Jerry Brown China trip has a critic

Gov. Jerry Brown speaks during the official opening of the California-China trade office in Shanghai. Gov. Jerry Brown speaks during the official opening of the California-China trade office in Shanghai. Photo: Associated Press Photo: Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Jerry Brown China trip has a critic 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Gov. Jerry Brown's trip to China has been filled with big announcements - including a $1.5 billion development deal for Oakland's waterfront and the opening of a California-China trade office - and lots of favorable coverage of the whole affair, with one significant exception.

This week, Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton - the curmudgeonly lion of the Capitol press corps - sliced and diced Brown, describing the trip as "foreign gallivanting with special interest money" because business leaders on the trip picked up the tab for the governor and his staff.

Skelton was also highly dubious of whether the opening of a trade office makes a dime's worth of difference for California businesses.

Well, the criticism got quite a few people's knickers in a bunch around the state and they hit back.

"George is definitely pretty grumpy," said Rufus Jeffris, spokesman for the Bay Area Council, the business group that organized the trip and is overseeing the $1 million in annual private funding for the office.

"Prejudging it as a boondoggle ... and just supporting a pack of lobbyists is pretty unfair out of the gate," he told us.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, a Southern California counterpart to the Bay Area Council, said businesses in the state are reaping tangible benefits from the trip and will continue that with the opening of the trade office.

"This isn't a photo op," said Colin Maynard, the spokesman, though he acknowledged "there are photos being taken."

Pulling the trigger: Get ready to hear a lot more about guns and gun control next week. Not only is Congress set to vote on new background check requirements, but the Legislature is also taking up nine bills on much stricter gun rules.

Those include a tax on ammunition, banning the possession of large-capacity magazines (even those acquired before the original ban in 2000), banning detachable magazines from all long guns, and more.

The big day is Tuesday, when all eight of the state Senate proposals will be heard in the Public Safety Committee. The chairwoman of that committee, Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, is carrying the bill on the ban of magazines that hold more than 10 bullets.

There's been much back and forth in the media on who has the strictest gun control laws in the United States - New York? Connecticut? California? - but if these bills get through and are signed into law by the governor, there will be no question that the Golden State tops that list.

Transgender health care: The state this week took a big step for transgender people when the Department of Managed Health Care released what transgender advocates called a groundbreaking directive on health coverage.

The directive tells health insurance companies that they can't deny coverage to transgender patients for medically necessary treatments, including gender reassignment surgery, under the state's Insurance Gender Nondiscrimination Act.

"This one letter will save lives," said Masen Davis, executive director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco. "For years, transgender Californians have been denied coverage of basic care merely because of who we are. Discriminatory insurance exclusions put transgender people and our families at risk for health problems and financial hardship. Now we can finally get the care we need."

Water, water everywhere: We wanted to let you know about a slick new website for those interested in the state's water issues.

The Resource Renewal Institute has created what it is calling the "California Water Rights Atlas" that features a map of all those who have water rights in California. It also shows how much water is granted to each of them.

One of the more interesting facts is that the state has granted rights for about 250 million acre-feet of water, though there's only an average of 71 million acre-feet available annually, according to the institute.

How does that add up? Well, to quote one of our favorite lines from a movie: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

You can visit the website at ca.statewater.org/water-rights.