Nora Campos took a considerable step up in stature Wednesday when State Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) unveiled his list of new appointments for leadership and committee chair positions. Campos (D-San Jose), who just completed her freshman term in the Assembly after serving two terms on the San Jose City Council, was appointed speaker pro tempore.

There’s a lot of jockeying going on over who will succeed local trade union boss Neil Struthers, but reports of his departure to Sacramento may be premature. In October, the state Building and Construction Trades Council will meet in Santa Monica and vote in a successor to its chief of 20 years, Robert Balgenorth. The two presumed candidates for the position: Struthers, who’s married to Assemblymember Nora Campos, and Robbie Hunter of the Los Angeles/Orange Counties chapter.

San Jose Stage Company rolls out the red carpet Monday for the 19th annual Monday Night Live! fundraiser. The question is: Who will steal the show this year? A sketch comedy event in which local celebrities, politicians and business people satirize the issues Silicon Valley is facing, as well as themselves, MNL!-Nineteen will be guest hosted by Councilmember and style guru Nancy Pyle, of District 10.

A lot of people in charge will say—whether they believe it or not—that they are only as good as their staff. It’s difficult to tell for State Assemblymember Nora Campos (D-San Jose), because almost all of her staff has been replaced. In fact, no elected official in the entire state Legislature has experienced a higher turnover of staff since the beginning of 2011 than Campos.

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By the looks of a flyer that was circulating in the state’s capitol this week, the D7 Crew ain’t nothing to mess with. In reality, though, the D7 Crew is a group of freshmen Democrat and Latino State Assembly members whose end-of-session party invitation rose “Capitol eyebrows,” according to a headline in the Sacramento Bee’s political blog, Capitol Alert. The group of Assembly members includes San Jose’s Nora Campos.

A bill authored by Nora Campos, a former San Jose city councilmember who is now in her first term in the State Assembly, would give unions far more power in their dealings with top city and county officials. It would even allow them to determine elected officials pay in some cities.

The gloves have officially come off in labor negotiations between the city and public employee unions, and whispers of potential strikes are being heard in certain City Hall corners. On Tuesday, the City Council imposed 10 percent cuts in total compensation for four unions by an 8-3 vote. The cuts in pay and benefits will affect more than half of the city of San Jose’s employees.

San Jose City Councilmember Pete Constant is the closest thing that this city has to a Tea Party Republican in local politics. Or at least he was. In a surprising announcement late last night, Constant said that he is abandoning the Republican Party and registering as a Democrat.

A visit to the website fordandbonilla.com is not as entertaining as it once was. For a few weeks this summer, visitors to the site were redirected to a cell-phone video capturing a heated exchange between San Jose political consultant Ryan Ford and council candidate Aaron Resendez, who was then running against Xavier Campos, the brother of Ford’s then-boss, Nora Campos. (Whew!)

The vid was blurry and the sound was bad, and it would have made no sense to any potential client shopping for services from Ford and his partner, Rolando Bonilla. But local insiders got a kick out of it—that was the point. The redirect was a prank pulled by another political consultant, Jay Rosenthal, who had registered the URL when he found out Ford and Bonilla were launching their enterprise.

While Xavier Campos seemed to recover from his scandal-induced loss of the ability to speak this week, all but announcing victory in his tight race Magdalena Carrasco on Tuesday, the Carrasco camp is claiming voter fraud in the Eastside San Jose City Council race. Kevin de León, the LA state assembly member (and Carrasco’s ex), says he’s been hearing from eyewitnesses who claim to have spotted some shenanigans by members of the South Bay Labor Council (SBLC) in District 5.

Last week, Nora Campos took City Council candidate Magdalena Carrasco to task for accepting campaign money from a controversial L.A. lawyer named Francisco Leal. Campos’ brother, Xavier Campos, is facing off against Carrasco for Nora’s soon-to-be-vacant District 5 seat, and the outgoing East Side councilwoman publicly questioned Carrasco’s ethics. She also wondered aloud whether the $250 Leal contribution is evidence that Carrasco is selling her district out to Southern California interests.

A $250 campaign contribution from a Los Angeles lawyer to San Jose City Council candidate Magdalena Carrasco is drawing fire from District 5 Councilmember Nora Campos. Campos, whose brother Xavier Campos is running against Carrasco to represent San Jose’s East Side, suggests the money is evidence that Carrasco is somehow in cahoots with politicians from L.A.

Anybody who has met Aaron Resendez can attest to his aura of sincerity and old-school charm. A longtime community leader who has dedicated his life to the East Side, this is a guy who, during his unsuccessful run for a District 5 council seat in June, visited the ill father of competitor Magdalena Carrasco in the hospital, just to say ‘hi’ and offer support. What a decent dude. That may be why Resendez is so worked up about that public spat he had with Ryan Ford out in front of San Jose City Hall back in May.

By the end of Monday Night Live—the yearly fundraiser for the San Jose Stage Company featuring local politicos in self-effacing skits—it seemed that a case of cold feet may have sabotaged the show. “A lot of people dropped out,” actress/writer Lisa Recker told the audience, channeling a much angrier Tina Fey and turning the once-popular “Weeknight Update” routine into an interminably long, rambling trainwreck. “It kind of messed us up.”

Thirty minutes before the San Jose City Council went into closed session to decide whether to impose a 10 percent pay cut on public employees, Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio addressed the large group of union members and other citizens gathered for the meeting.

“If you’re angry, it’s ok to be angry,” Oliverio said, “because the system is all screwed up.”

Last Tuesday, the City Council decided to delay its vote on the 10 percent wage cut for city employees, after five unions provided a counter-offer that they claimed would be the equivalent of the proposed cut.

However, after studying the offer, City Manager Debra Figone and City Attorney Richard Doyle determined that it was unacceptable. Figone recommended the city impose the cuts and implement the Mayor’s budget proposal.

The motion passed on an 8 to 3 vote, with council members Pyle, Kalra and Campos opposing. The Council deferred action on wage and benefit concessions with the five labor unions until the Council meeting of Tuesday, June 22.