York heads to the Los Angeles Times*, **

Capitol Weekly editor Anthony York will join the Los Angeles Times as a state government staff writer, according to Gorkana. York, who also edited the Daily Roundup in Sacramento, had been writing for the Times' "California Politics" blog under an agreement announced earlier this year. The announcement does not say what will happen to the Capitol Weekly or the Daily Roundup.

*Also from Gorkana: Peter Wallsten is leaving his job as national political correspondent for the Wall Street Journal to cover the White House for the Washington Post. Wallsten left the Los Angeles Times for the Journal in October 2009.

**Updated: Matthew Fleischer at fishbowlLA did the work I didn't and has learned that John Howard, managing editor at the Capitol Weekly, will take over as executive editor when York leaves. He expects to announce a few new hires, as well.

Political list makers

The Capitol Weekly newspapers in Sacramento has listed the bottom half of the top 100 most influential people in California politics. At number 90, Charles Munger of Berkshire Hathaway. Here's the entry:

Perhaps nobody is causing more heartache for Speaker Nancy Pelosi than Charles Munger. The Stanford scientist and son of the Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway has made it his mission to take drawing Congressional districts out of the hands of the Legislature. He has dedicated millions to qualifying a measure for the November ballot to do just that. Congressional Democrats, fearing their incumbency threatened, have responded in kind with millions of their own.

Munger is also an owner of the Los Angeles/San Francisco Daily Journal, the state's leading legal newspaper (and a former employer of mine).

L.A. developer and mayoral aspirant Rick Caruso makes the list at number 57.

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.

Four in the morning

1. Did the straight party-line vote for new Assembly Speaker John Perez reflect a bias against homosexuals? Capitol Weekly

2. Nondisclosure agreements for Los Angeles Times editors. LAO

3. Reuter's editor-in-chief says he spiked a story about a hedge fund manager that "could have run." Gawker

4. When hit counts trump ideology. LAT

They can't recall

Organizers of a recall attempt against Rep. Anthony Adams, R-Claremont, learned today that they failed to gather enough valid signatures to call an election. Adams was targeted because he supported a budget bill that included tax increases. Recall backers needed 35,825 valid signatures but collected only 24,579, according to the secretary of state.

From Capitol Weekly:

Backers of the recall effort, which reportedly raised more than $100,000, included Michael Schroeder, an Orange County attorney and former state Republican Party leader, and talk-show hosts John Kobylt and Ken Champou of the "John and Ken Show," a political chat radio program in Southern California. Other recall backers included the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

The failure to even get the signatures to put the recall on the ballot could give spine to some moderate Republicans who might want to compromise on budget issues next year, when the state Legislature will be faced with another massive budget deficit, but who in the past feared retribution from the right-wing of the party.

Noteworthy: New American Foundation fellow Joe Mathews predicted back in August that the recall attempt would fail.