As reported by The Sacramento Bee:

“Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez pushed the caucus for disclosure last week in response to a story by The Bee, which noted that voters had no way of knowing who was donating big bucks to the foundation controlled by Latino lawmakers.

Assemblyman Tony Mendoza, an Artesia Democrat who has chaired the Latino Legislative Caucus since December, released a list of 53 donors who contributed $243,600 in 2009 and $195,500 in 2010.

Mendoza previously had released a list of seven contributions received since he took control of the caucus late last year. Only three of them, totaling $20,000, were donated in 2011.

“We look forward to increasing transparency and accountability within the foundation today and in the future,” he said.

The list of contributors released Monday includes powerful Capitol interest groups that push lawmakers to vote their way on dozens of bills each year.

By far the largest donor in 2010 was Eli Lilly & Co., which gave $50,000. Other major contributors were AT&T, $25,000; California State Association of Electrical Workers, $20,000; and Verizon, $18,000.”

The Caucus did the right thing in releasing the donor list. Not releasing it would have raised more eyebrows and suspicion. No surprise in the large donations from the pharmaceutical industry (Eli Lilly & Co.) and telecommunications industry (AT&T and Verizon).

There are a few items that I will be blogging about this week, but in the never ending search for new material, I came across this piece regarding Latinos and the “tea party movement.” Essentially, Latinos have become the perfect scapegoats for the Tea Partiers. Here’s the latest video from the Facebook group “Cuentame” exposing some of the hate being spread around at these tea parties:

In California politics, Mayor Villaraigosa’s cousin, John Perez was sworn in as the new Speaker of the Assembly. Perez is the first openly gay speaker to serve in this role. Today he expressed that his sexuality does not define him, but he gave a nod in acknowledging gay political leaders who came before him. Perez also distinguished himself from his cousin, Mayor Villaraigosa, when asked about the possibility of following his older cousin’s career path:

“It’s not my goal in life,” Perez said in a recent interview with the Times. “You never rule anything out but it’s as close to a rule-out as you can possible do. I love my cousin. We’re very different people in many ways. Just because he did it doesn’t mean I want to do it.”

You can read Speaker Perez’s swearing-in speech here. I particularly liked the part about public-private partnerships in the community colleges and his expressed commitment to fight for higher education in California.

In regards to the recent earthquake in Chile, I have come across some interesting pieces about why Chile is poised to recover more quickly from this disaster than Haiti was. Most notably, Chile has more modern building codes, but its economy is considered one of the “best run” in all of Latin America. Also, this week, Secretary Clinton will be hand delivering the first American assistance to Chile in the form of satellite phones.