California: Don Perata

Reporting from Sacramento -- Former state Senate leader Don Perata has requested a probe of whether FBI agents and federal prosecutors in Sacramento are acting improperly in trying to revive a corruption investigation that was dropped by another U.S. attorney's office, his lawyer said Wednesday.

In a letter to the inspector general for the U.S. Justice Department, George O'Connell, an attorney for Perata, accused Acting U.S. Atty. Lawrence G. Brown in Sacramento of "grossly unfair and highly questionable conduct" in taking up an investigation after the U.S. attorney in San Francisco recently declined to file charges after a lengthy investigation.

Perata had agreed to allow that investigation to be extended multiple times past legal deadlines for filing charges.

It’s not just the Assemblymembers and Senators that get caught in the term-limits shuffle. Increasingly, staff is on the move both inside and outside the Building. Former Leland Yee chief of staff Janelle Beland has taken over as Senate Democratic Caucus Director, replacing Suzanne Wierbinski, who held the job under pro tem Don Perata. Rabinsky has moved to the pro tem’s policy shop. Meanwhile, Perata’s policy hatchet man Michael Miiller is working at the Banking, Finance and Insurance Committee. And longtime Senate Judiciary Committee consultant Gene Wong has also been swallowed into the pro tem vortex. Wong is now chief counsel to the pro tem. Filling his seat at Judish is Saskia Kim, former deputy director of the Senate Office of Research.

SACRAMENTO - The state Fair Political Practices Commission postponed a decision Thursday that would make it more difficult for politicians to use generic ballot measure committees as less-regulated slush funds for political fundraising.

Bowing to concerns from both concerned election law attorneys and some commissioners, the FPPC voted unanimously to delay adoption of the regulation until its details could be clarified, which would happen before the commission's next meeting in early January.

A state senator headed out of office has been added to the state Integrated Waste Management Board, but not the one many people expected.

Termed-out Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-San Diego) was named to the board Tuesday afternoon by outgoing Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland).

Many had believed Perata would name Sen. Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), who lost her re-election bid in the primary earlier this year, to the board.