Today's Fresh Meat

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

"The Big Four," party leaders from both houses of the Legislature, are closer than ever to breaking the budget impasse,the San Jose Mercury News reports. In fact, the leaders made so muchprogress yesterday that Speaker Fabian Nunez and his counterpart DonPerata canceled their planned "test votes" on the floor late afternoon.Nunez had heaps of praise for Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines (left),telling the California Progress Report: "He's a great Republican, a good human being and a wonderful human being."

Capitol Weekly's Legislative Scorecard contains nuggets of information about this year's Assembly members and Senators.Perhaps most surprising (or not surprising, depending on yourperspective) was how often Democratic moderates like Cathleen Galgianiand Nicole Parra vote with the Republicans on "controversial" bills.The opposites ends went as expected: Lloyd "nanny state" Levine with aperfect 100 liberal score and Mimi "I vote no on everything" Walterswith a 0. Interestingly, Senator Tom McClintock scored in the middledue to his somewhat maverick libertarian views. Check out the rankings yourself.

Following the overwhelming passage of Proposition 83 last year,California corrections officials are faced with relocating thousands ofsex offenders away from schools and parks, and months later, many have not made the move, according to the Sacramento Bee. Another challenge is transitioning toGlobal Positions Systems monitoring, which was mandated by the law.

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