Bloomberg hires for Daily News reporter for Capitol beat

James Nash, who worked for the LA Daily News before heading to the Columbus Dispatch to cover the Ohio statehouse, will be the Capitol reporter in Sacramento for Bloomberg News. Nash has also done stints at the LA Business Journal and the Press-Enterprise in Riverside.

Another Times reporter departs

Los Angeles Times political reporter Janet Hook has left the Los Angeles Times to work for the Wall Street Journal, where she'll cover Congress (Talking Biz News via LA Observed). She's the third reporter to leave in recent days. Former Times Sacramento reporter Michael Rothfeld also landed at the WSJ as well. He's covering legal issues for the paper's Law Blog. Jim Tankersley, who covered energy and environmental issues, went to the National Journal to cover economics.

City of Bell and home rule

Sacramento wants to be the solution to the city of Bell's homegrown problems, and has proposed a bill to penalize, through a heavy state-income tax, city council members who take excessive salaries. Whether the legislation would have force in charter cities (cities formed by local referendum rather than state rules) remains unclear. The more interesting parts of the legislation are a requirement that cities vote in open session on staff contracts and stop issuing bonds if council members are earning too much money.

Meantime, the LA Times has a story laying out the evidence that Bell Councilman Luis Artiga lives in Chino, where he owns a home - a home for which he's received a homeowners' tax exemption. Council members have to live in the city they're elected to represent.

Capitol Weekly, LA Times team up

Sacramento political coverage is increasingly dependent on blogs to push stories, everything from the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert to Rough & Tumble. With that in mind, the Los Angeles Times has joined forces with the Sacramento-based Capitol Weekly to produce a blog about California politics in the run-up to the November elections.

The blog is called, coincidentally enough, "California Politics," and the contents can be found here or here. The primary writer for the blog is Capitol Weekly editor Anthony York, but other reporters are contributing, including Shane Goldmacher, who was a driving force behind the success of the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert before he got hired away by the Times.

More MediaNews departures

Sacramento lawmakers will soon have one fewer pair of eyes watching their shenanigans. San Jose Mercury News reporter Edwin Garcia is leaving May 1 to take a PR job at Kaiser Permanente. "It's going to be a wild ride for those who remain in the industry," Garcia told Shane Goldmacher at Capitol Alert.

I'm told Michael Moreno, the cool ad guy with the candy jar, has been laid off as part of the continuing cutbacks in LANG.

More Times departures*,**

Kevin Roderick at LA Observed has updated his list of layoffs at the Times. He notes that reporter Jordan Rau is leaving the Sacramento bureau, although it's not clear if he's been laid off or is simply moving out of Sacramento.

*Update: More names from LAO.

**Update II: Even more names from LAO. The latest list includes former Pentagon reporter Peter Spiegel, who was supposed to be become a Beijing correspondent (and is now headed to the Wall Street Journal), and copy editor Tim Lynch, who, as I reported last week, is heading to Cal Poly Pomona.

Four in the morning

Gearing up for the Cold War in the 21st century ... Losing our religion ... Stuck in Lodi again ... Song of the Laid-Off Copy Editor's Lament

Calling all cars, be on the lookout for easy money

The California Legislature has tacked a few new fees onto the cost of a traffic ticket to pay for a variety of special projects. The San Francisco Chronicle breaks down what the $490 fine to run a red light pays for.

The Legislature also raised the price of a fix-it ticket on Jan. 1 to pay for courthouse construction.

A researcher at St. Louis Federal Reserve recently did a study showing how governments turn to traffic tickets as a way to boost revenues in hard times.

(h/t LA Observed)

Midnight moves

Republicans in Sacramento have little in the way of power, and so they're lashing out like cornered animals during these tense budget negotiations.

The Los Angeles Times reports that shortly after midnight this morning, Senate Republicans tossed out leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto and chose anti-taxman Dennis Hollingsworth of Murrieta to lead the caucus. It's too early to tell whether this dooms the messy budget proposal to close a $42 billion deficit - or even helps it.

The Senate had essentially locked itself in chambers yesterday to get the budget passes, which led to this little tidbit:

The frenetic day had begun with legislators carting sleeping bags, pillows and suitcases to work. Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello) brought a bottle of cologne.