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Before Don Rocha became a San Jose councilman, the District 9 rep did a little modeling on the side. We assumed those days were done. We were wrong.
Read More 6San Jose Inside (https://www.sanjoseinside.com)
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.
Read More 1Voters love term limits for politicians, but they shouldn’t. The quaint notion that public service should be held only for utilitarian purposes for a short period of time, and that these limits create better government, is misguided and fundamentally flawed. The proof can be seen locally in the current mire that represents our public policy.
Read More 2Nora 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.
Read More 8A 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.
Read More 2Paul Fong may be chair of the state Elections and Redistricting Committee, but that didn’t do the state assemblymember any good over the summer. A citizen commission for the first time in 10 years redrew district lines, and Fong lost 75 percent of his real estate—as well as the leverage of incumbency. Fong’s district, which goes from being called the 22nd to the 28th starting next year, will no longer include Sunnyvale, Mountain View or Santa Clara, which were supplanted by the golden ghettos of Saratoga, Los Gatos, Campbell and south San Jose. All of this means Fong could face a tougher challenge than expected—and from a registered Republican no less.
Read More 1By 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.
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