The Roundup

In the end, all of it was for naught. The Legislature did not reach a water deal, but Gov. Schwarzenegger felt enough progress had been made to avoid a massacre of the 700 bills on his desk.

“Over the past few days we have made enough progress in our negotiations that I am calling a special session on water," the governor said in a statement Sunday. "While we still have a few remaining issues to work out, I commend the legislative leaders for their focus and commitment to solving this crisis and I will weigh all the bills on their merits.”

And in a world where bills are weighed on their merits, some live and some die.

The LAT reports, "As negotiations concluded late Sunday, the governor had signed into law 230 bills and vetoed 221.

"Those he signed included a measure intended to combat human trafficking and an anti-drunk-driving bill requiring DUI offenders in some counties to install devices in their vehicles that test blood-alcohol content before the vehicles can be started. Those he rejected included bids to force any extension of the 710 Freeway to be done underground, ban pay hikes for top administrators at public universities in bad budget years and tighten oversight on fertility clinics."

Jim SAnders provides a nice breakdown of some of the highlights from the naughty and nice lists. 

Meanwhile, some lawmakers are already looking ahead to next year. The Chronicle's Nanette Asimov reports, "

A state lawmaker says he's found a way to give California's cash-strapped colleges and universities nearly a billion extra dollars a year - but those schools, at least for now, are saying "no thanks."

Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, a Fremont Democrat running for state attorney general, is pushing for an oil severance tax to benefit higher education. Companies that extract oil from California would pay 9.9 percent of its gross value into a California Higher Education Fund, intended to also help extract public colleges and universities from their deep financial hole.

"Even Sarah Palin said this was a good idea in Alaska," Torrico said, referring to the former Republican governor who in 2007 signed into Alaska law an oil tax that steered $6 billion into state coffers last year. In California, he said, "we have state property we're giving away for free."

And George Skelton ponders a world in which Tom Campbell had money.

 
"Campbell is the Republican who scares us the most," says Bill Cavala, a former Democratic operative for the state Assembly who's now managing Garamendi's campaign. "Not in a thousand years would we breathe life into such a dangerous candidate." 

 
"Call him a fiscal conservative and social moderate -- not far from the California mainstream. Nobody's going to agree with all his views, but he should get points for not playing dodge ball.

What if that's what voters want next year? Naw. Even if they did, he'd still need money to be noticed."

Howard Mintz reports Proposition 8 is heading back to court.

"

The legal showdown over California's ban on same-sex marriage heats up again this week as a federal judge considers an attempt to short-circuit the challenge to Proposition 8, the voter-approved law putting a halt to same-sex weddings in the state.

"On Wednesday, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker will consider a motion from Prop. 8 backers that would scrap plans for a January trial and put a quick end to the effort to overturn the anti-gay marriage law. Prop. 8's defenders say U.S. Supreme Court precedent and the historical underpinnings of the definition of marriage negate the need for a trial, an argument strongly rejected by same-sex marriage advocates who vow to present strong factual evidence that Prop. 8 denies gay couples federal equal protection rights."

And finally, we take a look at this month's Playboy cover girl . "Marge Simpson -- the blue beehived matriarch of America's most loved dysfunctional family - is Playboy Magazine's November cover, the magazine said on Friday.

"Simpson, tastefully concealing her assets behind a signature Playboy Bunny chair, is the first cartoon character ever to front the glossy adult magazine, joining the ranks of sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe and Cindy Crawford.

"Playboy said the cover and a three-page picture spread inside was a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the "The Simpsons" and part of a plan to appeal to a younger generation of readers."