Maintaining the entrenched secrecy of the California Legislature, leaders in the state Senate and Assembly have rejected a joint request by the Bay Area News Group, The Associated Press and the First Amendment Coalition to open the appointment calendars of lawmakers and their key staffers to public view. The denial, received late last week, reveals that activities remain thickly shrouded inside the state Capitol, where a 2010 series in this newspaper documented just how beholden legislators are to lobbyists and the agendas pushed by campaign contributors. Responding to multiple requests from the news organizations, the rules committees in both houses...