David Zahniser

STATE SENATOR JACK SCOTT WAS CLEARLY getting miffed. The panel that he heads, the Senate Education Committee, needed to review dozens of bills on Wednesday. And yet his colleagues kept coming up with more and more time-consuming questions about Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s rapidly reworked, highly complicated plan for......

LAST WEEK’S PRIMARY ELECTION left voters with a particularly bitter aftertaste, and not just because of the highly toxic gubernatorial campaign. In legislative contests across Southern California, voters looked in their mailboxes just days before the election and found some of the most unpleasant accusations of the campaign. One campaign......

FORTY-EIGHT HOURS BEFORE last week’s primary election, voters in the 43rd Assembly District checked their answering machines and found the audio equivalent of a stink bomb: “What does Paul Krekorian have in common with a convicted terrorist? Plenty,” said the man with the pinched voice, who did not identify himself......

STANDING NEAR THE SHIMMERING WATERS of Lincoln Park Lake, union organizer Kevin de León spent a good part of election night offering up thank-yous to the crowd of people who helped him achieve his stunning 20-point victory in the 45th District, a hotbed of progressive political activity that provided one......

YOU JUST KNOW things have gotten ugly in the race for the 45th Assembly District when the candidates start going after the woman vacating the seat, termed-out Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, a longtime progressive icon who helped transform the district into a hotbed of liberal-left political activity. For weeks, the four......

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s plan for hiking trash fees — the proposal that soared through the Los Angeles City Council last week with remarkably little discussion. First it was billed as a way to hire 1,000 new cops. Then it wasn’t. Then it was again. Confused?......

27news_endorse edit: mittel copyedit: beaumont facts TK words: 1600-plus no byline Note: This is a partial list. We are continuing to interview candidates; more endorsements will appear next week and at laweekly.com. L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF: LEROY BACA The past four years have not been kind to Los Angeles County Sheriff......

MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA went to Hollywood last week to welcome the newest member of Team Villaraigosa, a candidate seeking one of the comfiest pieces of political furniture available to liberal Democrats in Sacramento — the seat being vacated by Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg. As if to oblige the mayor, union organizer......

IT’S NOT UNUSUAL to hear neighborhood leaders on the Westside vent their frustration about the evils of new development — the size, the scale, the unbearable traffic problems. And it wasn’t exactly a surprise to see the region’s politicians denounce a plan by the federal government to auction 10 acres......