Free Republic

The California Democratic Party decided not to endorse in the U.S. Senate contest on Saturday, an embarrassing rebuke of veteran Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein, who has represented California in the Senate for a quarter-century, is facing an insurgent bid by a fellow Democrat, state Senate leader Kevin de León. He earned nearly 500 more votes than the senator, who was first elected in 1992. De León has cultivated relationships with the party’s delegates. He still faces a significant challenge in trying to topple Feinstein, who trounces De León in all public polling and fund-raising. The party also did not endorse...

<p>She owes $150,000 -- plus $1.3 million awarded earlier -- to a demoted state whistle-blower.</p> <p>California's outgoing superintendent of public instruction should pay $150,000 in punitive damages to a whistle-blower who was demoted for reporting fraud, a Sacramento Superior Court jury decided Friday.</p>

<p>The state Department of Education and outgoing Superintendent Delaine Eastin were slapped Wednesday with a $4.5 million judgment in a whistle-blower case in Sacramento Superior Court.</p> <p>In an unusual verdict -- holding a high-ranking official personally liable -- the jury found Eastin "acted with malice" and that she should pay punitive damages, which could be millions of dollars more.</p>

The home schooling battle in California has brought to the forefront Delaine Eastin, the Superintendent of the California Education Department. Delaine Eastin has sparked a national reaction to her recent letter stating that parents who homeschool their children are criminals. After facing local and national scrutiny, she then sent a letter to the California Legislature, claiming that home schooling is illegal, demonstrating her unwillingness to back down. Her allegations were shot down by another letter sent to the California Legislature, from the Home School Legal Defense Association, which affirmed that "California’s Education Code expressly recognizes parent-operated private schools as a...

California Governor Gray Davis is preoccupied with the Oracle scandal, one wherein a now fired Davis campaign official accepted a $25,000 check made out to and deposited in the governor's reelection account, allegedly in exchange for a state-approved 91 million dollar contract, of which 41 million is now deemed by the state auditor as "completely unnecessary." Davis has since replied: "I think most of you people know I am barely on the information on-ramp, much less proficient in technology, so this is not a matter that would come to my attention, nor did it." Sure. Got it. California Superintendent of...