Republican State Sen. Roy Ashburn of California, one of the legislature’s most outspoken opponents of equal rights, was arrested last month for drunk driving after leaving a gay nightclub in Sacramento. But things went from bad to worse this week when Sen. Ashburn was sentenced to prison for his offense:

Ashburn was arrested in the early morning of March 3, 2010 on suspicion of DUI after he was seen by a CHP officer driving his state vehicle erratically. He was coming from FACES, a gay nightclub located in midtown Sacramento. Ashburn had a .15% blood alcohol level.

Ashburn has been ordered to serve 48 hours in county jail, three years of probation, pay fines and fees of about $2,000, and attend a mandatory first offender DUI program. His driver's license was suspended for 30 days.

In the days following his arrest, Ashburn announced he was gay on a local radio show. But he’s ruled out moderating his voting record on LGBT issues, which was one of the worst in the State Senate:

According to Project Vote Smart, Ashburn's voting record shows he has voted against every gay rights measure in the State Senate since taking office including Recognizing Out-Of-State Same-Sex Marriages", Harvey Milk Day and Expanding Anti-Discrimination Laws.

Despite the shame he’ll bring to the legislature by continuing to hold office while in jail (and despite his serious lapse in judgment, which could have resulted in tragedy), Ashburn is also refusing to resign.

California legislators may be the highest-paid in the nation (even after a self-imposed 18% pay cut this year), but that obviously didn’t stop the GOP's current Senate Minority Leader and former Assembly leader from taking more, more, more – in the form of unreported gifts from organizations with business before the legislature.

California’s ethics commission is considering fines against both Leaders, as well as a third Republican, State Sen. Tony Strickland, who negotiated a $3,000 penalty for concealing the source of an attack ad he ran against his 2008 opponent:

In recommending the fine, the commission staff said the mass mailing "deprived the public of the knowledge of the true source of the negative campaign piece and thus, appears to be at worst intentional and at best negligent, particularly given the sophistication of Respondent Strickland as a current member of the California State Legislature, and a former Member of the Legislature at the time of the campaign activity in question."

The commission is scheduled to consider the agreement with Stickland[sic] at its April 8 meeting, at which time it will also consider imposing fines of $200 each against Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth (R-Murrieta) and former Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines (R-Clovis) for failing to disclose gifts from sources that lobby the Legislature.

Hollingsworth, you might remember, led a temper tantrum this past September in which Senate Republicans forced the closure of several domestic violence shelters across the state. Democrats, in cleaning up yet another GOP injustice, later appropriated money to keep the shelters open.

As for the ethics investigation, well, let's just say it probably wouldn't have happened to a nicer group of people.

Many states have old laws still on the books that would be wrong and outrageously offensive if proposed today. Progressive California is no exception, which is why Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal introduced legislation to right one such wrong:

AB 2199's targeted section, which was placed into law in 1967, requires the Department of Mental Health to "plan, conduct and cause to be conducted scientific research into the causes and cures of sexual deviation, including deviations conducive to sex crimes against children, and the causes and cures of homosexuality, and into methods of identifying potential sex offenders."

The genesis of Assemblywoman Lowenthal’s bill is also interesting, and it proves once again how important it is for citizens to contact their state legislators about issues that matter to them:

"The fact this language has survived this long is pretty amazing," she said in a news release. "We need to blot it out and make it clear we're moving forward as a society, not backward."

Lowenthal's chief of staff, Will Shuck, said the section was brought to Lowenthal's attention by Equality California, the state's largest gay-rights group.

"This section of the code is deplorable," said Geoff Kors, the group's executive director, because it implies both that homosexuality is an illness and that gays are a threat to children.

Indeed. And one can only hope that no state money is being wasted in search of a so-called “cure” for being gay.

With Congress seemingly stuck on the question of how best to advance health care reform, state lawmakers are done waiting to take up their own initiatives. One major overhaul is under consideration in California.

The bill, introduced by State Sen. Mark Leno, would -- among other things -- create a single payer system:

Christine Kehoe, a San Diego Democrat and the chairwoman of the State Senate appropriations committee, which revived Mr. Leno’s bill, said the costs to the state would be $1 million in the next fiscal year because the bill would only initially create a commission to find ways to pay for expanded health care.

And while Ms. Kehoe said a single-payer system could cost “tens of billions a year,” she added that the state was already paying significant amounts for other publicly financed health care programs. She said Mr. Leno’s bill — which would also expand eligibility for Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program — would eventually result in the state saving money.

“The cost of health care insurance in California is a major hindrance to our economy,” said Ms. Kehoe, citing large numbers of uninsured and people paying high rates. “If we could begin to trim some of those costs, there would be billions of dollars going into the economy for more productive use.”

California Democrats have twice before passed bills to create a single-payer system in the state, only to see them vetoed by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But the importance of a single-payer win in California cannot be overstated.

Independently, California would have the 9th-largest economy in the world, and it contributes 13 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product. Adding California to the ranks of the single-payer health care systems would add enormous momentum to the national health reform push, and it would make other, more moderate reforms (like a robust public option) politically viable across the country.

So for anyone still doubting the power of state legislative politics, watch what happens if California passes this bill.

California has quietly become a major front in the national Republican Party’s civil war. It’s gotten so bad in the Golden State that a Republican legislator faced death threats, angry family members, and even a recall attempt over a single tax vote.

Yesterday’s Washington Post told the inside story of what happened to a conservative back-bencher in the Republican Assembly Caucus when he broke ranks to support a budget plan that would have avoided a government shutdown:

When he cast an aye vote for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2009-2010 state budget, which included about $12.5 billion in tax increases, [Assemblyman Anthony] Adams instantly became a pariah in conservative GOP circles -- targeted for political extinction.

Criticism and threats of doom came from unusual sources. His irate mother-in-law, a devout conservative named Bonnie Ebright, called him to say he was betraying his party and country. A hugely popular Los Angeles radio show, hosted by a pair of commentators beloved by the right, responded to news of his vote by demanding his swift ouster. Conservative Rep. Tom McClintock called for Adams's immediate removal from office via California's recall process. (…)

What happened next was the political equivalent of an unchecked California wildfire. Adams received anonymous death threats, prompting the state Highway Patrol to provide him and his wife with around-the-clock protection for three days. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher joined fellow California conservative McClintock in announcing support for the recall effort, which soon included signature gatherers lining up at supermarkets and malls.

The recall petitioners eventually submitted more than enough signatures to force a recall election, but not enough of them were found to be valid.

No one really knows what would have happened if the recall had gone forward, but Adams doesn’t mince words when describing the forces that rose up against him:

"I will not allow myself to be intimidated by the extreme purists in our party," he said. He added: "I cast one vote essentially that they didn't like -- one vote. (…) This Taliban mentality: it's trying to get rid of people in our party. It makes it impossible to grow the party."

Indeed, “growing the party” is one thing state Republicans have failed to do over the last two decades. An all-time low of 31 percent of California’s registered voters are Republicans, and it’s unclear how the party expects to boost that number while kicking even mainline conservatives like Adams out the door.

Assemblyman John Pérez is set to make history. On Thursday he was chosen by the Democratic caucus of the California Assembly to succeed Speaker Karen Bass as the lower chamber's new leader. When the next legislative session begins in January, he will become the body's first openly gay leader.

Though a first term lawmaker, the 40-year-old will bring a wealth of political experience to the position:

Pérez, a former union organizer who is the cousin of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has deep ties to labor, most recently working as political director for a Southern California local of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. He also served as chairman of the Democratic Caucus this year and took the lead securing votes during last month's contentious negotiations on water policy

Pérez will face a series of steep challenges, as experts estimate that California will faces annual $20 billion budget shortfalls for at least the next five years. But with his proven ability to build coalitions and the unamimous support of Assembly Democrats, he is in a strong position to assume this new role.

Weeks after Republican Assemblyman Mike Duvall of California resigned for publicly boasting about his simultaneous affairs with two Sacramento lobbyists, the FBI has decided to take a closer look at the incident:

Agents have talked to at least two former Duvall employees as potential witnesses to determine whether there is evidence of criminal wrongdoing that could lead to an investigation, officials said.

"We did make contact with the two aides," said Special Agent Steve Dupre, a spokesman for the FBI. He declined to comment further.

At least one of the lobbyists involved had business before Duvall’s subcommittee, but there’s been no word yet on what exactly the FBI’s angle is. Presumably (and this is pure, idle speculation), they want to make sure there was no coercion or bribery in the case.

On a lighter note, it turns out that a different Mike Duvall, a businessman in Utah, has been getting hundreds of furious emails from people mistaking him for the former legislator:

"I started to open them up one by one, and I was getting horrendously challenging, difficult e-mails from people in California I had never heard of in my life," the Utah man said. "There's people wanting my wife to leave me, wanting me to resign as a disgrace to America, they want me bankrupt."

Ironically, the Utah Duvall’s business is an identity theft prevention service – which just goes to show how important it is to protect one’s identity.

California Republicans have officially gone off the deep end.

Last week, State Senate Republicans helped shut down dozens of domestic violence shelters in retaliation for alleged sleight of hand by Democrats.

The Democrats’ offense, supposedly, was their refusal to cancel a program that helps low-income Californians do their taxes. Democrats promised to consider the move, but the caucus ultimately kept the program going. In response, Republicans blocked more than twenty bills that required 2/3 support:

Other casualties included bills to keep dozens of domestic-violence shelters from closing, to help cities and counties borrow while the state raids their treasuries, to distribute federal money to counties for swine flu treatment, and to implement a new hospital fee that would qualify the state for $2 billion in federal money.

Six of those shelters have already been forced to close. Amazingly, Senate Republicans continue to defend their actions. But as they’re quickly finding out, there really is no defense:

[Senate Republican leader Dennis] Hollingsworth contended that "the Democratic leadership did not uphold their previous budget agreements."

But the minority leader wasn't available to discuss exactly which agreements he thought had been broken, and his staff said it didn't know.

This is typical behavior from California Republicans -- always blaming everyone else, and always playing the victim.

But now real victims of domestic violence have nowhere to go to escape their abusers. And the truly sick part about this is that Senate Republicans freely admit they held the shelters hostage in order to feel powerful, with one senator bragging that "This was an opportunity for Republicans to have some leverage."

I hope they’re proud of themselves -- because no one else is.

This month, the California legislature passed a reform measure that would limit the ability of health insurance companies to drop patients who have been diagnosed with serious illness:

The proposal, pushed by the California Medical Assn. and other advocacy groups, would allow regulators to block the rescission of coverage unless they find that a patient intentionally lied to the company about preexisting conditions.

Government officials believe that the practice -- officially known as rescission -- has allowed insurance companies to cancel coverage for thousands of California citizens and rescission has been the focus of investigation by law enforcement agencies in California

The measure has been passed by both chambers and will head to the governor after the Assembly considers a handful of changes.

California Assemblyman Mike “Spanky” Duvall resigned from the Legislature this afternoon after a live microphone recorded him bragging about lewd details of two simultaneous affairs with Sacramento lobbyists. At the time, Duvall was sitting in an Assembly committee room before a public hearing.

OC Weekly viewed the tape and has a comprehensive write-up of Duvall’s remarks and the reaction from inside the Capitol. Some of Duvall’s more cringe-inducing statements include:

"Oh, she is hot! I talked to her yesterday. She goes, 'So are we finished?' I go, 'No, we're not finished.' I go, 'You know about the other one, but she doesn't know about you!'"

For the absolute worst of what Duvall said, you’ll have to read the OC Weekly article –- this is a family blog, after all. Also, KCAL News has been following the story closely.

Duvall, who is married with two children, had been a well-known culture warrior in California politics, and had earned a 100% rating from the conservative Capitol Resource Institute, which promotes “traditional family values:”

"Assemblyman Duvall has been a consistent trooper for the conservative causes," CRI president Karen England announced in March. "For the last two years, he has voted time and time again to protect and preserve family values in California. We are grateful for his support of California families.'"

Indeed –- how will Californians protect their family values without people like Duvall in the legislature?