The LA Times has run two stories recently about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s political future. Today’s story quotes a professor from my wife’s alma mater:
“His political capital is a lot like the California housing market. It has taken a hit lately,” said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. “Politically he still has […]

I’ve mentioned that I believe David Zahniser is as good as it gets when it comes to political reporting in Los Angeles. Kevin Roderick blogs in LA Observed about Zahniser’s move from a weekly to the LA Times:
Now this should get interesting. LA Weekly political reporter David Zahniser, the hottest property on the City Hall […]

At midnight last night, Mayor Adrian Fenty took over the public schools of Washington DC. David Nakamura of the Washington Post reports on Fenty’s choice for superintendent:
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has chosen to fire D.C. School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey and replace him with the founder of a New York-based teacher-training organization, a dramatic step […]

David Nakamura of the Washington Post reports on incoming D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty. Atop his agenda? Taking over the failing D.C. school district. Like Antonio Villaraigosa, he does not intend to put his plan to a popular vote. The chairman of the D.C. Council, Vincent Gray, is quoted on why this might not be such […]

I wasn’t even 10 years old when Tom Bradley was elected Mayor of Los Angeles in 1973. And my interest in politics at the time was purely national - I was obsessed with Watergate and I even used the reel-to-reel tape recorder I got for Christmas to record Richard Nixon’s resignation speech. By the time […]

I had never even heard of Culture Clash before my wife took her old high school counselor, George Flores, and me to the Mark Taper Forum yesterday to see a performance of “Water & Power.” So when George was saying after the play that their writing has matured so much because they no longer played […]

In his weekly Daily News column, veteran LA political reporter Rick Orlov makes a good point:
Both men [Antonio Villaraigosa and Gavin Newsom] also face a historical problem - no mayor of Los Angeles or San Francisco ever has been elected governor. Former Mayor Tom Bradley came the closest, but he lost out to then-Attorney General […]

Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee opines about how it looks from the top these days in the California legislature:

Jesse Unruh and his one-time protégé, Willie Brown, are widely regarded as the most influential speakers of the state Assembly.
Unruh made the speakership a center of political power second only to the governorship in the 1960s. […]

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom declares that his city “is going to be the first city in America to achieve universal health care access.” Meanwhile, in the LA Times: “After tough negotiations with powerful teachers unions, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa struck a compromise today that would give him significant sway over the troubled Los Angeles Unified […]

In the Capitol Weekly, my favorite Republican, Dan Schnur, bemoans the lack of an interesting, substantive adversary in 2006. Writing in his inimitable style, Dan shows why he’s already looking forward to 2010:
Newsom ran for mayor on a platform of addressing San Francisco’s homeless crisis, which has turned into his signature accomplishment to date. Taking […]