Ah, the perennially despised lobbyist: always a convenient whipping boy, and just vague enough of a term not to incite specific rancor. For many years, politicians have blamed the nameless, faceless “lobbyists” for corruption and stagnancy.

Amazingly, three of California’s major gubernatorial candidates agree on one thing – we need more charter schools. 

John Gardner- who shocked the nation this March when he was arrested for the rape and murder of 17 year old Chelsea King- pleaded guilty Friday for the murders of Chelsea King and Amber Dubois.

Chelsea was a "Straight A" high school student and avid jogger. While out running near her home in San Diego in late February of this year, she was assaulted by Gardner, who forced her to go with him to a remote area near Lake Hodges. There he raped and strangled her.

Failure to report leaving foreign objects in patients or operating on the wrong person or body part, among other preventable medical errors in hospitals, cost the lives of approximately 10,000 Californians each year. 

In 2006, however, with the intent to improve care through increased hospital scrutiny, hospitals became subject to fines of a $100 per day for failing to report these and similar incidents.

Assembly member Bill Emmerson is looking to move from the 63rd to the 37th district. Riverside, which is shaping up to be a political laboratory this year, has a number of qualified candidates for an open California State Senate seat. We recently profiled former Assembly representative Russ Bogh, who is campaigning to become the area’s next Senate member.

Now, meet Bogh’s fellow Republican competitor, Bill Emmerson.

Illegal drug traffickers and alien smugglers from Mexico are never running out of innovative ways to accomplish their goals.  Concerning illegal operations taking place across the border, these individuals are always looking to stay one step ahead of immigration enforcement officials in executing their logistics. In a Washington Examiner report, drug traffickers are now utilizing a new type of deception in their operations, with a cunning twist.

The most heated debate in Sacramento during the past two years hasn’t been budget cuts depriving poor children of health care or awarding billion-dollar tax breaks to corporations.  It hasn’t even been California’s massive multi-billion dollar budget shortfalls.

Generating far more public outcry is the mandatory spaying and neutering of cats and dogs.

A new bill in the California Assembly would mandate that electricity utilities store 2.25% of peak demand load by 2014 and 5% by 2020.