-
Spoiled: California food safety legislation dies on the vine
Monday, November 23, 2009 � by eric
Food-borne illness sickens 76 million Americans, sends 300,000 people to hospitals and kills 5,000 individuals annually. Still, in the nation’s biggest farm state, most food safety bills are killed or gutted, victims of a powerful agricultural lobby and legislators who have relied on Washington to decide how best to protect food. Here’s a hard look at how the issue fared in Sacramento in 2009.
-
Bowed but far from broken, big banks still hold sway
Monday, November 16, 2009 � by eric
Financial institutions, including several banks that received taxpayer bailouts, spent almost $4.01 million on lobbying in Sacramento in the first three quarters of the year as they sought to blunt legislation to rein them in. The industry successfully blunted and blocked several bills intended to provide consumer protections and halt abuses that led to the worst recession since the Great Depression.