The key issue for California’s 2012 election is turnout. The presidential election, a key motivator for voters, might be of little help this year. It’s not shaping up to be a persuasion election, despite the millions being spent on advertising. And because it’s not a battleground state, California could see participation wane.

Jonathan Rewers, 33, serves as chairman of the Sacramento Parks Commission. In the June elections, Rewers garnered 25 percent of the vote in his quest to unseat Kevin Johnson as mayor of Sacramento. He is now a candidate for the City Charter Commission. 

Taxes are en vogue these days, and not just at the state level where Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing a sales and income tax ballot measure. Eight California cities already gained general tax increases from their residents in the June elections; several more cities and counties will attempt to follow suit in November.

With fewer discretionary dollars in their pocketbooks and more sensitivity at the gas pump, recession-era gamblers want to spend their quarters closer to home.

If the people of California won’t vote to tax Big Tobacco or Big Oil, why does Gov. Jerry Brown think they’ll vote to tax themselves?

For business owners like Zennes Faljean, the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold President Obama’s federal health care overhaul marked far more of a beginning than a conclusion.

Like so many recent law school graduates, Seth Benkle searched vainly for a job after graduating from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento in 2010, increasingly stressed about his $160,000 in student loans, interest accruing.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax measure would raise sales taxes by one-quarter of a percent for four years and increase taxes on incomes of $250,000 or higher by 1 to 3 percentage points for seven years.

John O’Malley is the recruiting partner at Sacramento’s largest law firm, Downey Brand, which was founded nearly a century ago and employs more than 120 lawyers in five regional offices, 103 of them in Sacramento.

Life often has been unkind to economic development directors since California put its redevelopment agencies out of business last year. Randy Starbuck tells it first hand.