Citing the pro-democracy unrest in Egypt and Tunisia, Gov. Jerry Brown called it “unconscionable” that GOP legislators are vowing to block his attempt to ask voters to extend tax hikes to balance the budget.  

“When democratic ideals and calls for the right to vote are stirring the imagination of young people in Egypt and Tunisia and other parts of the world, we in California can’t say now is the time to block a vote of the people,” Brown said in his first State of the State address in nearly 30 years.

He said the budget has tough choices but that the people “have a right to vote” on the package.

He challenged both parties to take the difficult votes necessary to balance the budget.

“If you are a Democrat who doesn’t want to make budget reductions in programs you fought for and deeply believe in, I understand that,” he said. “If you are a Republican who has taken a stand against taxes, I understand where you are coming from. But this time things are different. In fact, the people are telling us -- in their own way -- they sense something is profoundly wrong. They see that their leaders are divided when they should be decisive and acting with clear purpose.”

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento

Gov. Jerry Brown will deliver his State of the State address Monday evening, and the speech presents a fresh opportunity for the governor to reinvigorate his effort to build the bipartisan coalition needed to pass his controversial budget plan.

To tackle California’s $25.4-billion deficit, Brown, a Democrat, has proposed an unpopular blend of taxes and deep spending cutbacks. His evening address Monday, before a joint session of the Legislature, comes after a week in which protesters and city officials took to committee rooms and the Capitol steps to condemn many elements of his package.

The speech will mark Brown’s first major address since his inaugural nearly a month ago. Brown has thus far detailed an agenda consisting of little other than balancing the state’s books. Monday presents an opening to expand on his priorities before a potential statewide audience.

Brown huddled Friday in his Sacramento loft readying the address.

“You have some optimism about how great everything is and how rich California is,” Brown said of the speech last week, “how we’re going to create all these jobs and have enough water and fix our schools and deal with, you know, curriculum. There’s a lot of issues.”

Still, the focus is expected to largely remain on the budget. Brown has set an ambitious March 1 deadline for the Legislature to place a measure on a June special election ballot asking voters to extend temporary hikes on their income, purchases and vehicle taxes.

He is coupling the call for higher levies with severe cutbacks, including $1 billion from the state’s universities, $1.5 billion from welfare and $1.7 billion from healthcare for the poor.

Brown has undertaken several symbolic gestures to garner support from California voters leery of their leaders. He has ordered half the cellphones used by state workers be collected and, on Friday, demanded half the state’s fleet of cars be eliminated.

“We’ve got to retrench, cut back and if we do, if we take the budget that I presented, California will be in balance,” he told reporters last week.

Brown is expected to sell a similar message on Monday to a far larger audience.

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento

Rep. Linda Sanchez of Lakewood has been tapped as the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, joining the panel as it wrestles with how to proceed with an ethics case against her California Democratic colleague, Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles.

Sanchez replaces Rep. Zoe Lofgren of San Jose as the ranking member of the panel, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.

"I recognize the important role this committee plays in ensuring that the citizens' faith and confidence in their elected leaders is never in doubt," she said in a statement. "It is my goal to make certain that all who work in Congress do so in accordance with our system of rules, and that we remember that in order to protect and preserve our democracy, we must maintain these standards of conduct."

She will come to the committee with the case against Waters in turmoil. The South Los Angeles political fixture is accused of intervening improperly on behalf of OneUnited Bank, on whose board her husband served and in which he owned stocked. She has denied wrongdoing.

But the case against her has been marked by strife within the committee. Two committee lawyers who worked on the probe were placed on administrative leave for reasons committee leaders have never explained, though they reportedly clashed with the committee's then-Democratic chairwoman, Lofgren.

The committee decided to conduct a further investigation of the charges because of "materials discovered that may have had an effect" on the initial inquiry.

Since Waters' trial, originally scheduled for November, was indefinitely delayed, Republicans have won control of the House. Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) is now chairman.

Waters has contended the delays underscore the weak case against her.

-- Richard Simon in Washington

Photo: Linda Sanchez in 2007. Credit: Susan Walsh / Associated Press

Determined to cut the fleet of non-emergency vehicles owned by the state in half, Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday ordered state agencies to halt new car purchases and reduce their existing fleet by selling off automobiles that are not "essential" for state business.

The governor, who is asking voters to approve an extension of higher taxes in June, said the state needs to cut back on spending at a time when it is facing a $25.4-billion budget shortfall.

"There is a lot of wasteful spending on cars that aren't even driven," Brown said in a statement accompanying his executive order. "And we can't afford to spend taxpayer money on new cars while California faces such a massive deficit."

Just as he did recently with the state's inventory of cellphones (ordering 48,000 to be turned in), Brown said his goal is to cut the number of cars, trucks and take-home vehicles in half. 

"Fifty percent is a starting point," he said. "If we find more waste, we’ll make more cuts."

The state owns about 11,000 vehicles not assigned to health or public safety agencies such as the California Highway Patrol, of which about 4,500 are permitted to be driven home at night by state workers, according to the Department of General Services. 

Brown's second executive order since taking office earlier this month requires every state department manager to review the need for sending each car home at night and to cancel permits that are deemed unnecessary. Some managers and employees who have to be on-call after hours to respond to emergencies may be justified to take a car home at night, Brown said. 

After evaluating the fleet, administrators are being ordered to sell "non-essential" vehicles within 120 days. 

-- Patrick McGreevy in Sacramento

It was a sight to behold on a cold, foggy morning in partisan Sacramento: a parade of three Republican legislators stepping up to a podium marked “No More Cuts” to rail against spending reductions at a union rally.

Democrats and Republicans came together Thursday with a common purpose of protecting a program for the poor, in a strange alliance that was forged, in part, through Bible study.

Flanked by people in wheelchairs and protesters in green union T-shirts, the Republicans echoed Democratic talking points in opposing Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to slash in-home care for hundreds of thousands of elderly, blind and disabled.

“Why is Paul Cook here?” the GOP assemblyman from Yucaipa began, asking the question on everyone’s mind.

Because, Cook said, slashing the care program would actually drive up costs, forcing the frail into more costly nursing homes. Sure, he was “never going to convince” some of his GOP colleagues. But he was ready to fight for the unionized program that most Republicans made a favored bogeyman for government largesse.

“I believe in it,” Cook said to raucous applause.

State-subsidized in-home care such as shopping, laundry and housework for the frail and disabled, often provided by family members living with the recipients, has been the object of GOP charges of waste and fraud, and assailed as a symbol of Democrats’ unrestrained appetite for spending.

Not Thursday.

GOP Assemblyman Brian Nestande of Palm Desert said more cuts do “not make sense.” Assemblyman Jim Silva (R-Huntington Beach) declared, “This is not a program that can be cut because it will be more expensive in the long run.”

All three Republicans have signed no-tax-increase pledges. None of them have endorsed Brown’s approach to balancing the budget through a mix of cuts and taxes. And they offered no guidance as to what they would slash instead of home care, a nearly $500-million part of the governor’s budget fix, other than that it be something else.

Brown spokeswoman Elizabeth Ashford said of the rally: "Cuts are never popular. We expect that this is the first in a series of bipartisan protests against the cuts that the governor has proposed."

State Sen. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego), an event organizer and one of several Democrats to speak at the rally, saw it differently. "They bravely stood up," he said.

Vargas, who, like Brown, is a former Jesuit seminarian-turned-politician, said he knew some of the Republicans from weekly Bible study sessions they attend. And, he said, contrary to popular belief in Sacramento, where party affiliation often trumps all else, even Republicans care for the downtrodden.

"If you reach out to them, you’ll see they’ll stand for the right things," he said.

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento

Voters in two area state Senate districts have until Feb. 8 to request vote-by-mail ballots, election officials said.

Special elections will be held Feb. 15 to fill vacancies in the sprawling  High Desert-based 17th District, which spans several counties, and in the 28th District, which stretches from Venice and Mar Vista through the South Bay and into Long Beach. 

Voters can use the Vote By Mail application on the back of their sample ballots or apply online by going to the registrar of voters website for their county.  The 28th District lies entirely within Los Angeles County, while the 17th District spans parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties and a sliver of Kern County.

The vacancy in the 17th District occurred after then-Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster) was elected to the State Board of Equalization in November.  The term expires Dec. 2, 2012.

The death of Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach) prompted the other special election, for a full term running until Nov. 30, 2014.

-- Jean Merl

Just as debate has heated up over the future of redevelopment agencies, the Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to allocate up to $52 million in redevelopment funds for public works projects around the museum planned by billionaire Eli Broad.

The council agreed unanimously to spend the money on the same day that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other California mayors met with Gov. Jerry Brown to discuss his plan to eliminate redevelopment agencies. That vote ties up the money, preventing it from being used by officials in Sacramento to close a $25.4-billion budget gap.

The $52 million would go toward the construction of a parking garage, a pedestrian plaza and new sidewalks south of Walt Disney Concert Hall. Villaraigosa’s appointees at the Community Redevelopment Agency endorsed the proposal last week.

To read more about the vote, go to L.A. Now: L.A. City Council agrees to speed up spending redevelopment money.

-- David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall

An investigation has been launched into an anonymous fax received Wednesday by state Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) that the lawmaker considers a death threat.

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Tony Beard said he and the California Highway Patrol are looking into the letter, which includes a drawing of a noose, to determine the level of threat it might represent to Yee, but he noted that the threat was more implied than direct in the fax.

"It is actively being investigated. It certainly is an inappropriate message," Beard said. Because the message also referenced President Obama, a copy will also be sent to the U.S. Secret Service, Beard said.

Yee, who is running for mayor of San Francisco, had recently accused radio personality Rush Limbaugh of mocking the Chinese language and culture during his radio program.

The fax received by Yee’s office Wednesday uses racist language about Yee and Obama and goes on to say: "Without exceptions, Marxists are enemies of the United States Constitution! Death to all Marxists! Foreign and Domestic!"

The message arrived a day after Beard held a training session for all California state Senators about how to look out for potential violence and discussed the recent shooting of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

"It is quite disturbing that such racist sentiment still exists in our country," Yee said in a statement Wednesday about the fax. "As I have said in the past, it is unfortunate acts like these that demonstrate why we must continue to be vigilant against hate and intolerance. Such vitriol has no place within our political discourse or anywhere in our society."

-- Patrick McGreevy

As California’s big-city mayors rallied in Sacramento to save their redevelopment agencies from the fiscal chopping block, Gov. Jerry Brown pushed back Wednesday with a simple and direct message: “The money’s not there.”

Striking a strident tone in an afternoon press conference, Brown called the redevelopment agencies a “piggy bank” that the state needs to crack open to fund education and local services as California grapples with a $25-billion deficit. He said shutting down the state’s nearly 400 municipal redevelopment agencies is a crucial part of his budget proposal and will save $1.7 billion.

Cities across the state have angrily denounced the idea as they rush to squirrel away redevelopment dollars in ways that would shield the funds from any state raids.

Brown challenged the mayors to find alternative spending cuts if they want to keep redevelopment alive. “My message is: If not you, who?” Brown said.

He said the mayoral delegation was part of the coming wave of discontent with his budget, which he says is comprised of $12.5 billion in cuts and $12 billion in tax extensions.

“The hallways are going to be crowded in the coming months with people who say, ‘Please keep the money coming.’ And my message is, ‘The money is not there,’” Brown said. “The taxes don’t produce as much money as people in recent years expected. We’ve got to retrench, cut back and if we do, if we take the budget that I presented, California will be in balance.”

--Michael J. Mishak in Sacramento

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer's and Republican Rep. John Mica's date for President Obama's State of the Union speech went so well, there will be a second date, in Los Angeles.

Asked how the unusual seating arrangement went, Boxer joked on MSNBC on Tuesday night, "You know, what happens in the House chamber stays in the House chamber.'' 

Boxer of California and Mica of Florida were among lawmakers from opposing parties sitting together for Obama's address in response to calls for greater civility in Congress. They chose each other because they chair the Senate Public Works and House Transportation committees, respectively, which will write the next big transportation bill.

Boxer did not use the seating arrangement to push Los Angeles' bid to secure federal aid to accelerate expansion of its public transit system. The senator, who is backing L.A.'s efforts, said she has already bent Mica's ear on the issue and is encouraged.

The two chairs will be back together at a transportation town hall meeting they plan to hold in Los Angeles next month before their panels begin writing the legislation. 

But there could be limits to their chumminess.

When they disagreed on controversial proposals for strengthening Social Security during their appearance on MSNBC, Boxer told Mica facetiously: "I cancel our date right now.''

-- Richard Simon in Washington

First, Chris Norby was in the doghouse with his wife, and now the Orange County assemblyman is in the doghouse with the state ethics agency. The director of the state Fair Political Practices Commission has accused Norby of using $340 in campaign funds for personal benefit when he stayed in a Fullerton motel in 2007 during a dispute with his wife, according to the lawmaker.  

Norby vows to fight the accusation. He said he did leave his home for a resident motel on Orangethorpe Avenue after a quarrel with his wife. They have since divorced.

But he said he decided to use the cooling-off time away from home to study the use of the motel to shelter homeless people. At the time, he was a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

"I was doing a homeless study," Norby said this week. "We have a lot of homeless people in motels. I think I learned a lot from it. I will stand by it."

Roman Porter, the commission executive director, cited confidentiality rules involving unresolved investigations in declining Wednesday to comment on his decision to issue a formal finding of probable cause.

The finding, which sets the stage for an administrative hearing on the charge, alleges that Norby violated the state Political Reform Act by using campaign funds "for purposes not directly related to a political, legislative or governmental purpose when there was substantial personal benefit" to Norby.

Norby, who was elected last year to the state Assembly to replace the scandal-plagued Mike Duvall, could face a fine of up to $5,000 if an administrative law judge and the commission rule that he violated state law. But his attorney said the FPPC staff had talked about a fine of about $2,000, given that Norby had reimbursed his campaign account for the $340.

Norby’s claim has apparently been undermined by statements he made at the time to the Los Angeles Times.

Norby said in 2008 that it was a "mistake'' to have used campaign funds to pay for a one-week stay at the motel because he moved in while he was having marital problems with his third wife, Marsha.

"I'm surprised it was on the campaign [account]; it should not have been," Norby said in 2008. "And I'm going to reimburse the campaign because I was there for personal stay."

Although he paid for a week, he only stayed three nights at the motel, saying at the time, "It was hardly a junket to Paris."

The lawmaker’s attorney, Darryl Wold, said the initial statements were made before Norby had consulted with legal counsel and without a full understanding of the law.

Campaign funds can be used in a way that provides a personal benefit as long as they also serve a governmental purpose, which they were in Norby's case because of the homeless study, Wold said. He said if the study were not legit, Norby probably would have stayed at a Best Western.

But the attorney said the commission staff was questioning the claim that the stay was part of a homeless study, using Norby’s former public comments against him.

"They are skeptical that he stayed there for that reason," Wold said. The assemblyman plans to plead his case to an administrative hearing.

"He is not going to admit that he violated the law," Wold said.

-- Patrick McGreevy

A freshman Republican lawmaker is challenging Arnold Schwarzenegger to “show all Californians your apology was genuine” for commuting the manslaughter sentence of a political ally’s son without telling the victim's family first.

Schwarzenegger reduced the sentence of Esteban Nunez, who had pleaded guility to voluntary manslaughter, on his last day in office and did so without notifying the family of the stabbing victim. He later sent the family a letter apologizing for the lack of notice.

Assemblyman Allan Mansoor (R-Costa Mesa) is carrying legislation to require that victims’ families and district attorneys are given at least 30 days' notice before a governor can commute a sentence or grant a pardon.

And on Tuesday the assemblyman asked Schwarzenegger in a letter to endorse his effort.

“I am sure you are aware of the heartache caused by your last-minute commutation of Esteban Núñez’s sentence,” Mansoor wrote. “I am writing because I believe you have the opportunity to reverse the public indignation that has tarnished your legacy."

Nunez is the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a Los Angeles Democrat with whom Schwarzenegger had become friends. The younger Nunez had pleaded guilty to participating in the 2008 deadly stabbing of a college student; Schwarzenegger reduced his sentence from 16 years to seven years in prison.

Mansoor's sharply worded letter calls on Schwarzenegger to “put yourself in the victim’s shoes.”

 “How would you or a member of your wife’s family feel if Robert F. Kennedy’s murderer had his sentence commuted without any notice?” Mansoor wrote.

Schwarzenegger is married to Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family.

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento