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Weeks after Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 19, which waives fees for first-time freshmen at California community colleges, officials in the Los Rios Community College District are wondering where the money will come from to pay for the tuition breaks. AB 19 would expand upon the current fee waiver for low-income students, recently renamed the California Promise Grant. The new grant would waive the first year of fees for all first-time, full-time students attending a California community college, regardless of need. Los Rios supported the bill, but spokesman Gabe Ross recently expressed concern that money could wind up being diverted...

... pass the California Assembly on its first vote Wednesday evening, and it failed to pass on a second vote early Thursday morning. Conservative opponents of the bill called the development "very encouraging." AB 19 would delete "a man and a woman" from California marriage laws, defining marriage as the union of "two persons." The bill fell six votes short of passage on Wednesday and the same thing happened hours later, early Thursday morning. Both times, the vote was 37-35, as five Democrats joined all 32 Republicans in opposing AB 19. Eight Democrats abstained. "This is a tentative victory you...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - An effort to legalize gay marriage in California died Thursday after supporters could not find the votes to make the state Assembly the first legislative chamber in the nation to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexuals. It was the second and final time in two days the bill failed to gain the simple majority it needed to pass the 80-member house. The 37-36 tally fell four votes shy. Nearly a quarter of majority Democrats either joined Republicans in opposing the bill or chose not to take a stand on the hot-button topic, now headed for...

Republican opponents of the bill argued that it conflicts directly with Proposition 22, an initiative voters passed in 2000 that declares: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." They told Leno to take his measure to the voters. "The intent of Proposition 22 is very, very clear and very, very understandable," said Assemblyman Ray Haynes (R-Murrieta). "The people knew exactly what they were doing when they voted for it." In comments that some Democrats said they found offensive, some Republicans said gay activists were trying to subvert the institution of marriage. "We need...

SACRAMENTO -- A bill to legalize same-sex marriage in California stalled on its initial vote Wednesday in the Assembly, but supporters used a parliamentary procedure to keep the measure alive while they tried to round up more votes. The bill failed on its first vote 35-37. It needed at least 41 votes to pass the 80-member house by the end of the night. Gay rights supporters hoped it would be the first time a legislative chamber in the United States voted voluntarily to put same-sex couples on equal legal footing with heterosexuals. It took a court order for Massachusetts last...

Sacramento -- Landmark votes expected this week in the Assembly on same-sex marriage and physician-assisted suicide appear so close that their outcomes could rest on a sole lawmaker's last-minute deliberations on morality, faith and the role of government in society, according to interviews with several undecided Democrats. With the Assembly poised today to take up AB19 by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, to legalize same-sex marriage in California, many Democrats said Tuesday that they remain undecided on the issue even after months of debate. With Republicans uniformly opposed to the measure, Leno said passage would likely come with only the...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The California chapter of the NAACP has endorsed a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state, marking the first time an arm of the venerable civil rights group has lent its political clout to the issue that has divided the black community. Members of the California State Conference of the NAACP narrowly voted at their convention last fall to support the pending "Religious Freedom and California Civil Marriage Protection Act," but the group did not make its position public until this week, in advance of the bill's first legislative hearing. "In a place like...