Tuesday was a special election day to fill legislative vacancies. In the San Diego-area 40th Senate District, Assemblyman Ben Hueso captured a victory to replace Juan Vargas, who went to Congress. In the Inland Empire's 32nd Senate District primary election, Assemblywoman Norma Torres and Ontario Mayor Paul Leon will square off in the general.
First, on Hueso, from the LAT's Patrick McGreevy: "With all precincts reporting, Hueso garnered 52% of the vote, according to the unofficial tally Tuesday night, which is enough to avoid a May runoff against one of the other three candidates in the race."
"A victory restores a supermajority that the Democrats gained in the state Senate after the November election but briefly lost because of resignations."
"The other Democrat in the contest was nurse/author Anna Nevenic, from Cathedral City. The Republican candidates were businessman Hector Raul Gastelum and professor/businesswoman Xanthi Gionis."
And on the 32nd District, from the Press-Enterprise's Jim Miller: "Torres, D-Pomona, and Leon, a Republican, led all evening in an election marked by anemic voter turnout. Torres, the top finisher with 43.6 percent of the vote in unofficial results, was short of the majority threshold needed to win the seat outright."
"We earned it. We worked very hard for it," Torres said of Tuesday's results. "We wanted to make sure that if we went to a runoff, we got the opponent we wanted."
"Leon, who received 26.4 percent of the vote, said he already has started planning his runoff campaign. He said he is undaunted by the makeup of the district, where Democrats have a 24.5 percentage-point registration edge and received 67 percent of the vote Tuesday."
Bay Area rentals, always among the highest in the country, now are skyrocketing, driven largely by the classic blend of supply and demand.
From the Oakland Tribune's Doug Oakley: ""It's a situation going on all around the bay as former homeowners pummeled by the foreclosure crisis and new hires in the technology industry compete for a limited supply of rentals."
"The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment was $1,850 a month in the last quarter of 2012, an 8.8 percent increase over the year before, according to the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board. A one-bedroom now goes for about $1,325 a month, up 6 percent, the board said."
"It's pretty amazing," said rent board Deputy Director Stephen Barton. "The rents in new buildings downtown are crossing $3,000 a month for a two-bedroom because they are in new prime condition and in easy walking distance of the UC Berkeley campus and BART."
Lawmakers are required to live in the district they represent -- a legal rule that has bedeviled some elected officials in recent years -- and the latest one to become embroiled in a flap over the residency rule is Sacramento-area Assemblyman Richard Pan, according to an investigation by the Sacramento Bee.
From the Bee's Jim Sanders: "Assemblyman Richard Pan is required to live in the district he represents, but he apparently is spending little time in the residence he purchased to comply with the law, a Bee investigation shows."
"When redistricting prompted Pan to establish residence away from his Natomas home, he began taking more than $28,000 in annual expense payments last year and bought a Pocket-area condominium in the newly drawn 9th Assembly District."
"He registered to vote there and swore under penalty of perjury that he was living there. But the Sacramento Democrat never moved his wife and two young sons from Natomas."
Organized labor and environmentalists joined forces to fight changes to the Californai Environmental Quality Act, the 43-year-old law that serves as the state's principal environmental protection law.
From the LAT's Michael J. Mishak: "Representatives from unions and environmental organizations -- backed by dozens of supporters -- described the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, as an "environmental bill of rights" that allows the public to weigh in on proposed development in their communities."
"Signed into law by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970, the measure requires developers to go through a lengthy public process detailing their projects' potential environmental effects and how those would be mitigated."
"Business groups have long complained that activists, labor unions -- even corporate competitors -- abuse the law by filing frivolous lawsuits to delay and kill development. The Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce are leading an effort to streamline environmental reviews and limit legal challenges."
