California: Karen Bass

This is from a Saturday Q&A; with the Assembly speaker in the L.A. Times: Q: How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature's work? A: The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now...

I hear from a well-positioned source that the CTA, which is furious over Karen Bass' willingness to contemplate big reductions in education spending, is pushing a challenge to her as speaker. The assemblyman who's allegedly assisting in the coup attempt...

As everyone licked their wounds, and returned to the state Wednesday, a new Big 5 began talking about the same old problem. Well, with one little twist ... Capitol Weekly reports, "As if the state budget crisis needed to be any more complicated, now the federal government has been dragged into the middle of the state’s ongoing fiscal battles. If you thought the last budget standoff was rough, just wait and see what happens now that the state’s $20 billion budget problem has gone three-dimensional."

"In essence, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger needs permission from the federal government to cut billions of dollars from the state budget. The governor outlined his proposals in a quickly-assembled budget revision last week, complete with deep cuts to education and health and human services.

The stories this morning about 120-plus Assembly staffers getting pay raises all include the claim that overall spending on the Assembly is actually down. This is from the Sac Bee: Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said her legislative house has reduced...