A company owned by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch has contributed $1 million to Proposition 23, a November ballot initiative to suspend California's groundbreaking 2006 global-warming law.

Senate Bill 797, a proposal to ban BPA - bisphenol A - in baby bottles and sippy cups that was supported by labor and environmental groups but opposed by the American Chemistry Council and a coalition of business groups. The bill died by two votes in the Senate.

The LAO's nonpartisan analysis released last week revealed that Proposition 26 would nullify the "Gas Tax Swap" approved by the legislature in March, and eliminate about one billion dollars annually in anticipated revenues from the general fund for schools and other programs.

The driving force behind the initiative is the oil industry, which has contributed more than $2.3 million to getting it passed. The biggest single contributor is San Antonio-based Valero Energy ($1.05 million, according to the latest state campaign disclosures), with San Antonio-based Tesoro Corp. in second place with $525,000.

But there were immediate worries that the proposals do not go far enough to correct problems exposed this month by the newspaper probe, which documented a sharp increase in the percentage of sponsored bills, and the likelihood they will pass, since term limits took hold in the 1990s.

The legislators with the most sponsored bills collect the most contributions. Of the 14 legislators in the 2007-08 session who received $20,000 or more from private interest sponsors, 13 carried five or more private interest bills in that session.

Corporate taxes accounted for 15.4 percent of the general revenue collected by California in 1976. By 2014, after the breaks take hold, corporations would account for 9.4 percent of general tax collections, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office says.

The governor is asking the Legislature to take such draconian steps as eliminating CalWORKS, the state's principal family welfare program ...Meanwhile, corporate welfare programs such as tax breaks for some of our largest companies and "incentives" for our largest industries are to survive.

...California voters rejected Proposition 16, a statewide ballot initiative that PG&E spent $46 million to promote. Outraged at that use of ratepayer revenues, state Sen. Mark Leno...announced legislation that would prohibit PG&E from using ratepayer funds for future political campaigns.

PG&E and Mercury Insurance were in a contest to see which would stoop the lowest to buy a law through the ballot box. Voters saw through PG&E's $46 million spending spree on Prop 16 and Mercury Insurance's $16 million contribution to Prop 17.

Drug makers, physicians, hospitals, tobacco companies and a major HMO spent hundreds of millions dollars to influence government during the past decade. Their spending accounted for more than a fifth of the $1.33 billion spent during the period.

A staggering 87 percent of voters across the political spectrum believe moneyed donors have significantly more influence than constituents over members of Congress, according to a new poll.

Ballot arguments against Proposition 15, which would create a pilot project for public financing of campaigns, must be changed so they don't imply the measure will raise voters' taxes, a Sacramento judge ruled Monday.

Supporters of a measure that would create a pilot program of public financing for elections have sued foes who claim the plan would raise taxes and let politicians pay cronies with taxpayers' money.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took far more campaign money than any state politician in the nation from lenders that were involved in the subprime lending industry between 2004 and 2008, a review by the nonpartisan National Institute of Money and State Politics shows.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger collected tens of thousands of dollars for his political causes in September from donors interested in some of the 700 bills that were sitting on his desk, and invited other past and potential contributors to a series of meet-and-greet events to raise money.

Elimination of the corporation tax would disproportionately benefit out-of-state shareholders and the federal government. Corporations doing business in California put demands on California services.

Since 2001, Intuit has spent more than $1.7 million to lobby lawmakers. The company's lobbying firm, Lang, O'Malley, Hansen and Miller, is one of the most well-connected firms in the state, and has close ties to Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth.

California is in deep trouble because it has a dysfunctional system of government..."All legislative action on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote." It would change two words in the Constitution, turning "two-thirds" to "majority" in two places.

A split between Democratic activists and the political pros who run the party may be growing over how to approach the issue that has bedeviled the party for years: the two-thirds vote required to pass taxes and budgets in the Legislature.

The two-thirds rule is not used merely to protect taxpayers from politicians trying to reach deeper into their pockets. It's used by special interests - mainly big business - to game the system; a tool handy for legislative leverage, or extortion.

While their constituents coped with the worst recession in decades and the state suffered through another budget crisis, California's legislators and leaders ate about 8,000 free meals, pocketed about 2,000 free event tickets and accepted enough flowers to open their own shop, all courtesy of lobbyists.

Over the past decade, state spending on education is down, while spending on prisons is up. Despite California's maddening two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget or any tax increase, crafting a state budget is still ultimately about choices and values.

State officials who lead California's war on global warming often travel abroad on trips supported by the major greenhouse gas polluters they regulate...Industry lobbyists and executives routinely join them.

CFC's Interim Consumer Scorecard provides a snapshot of lawmakers' votes on several key consumer protection bills. The scorecard includes votes cast before the legislature adjourned for the summer recess.

Because of a quirk in California's Constitution, the minority Republicans have managed to push through a budget that makes the state sicker and dumber. Where is the Democrats' white knight?

Players in the California financial industry spent $4.4 million lobbying state lawmakers in the first quarter of this year, just $500,000 less than the $4.9 million they spent in the first quarter of 2007, before the nation's financial meltdown.

...a coalition of tax reform and labor groups has filed a proposed ballot initiative for 2010 that would eliminate an estimated $2.5 billion worth of corporate tax breaks that the governor and state lawmakers approved since last September.

California is in the midst of a fiscal meltdown in part because of the Legislature's inability to muster the necessary two-thirds vote to pass a budget. This raises the question in some circles: Why should it have to?

Whether political contributions influence the votes of elected officials, or simply ensure that candidates who support the agenda of well-funded special interests have an electoral advantage, the outcome is the same: The interests of average Americans are overlooked.

When California voters approved Proposition 34 in 2000, they thought they were limiting the influence of money in state politics. It hasn't worked out that way. Candidates have raised more than $1 billion, according to a new study by the Fair Political Practices Commission.

AT&T is a member of a nonprofit group that paid to send two members of the California Public Utilities Commission - which regulates the phone industry - and chairs of utilities committees in the state Senate and Assembly, on an educational trip to Japan.

After the most expensive campaign cycle in U.S. history, a bipartisan group of lawmakers will introduce legislation this week to create an ambitious voluntary public campaign financing system that would ban contributions from lobbyists and place strict limits on other sources of campaign cash.

Some California lawmakers haven't let the state's financial calamity keep them from enjoying the good life; they've been using campaign cash for first-class travel abroad, expensive dinners, salon makeovers and visits to luxurious spas.

The report accuses members of the Minerals Management Service of accepting thousands of dollars in industry gifts, including meals, drinks and ski trips.

"Clean Money, Fair Elections" public financing of campaigns is now only two steps from the Governor's desk after AB 583, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act...was voted out of the Senate Appropriations Committee...

The governor's continued reliance on the ballot box means a constant need for campaign cash, and watchdog groups say that leaves him vulnerable to influence by special interests.

Sempra Energy gave $50,000 to one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's pet causes last month, just days after the governor complained publicly about activists impeding the Sunrise Powerlink proposed by San Diego Gas & Electric Co.

The California Senate offers special interests that give money to its charity the opportunity to travel with state lawmakers to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, Tokyo and other foreign locales.