The success of Valley Vote's signature-collection drive it got 205, 000 people to sign up in support of a study of secession, 39% of San Fernando's registered voters has led to the creation of a fact-finding commission, largely financed by the California state assembly, whose speaker recognises the validity of valley feelings even if he personally does not favour secession.

ECONOMIST: Troubled cities 1

California's state assembly has just passed tough Kyoto-style targets.

ECONOMIST: Climate change

The proposed bill recently moved from the California state senate to the assembly, where the Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media encouraged both sides to negotiate a settlement.

BBC: The Dixie Chicks

According to California Assembly rules, state legislators must wait a year before attempting to reintroduce this legislation.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The California Senate bill and a similar bill in the state assembly are also taking the disclosure route.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

Three proposals are currently advancing in the state Assembly to prohibit hydraulic fracturing in California until various studies can be done to definitively establish that the six decade-old gas extraction technique is 100% safe.

FORBES: Anti-Hydraulic Fracturing Activists Focus Firepower on California

In California, one out of every four of the state's assembly members is Latino.

CNN: Rising minorities find political clout elusive

The California Shark Protection Act (AB 376), which passed the state Assembly in May, is expected to likewise pass through the state Senate this week making the possession, sale, or trade of shark fins in California illegal.

FORBES: California Goes Soup Nazi: No Shark Fin Soup for You!

He ran for the California assembly and scored an upset victory, and then successfully led the charge to overhaul that state's chaotically corrupt regulation of the liquor industry, to reform its inefficient, labyrinthine water system and to save San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts.

FORBES: Fact and Comment