Free Republic

The watchdog appointed by a federal judge to oversee California prison reforms said Wednesday he wants to force top aides of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to testify under oath in a case that could result in more federal control over the state's deeply troubled corrections system. John Hagar, the special master who reports to U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, wants the judge to let him conduct a full investigation into whether the administration has been backsliding on reforms since the first of the year. At issue is whether Schwarzenegger's top aides have been currying favor with the state's powerful prison...

Battered by conservative allies who believe he's broken faith with them, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Friday replaced Cabinet Secretary Terry Tamminen, a Democrat and well-known environmental activist whose appointment two years ago was trumpeted as a show of the Republican governor's bipartisanship. Tamminen, who headed the Santa Monica-based Environment Now foundation when he became one of the governor's first major appointments in November 2003, will hold an advisory job as special assistant to the governor for energy and environmental technologies, Schwarzenegger's office announced late Friday. Fred Aguiar, who now runs the State and Consumer Services Agency, will replace Tamminen as Cabinet...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday named a former GOP assemblyman as his new cabinet secretary, a move seen as crucial within the Republican Party to balance the governor's earlier appointment of a Democratic activist as his chief of staff. He also announced creation of a new position, deputy chief of staff and senior adviser for policy development, filling it with a Republican operative. The moves were praised by the California Republican Party, which had received angry protests from grassroots organizers when Schwarzenegger named Susan Kennedy, an aide to former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, as his chief of...