With 86 percent of votes tallied, Tim Orozco holds a clear lead in the special election for San Jose's District 4 City Council seat.

All candidates vying for San Jose’s District 4 council seat will have a chance to speak at a forum next Monday. Organizers originally planned to limit the panel to the top five fundraisers but opened it up to all active candidates after some pushback.

Vietnamese media exec Manh Nguyen held on to his fundraising lead in San Jose’s special election for the District 4 council seat. But Bob Dhillon, a retired realtor, has also tallied impressive numbers with just a week until absentee ballots can be cast.

The special election to succeed former San Jose Councilman Kansen Chu—and by extension his temporarily appointed fill-in Margie Matthews—takes greater shape next week, when candidates must file their first campaign disclosure forms for 2015. But what have they been doing in the meantime?

Ten names will grace the ballot for San Jose’s special election in April, but only nine plan to actively campaign for the District 4 City Council seat.

It's election day and with it comes a ballot packed with key decisions for Santa Clara County, though voter turnout is expected to be pretty low.

An Asian power couple, the nation’s first female African American nuclear scientist, a Latino policy wonk, a pot-club tolerant former police chief and a Republican are trying to pull off something that’s never been done in the South-East Bay’s 25th Assembly District: not be Bob Wieckowski.

Santa Clara County was once the nation's capital for electing women into office. But a look at our current political landscape shows successful female candidates have become scarcer.

The staff churn in Speaker pro Tem Nora Campos’ office is the talk of Sacramento, raising questions about the assemblymember’s ability to advocate for constituents who’ve been shortchanged by ineffective leadership.

Dave Cortese made a long-expected announcement Wednesday that he will run for mayor of San Jose in 2014. The District 3 county supervisor, who made an unsuccessful run in 2006 while serving as a San Jose councilmember, plans to file papers with the Registrar of Voters on Wednesday afternoon.

Cindy Chavez’s campaign manager, Ed McGovern, acknowledged Tuesday evening that his client has a found a way to circumvent state laws that prevent independent committees from coordinating with candidate campaigns.

To the delight of hungry volunteers throughout Silicon Valley, San Jose Councilman Kansen Chu is back on the campaign trail. Chu, known for generously feeding his election workers—who at times double as his council staff—hopes to fill the seat of State Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, who is running for a State Senate seat. One of Chu’s likely opponents is Teresa D. Cox, a trustee on the Ohlone Community College Board who previously worked as a White House community coordinator during the Bubba administration back in the ’90s.

Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) wants to turn an old insane asylum into a north San Jose high school serving up to 2,800 students. Other items going before the Rules and Open Government Committee on Wednesday include an update on banning pesky sidewalk bicyclers and support for state legislation that would free the city to spend housing revenue how it chooses.

When the calendar ticked over to 2013, a slew of bills authored last year by our local state senators and assembly members became actual law. Moving forward, those lawmakers have until late February to introduce bills, which means they’re in the middle of planning a legislative agenda for the coming year. We compiled a list of their just-enacted bills and called up those same representatives to ask them what they have planned for the upcoming year.