Lawyers representing utility customers want to see the emails beteween the Brown administration and the Public Utilities Commission, and a judge says the PUC has to justify its decision to keep them from the public.
From the Chronicle's Jaxon Van Derbeken: "The state Public Utilities Commission must justify its refusal to release e-mails that could reveal a behind-the-scenes role for Gov. Jerry Brown in a multibillion-dollar deal with two utilities that shut down a Southern California nuclear power plant, a San Francisco judge ruled Monday."
"An attorney for the utilities’ customers says the e-mails could concern the shutdown deal that the commission approved in 2014 with the co-owners of the San Onofre nuclear power plant in San Diego County, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric Co. The deal assigned about 70 percent of the $4.7 billion bill to customers."
"The utilities commission says none of the e-mails between Brown’s office and the commission concerns the shutdown deal, and that none was sent by the governor personally."
Voters will decide in November whether to throw out the statewide ban on single-use plastic bags, but scores of local governments already have moved to ban them.
From Dorothy Mills-Gregg in Capitol Weekly: "California’s statewide law banning plastic bags may have been suspended pending the voters’ decision in the November referendum, but cities and counties are moving ahead with their own local bans."
"The local laws would be exempt from the proposed statewide repeal. In the referendum, a “no” vote means the ban will be thrown out, a “yes” vote means the law will be left in place..."
"Scores of cities, including Santa Barbara and San Francisco, and dozens of counties, including Los Angeles, have adopted bans. So far, a total of 146 local governments, up from 128 in 2014, have approved laws curbing plastic bags."
The data is clear: Millennials, Generation Xers and Latinos may dominate the voter rolls, but it's the older, partisan, white voters that actually decide elections in California.
From Capitol Weekly's Paul Mitchell: "California is in the midst of major generational and cultural changes. Nationally, we see the increased influence of Millennials on our culture and waning influence of the Greatest Generation and Silent Generation."
"We can also see these effects on our voter registration, but less so in our turnout and who actually participates in elections."
"As the graphs below show, our newer voters are heavily dominated by Millennials, Independents and Latinos, but our elections are still being decided by white partisan voters."
The Democratic duel in Silicon Valley between incumbent Congressman Mike Honda and second-time challenger Ro Khanna is turning into quite a slugfest, as the two contenders battle over endorsements.
From John Wildemuth in the Chronicle: "At stake is what can be a virtual lifetime congressional seat in a district so heavily Democratic that Honda and Khanna are favored to finish in the top two in the June primary, clearing the way for another Democrats-only general election in November."
"Khanna, who was on the losing end of the 52 to 48 percent voting result in 2014, is now working to keep Honda, an eight-term incumbent, from getting the party endorsement at next month’s state Democratic convention in San Jose."
"Khanna already has blocked Honda from getting the party’s automatic endorsement, forcing him to become one of three of the state’s 39 Democratic members of Congress to face a special pre-endorsement conference next weekend."
California's economy is strong and the budget has dough, but Wall Street -- like Gov. Brown -- says the state needs to be cautious.
From Capital Public Radio's Ben Bradford: "The ratings agency Standard and Poor’s has a caution for California lawmakers interested in raising spending."
"We think there’s a certain amount of risk out there that the state could go down a path that could undermine its current balanced budget position," says Gabe Petek, a credit analyst with the agency. "That could undermine its credit quality in the future and lead to a lower rating."
"Petek co-authored a report S&P released Monday."
And from our "Smart Robots" file comes word of the mechanical marvel who can solve a Rubik's cube in 1.019 seconds. That's even faster than a jackrabbit on a date.
"Two inventors have created a robot that's so good at solving the Rubik's Cube that it can do the job in just a hair longer than a second:
"The fastest human to do the job is Lucas Etter, a Kentucky teen who last year set the Guinness World Record by completing the puzzle in 4.904 seconds."
"That's pretty darned impressive, but as the video above shows, the robot created by software engineers Jay Flatland and Paul Rose solved it in just 1.019 seconds during its fastest run."
Stop the presses...
