel Bustillo in the Times.
"The Texas Ethics Commission affirmed this week that state officials could accept unlimited gifts of cash from donors without revealing how much they received. All public officials have to do is report a gift of currency and the source of the money."
Now that's what we call campaign finance reform.
"The legal interpretation shocked campaign finance watchdogs and some Texas officials, who argued that it was tantamount to legalizing bribery. Under Texas law, elected officials, board appointees and many other public officials are supposed to disclose and describe any gift worth more than $250."
"'This creates a loophole big enough to drive an armored car full of cash through,' said
Craig McDonald, director of the nonprofit group Texans for Public Justice. 'It makes a mockery of our ethics laws.'"
"Some ethics panelists conceded that there was a problem, but argued that it was the wording of the law that needed to be fixed. State legislators and Gov.
Rick Perry have said they will consider tightening the restrictions next year."
And it appears
Barney the Dinosaur has an enemies list. The annoying, purple jurrasic freak and his hordes of attorneys have
ganged up on the operators of a Barney parody site, according to the LAT's Dawn Chmielweski.
"Lyons Partnership sent four threatening letters to a New York musicologist and computer repair technician who
created a parody website that suggests Barney's affable public persona masks a secret double life. An image on the site depicts what the cute and cuddly Barney might look like offstage — with horns, sharp teeth, a pentagram and the devilish number 666 emblazoned on his chest."
"Lyons last week dropped its claims against Frankel after he fought back with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The technology advocacy group assisted Frankel in filing a lawsuit accusing Barney's creators of using its copyrights and trademarks to curb free speech."
"It's not much, but it's mine. They're acting like bullies. They're doing this to other people, I'm sure," Frankel said. "I just wanted to call them on it."
"Legal experts say the case is an example of a growing assault on fair use rights. Fair use is the legal doctrine that allows copyrighted work to be used as part of a parody — so long as it's used for noncommercial purposes, its use is limited to conjuring up the subject of the satire and it doesn't replace the market for the original."
May 100 Barney parody sites bloom!