Napa County is losing its longtime public health officer to the state. Dr. Karen Smith. Governor Jerry Brown's appointee as director of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) succeeds Dr. Ron Chapman, who resigned at the end of January. The department is the lead agency in California providing detection, treatment, prevention and surveillance of public health and environmental issues.   read more

Will Kempton has shuttled between public and private positions in transportation, public service and government affairs for 40 years. His return to the public sector as executive director of the California Transportation Commission (CTC) in January followed a three-year stint, with the same title, at the nonprofit advocacy group Transportation California.   read more

Governor Jerry Brown’s new head of the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) replaces Toby Douglas, who announced his resignation last September after three tumultuous years of change generated by the Affordable Care Act and the state’s expansion of its version of the federal Medicaid program. The department oversees Medi-Cal and its 11 million participants.   read more

Ahlin was elevated to deputy director of Hospital Strategic Planning and Implementation in the now-defunct state Department of Mental Health 2012. The department had been under federal oversight since 2006. She took over supervision of the 350-bed mental health unit at Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad under trying circumstances in May 2013.   read more

Betty Yee, a tax and fiscal policy expert, won a spot in the November election when she edged out fellow Democrat and former Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez by 500 votes in the June primary after winning the endorsement of California NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) for her spirited advocacy of medical pot. She also endeared herself to environmentalists with opposition to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and support for alternative energy efforts.   read more

On Monday, two-term Democratic state Senator Alex Padilla will be sworn in as California’s first Latino Secretary of State, replacing Debra Bowen, whose last months in office were plagued by a debilitating struggle with depression but were preceded by years of controversy. He will take the reins of an office that has struggled to provide campaign finance transparency, make better use of technology and handle nonelection responsibilities related to corporations.   read more

Kish and lawyers from two other firms won a $21 million settlement from Walmart contractor Schneider Logistics Transloading and Distribution Inc. in May over the retailer’s alleged abuse of minimum wage and overtime payments to warehouse workers in Eastvale. The National Law Review found the settlement amount “staggering” but said its true significance lay in the “courts’ willingness to untangle multi-level business operations and hold all involved entities liable for wage and hour violations.”   read more

Michael Picker worked for Governor Brown three decades ago. He has 30 years of experience in policy development, administration at local and state levels, grassroots campaigns, community organizing, non-profits and public relations. That last qualification may be the most important on his resume and the scandal-ridden agency is probed by state and federal investigators.   read more

The California State Auditor, in a scathing October report, found a backlog of more than 11,000 complaints at the Department of Public Health related to long-term health care facilities, many of them with “relatively high priorities.” Around 370 situations involved patients in “immediate jeopardy―indicating a situation that poses a threat to an individual’s life or health.”   read more

Lee, who has worked in environmental regulation for more than 20 years, took over the department five months after Director Debbie Rafael resigned under fire. The department, which oversees and regulates the treatment and disposal of hazardous waste, has been accused of being too cozy with corporate polluters and lax in its enforcement of environmental laws.   read more

Leondra Reid Kruger, 38, is a U.S. deputy assistant attorney general who would be the only African-American on the court and the youngest justice ever if confirmed. The South Pasadena native has worked in the U.S. Department of Justice since 2007 and argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court 12 times. Like Jerry Brown's two other high court selections since becoming governor in 2010, Kruger has never been a jurist.   read more

Career public servant Richard Gillihan has been the acting director since Julie Chapman stepped down in February. Gillihan was a top official in the Department of Finance when Brown appointed him acting director at CalHR almost to the day that the independent Little Hoover Commission released a scathing report about the agency.   read more

The first Latino elected leader of the California state Senate since Reginaldo Francisco Del Valle in 1883, Democrat Kevin de León took over for the job of Senate Pro Tempore from Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) on Wednesday. The former political activist and community organizer was a leader of the huge 1994 march in Los Angeles that protested the passage of Prop. 187.   read more

Despite years of controversy at the PUC, the former president of Southern California Edison Company was considered likely to be reappointed by Governor Jerry Brown. But the release of questionable e-mails during a court proceeding over the deadly 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion highlighted an overly cozy relationship with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) and specifically called into question some of his actions.   read more

DFEH is the largest state civil rights agency in the country. But its authority and resources have been diminished over the years. The Oversight Office found the agency was underfunded, demoralized, had a crummy computer system and was in direct conflict with the federal government. “DFEH nearly destroyed a 19-year relationship with the Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD] by directing necessary resources away from housing discrimination investigations,” the report said.   read more

Holden, the 90th president of the State Bar, is a partner at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP and is the third consecutive president from Los Angeles. He was the Bar's vice president and was unanimously elected to his post.   read more