As Loretta Sanchez trails Kamala Harris in the U.S. Senate race, she turns to the GOP party for support.
JOHN WILDERMUTH with The Chronicle: "Politics has come full circle for Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez."
"Twenty years ago, the Orange County resident began her political career with a shocking win over Rep. Bob Dornan, an ultraconservative Republican. But now she’s depending on GOP voters to carry her to an upset victory in November’s U.S. Senate race."
"Sanchez, who in the June primary finished a distant second behind another Democrat, state Attorney General Kamala Harris, doesn’t have much of a choice."
READ MORE related to GOP/Senate Race: Schwarzenegger out to pump up GOP' candidates' coffers -- JOHN WILDERMUTH, HEATHER KNIGHT and CAROLYN LOCCHEAD with The Chronicle; Republicans in California's delegation largely sitting out the Senate racem but sut some prefer Sanchez -- SARAH D. WIRE with L.A. Times
Dems and Reeps have forged an unlikely environmental alliance in the Senate: California Democrat Barbara Boxer and Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe.
MATTHEW DALY with AP: "The oddest of Senate odd couples — California Democrat Barbara Boxer and Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe — have accomplished something highly unusual in this bitter election year: significant, bipartisan legislation on the environment that has become law."
"Boxer, a staunch liberal, calls climate change the "greatest challenge to hit the planet," battles against offshore drilling, rails about the dangers of nuclear power and has pushed to restrict greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming."
"Inhofe proudly calls himself an unabashed conservative who dismisses global warming as a hoax and famously tossed a snowball on the Senate floor to prove his point. "It's very, very cold out," he said last February as he lobbed the ball toward the Senate president, an incident that makes Boxer cringe."
READ MORE related to Environment: Clinton plans while Trump scoffs on water, environment -- CAROLYN LOCCHEAD with The Chronicle
When job security was on lawmaker's minds in the 90s, they erroneously calculated the future cost to taxpayers -- and now that cost is higher than ever.
JACK DOLAN with L.A. Times: "With the stroke of a pen, California Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation that gave prison guards, park rangers, Cal State professors and other state employees the kind of retirement security normally reserved for the wealthy."
"More than 200,000 civil servants became eligible to retire at 55 — and in many cases collect more than half their highest salary for life. California Highway Patrol officers could retire at 50 and receive as much as 90% of their peak pay for as long as they lived."
"Proponents sold the measure in 1999 with the promise that it would impose no new costs on California taxpayers. The state employees’ pension fund, they said, would grow fast enough to pay the bill in full."
A violent showdown at Fresno County Jail recently that left two officers critically wounded has brought a spotlight upon issues involving deportation within the criminal justice system.
MAREK WARZAWSKI with Fresno Bee: "When violent inmates at Fresno County Jail won’t stop yelling and screaming in their cells, they’re often paid a visit by a certain correctional officer."
"This particular CO is 6-feet-2 and 280 pounds worth of tough- and mean-looking former Fresno State Bulldogs football player. Except when Toamalama Scanlan opens his mouth, what comes out aren’t angry threats."
"What comes out are soothing, calming Samoan chants."
A struggling EV/hybrid vehicle market could make California's goal of 1.5 million ev-friendly vehicles on the road by 2025 all but impossible.
MARK GLOVER with Sac Bee: "Are hybrid and electric vehicles losing their juice in California, far and away the nation’s leading market for those auto segments?"
"On the surface, the answer is yes. Up the road, experts believe that electric vehicles in particular are due to take off."
“Sales of alternative-powered vehicles have not kept pace with the rest of the new vehicle market,” the Sacramento-based California New Car Dealers Association noted in its recently released report on statewide new motor vehicle registrations recorded in the first half of 2016."
READ MORE related to Economy: The 'tortuous and sordid history' of a state incentive for a powerful energy upstart -- MELANIE MASON with L.A. Times
