The battle for the 17th Congressional District continues as Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, rolls out a new batch of endorsements and Democratic challenger Ro Khanna fires up his digital grassroots.

Honda on Tuesday announced the endorsements of state Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, Assembly Speaker John Perez, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, Controller John Chiang, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, Treasurer Bill Lockyer, Board of Equalization member Betty Yee, and 14 current and former state lawmakers. He’d previously announced he has Attorney General Kamala Harris’ endorsement, while Khanna last month announced he has Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s nod.

Perez said Honda “has been a thoughtful and effective leader, with a distinguished track record of bringing both parties together to find solutions for the very difficult challenges facing our country. Our state is lucky to have such a phenomenal representative fighting for us in Congress, and I am proud to support him for reelection.”

And Torlakson said Honda “is working to improve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in our classrooms, which will provide our children with a 21st century education and keep our country a leader in the global economy. I am proud to support Mike’s campaign for Congress and look forward to continue working with him to ensure that each and every child has the opportunity to get a quality education.”

Honda said he’s grateful for the state officials’ support: “We will continue working together for quality jobs, good schools, and a bright future for California’s families.”

Meanwhile, Khanna is continuing his effort to “bridge the gap of digital and traditional involvement” by inviting people to become “digital advocates” to spread word of his campaign throughout Silicon Valley. The campaign’s first digital training for volunteers is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. tonight, Tuesday, May 7, at 43255 Mission Blvd. in Fremont; more trainings will be held in the coming months.

And Khanna will hold a meet-and-greet to answer district residents’ questions at noon this Friday, May 10, at 3333 Bowers Ave., Suite 130 in Santa Clara.

CNET is reporting that prominent Silicon Valley attorney Nicole Wong, 44, of Berkeley, will join the Obama administration as the White House’s first chief privacy officer.

Wong since November has been San Francisco-based Twitter’s legal director; earlier, she was deputy general counsel at Mountain View-based Google for almost eight years, where she was responsible for the company’s product and regulatory matters. As the New York Times noted in 2008, her colleagues there called her “the Decider” for her role in dealing with international online censorship.

Earlier still, Wong was a partner at Perkins Coie LLP; co-edited the Electronic Media and Privacy Law Handbook; and taught media and Internet law courses as an adjunct professor at UC-Berkeley, Stanford University and the University of San Francisco. She earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Georgetown University, and a law degree and a master’s degree in journalism from UC-Berkeley.

Though a federal bill to criminalize the 3-D printing of guns or certain gun components is pending in Congress, at least one California lawmaker wants to get in on the action, too.

State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, said he’ll introduce legislation to prohibit use of 3-D printers to create untraceable firearms.

“While I am as impressed as anyone with 3-D printing technology and I believe it has amazing possibilities, we must ensure that it is not used for the wrong purpose with potentially deadly consequences,” Yee said in a news release. “I plan to introduce legislation that will ensure public safety and stop the manufacturing of guns that are invisible to metal detectors and that can be easily made without a background check.”

As I reported late last month, 3-D printing technology eventually could change some of the fundamentals of the nation’s gun-policy debate. Although critics say the plastic parts created by such printers can’t withstand the heat and pressure of use in a firearm, Texas activist Cody Wilson in recent days has announced what he claims is the first fully-printed, fully-operational firearm.

“We must be proactive in seeking solutions to this new threat rather than wait for the inevitable tragedies this will make possible,” said Yee.

The Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 bans firearms that are invisible to metal detectors or airport X-ray machines. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., on April 10 introduced H.R. 1474 to renew and expand that law to include specific parts like those Wilson and his peers are producing.

One of the Bay Area’s freshman House members got some key support from House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi on Monday.

Pelosi, D-San Francisco, hosted a Capitol Hill fundraiser for Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Pleasanton, putting to rest any murmurs that party leaders hold a grudge against Swalwell for his upstart unseating of veteran Rep. Pete Stark last year.

“I was honored to have Leader Pelosi’s support this evening,” Swalwell texted me a few minutes ago. “As someone who comes from a middle-class family, I appreciate the Leader’s efforts to expand our middle class for people who work hard and play by the rules. With the Leader’s help, I look forward to returning to the 114th Congress and calling her Madam Speaker.”

Swalwell said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., attended the fundraiser, too.

Swalwell wouldn’t say how much he raised tonight, but however much it is, it comes atop a stellar first quarter of 2013. He raised $263,000 from Jan. 1 through March 30 – more than any other local House member except perhaps Pelosi, depending on how you count it.

Someone’s gotta count all that money, and a recent staffing change ensures there’s an experienced hand on the books. Swalwell said Monday that Shannon Fuller, 40, of Orinda, whom he had hired in November as district director, left his Pleasanton district office in March to become the treasurer of his re-election campaign.

Fuller had been a campaign fundraiser for Rep. Ellen Tauscher for the 2000 election, and then worked as a scheduler in her office until 2004; that’s where she met Swalwell, who interned in Tauscher’s office in 2001. She was the finance director for Swalwell’s campaign last year.

Cheri Clasen Greven, 32, of Stockton, who has worked as a field representative for Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Stockton, will leave that job Friday to start as Swalwell’s district director next Monday, May 13. “The last five years with Congressman McNerney and his team were tremendously successful, challenging and above all rewarding,” Greven wrote in an email Monday afternoon.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday nominated three Bay Area lawyers to the state council that makes rules to protect Californians from employment, housing and public accommodation discrimination, and hate violence.

The Fair Employment and Housing Council, a body within the state department of the same name, establishes regulations and consists of seven members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate.

Dale Brodsky, 62, of Orinda, is a partner at Oakland-based labor law firm Beeson Tayer and Bodine, where she has worked since 2002. She was associate editor for the California Public Employee Relations Program at University of California, Berkeley from 2000 to 2002 and was an attorney in private practice from 1997 to 2002. Brodsky was an adjunct law professor at the University of San Francisco from 1997 to 2001 and a teacher at Mt. Diablo Unified School District from 1992 to 1996. She was an associate attorney at Saperstein Seligman and Mayeda from 1989 to 1991 and an attorney in private practice from 1984 to 1989. Brodsky held various positions at the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing from 1978 to 1983, including staff attorney and legal counsel. And she was deputy public defender for the City and County of San Francisco in 1978. A Democrat, Brodsky earned a law degree from University of California, San Francisco School of Law.

Chaya Mandelbaum, 33, of San Francisco, has worked at Sanford Heisler LLP since 2011, as an associate and more recently as senior litigation counsel. He was a trial attorney for the Office of the Solicitor at the U.S. Department of Labor from 2007 to 2011 and an associate at Morgan Lewis and Bockius LLP from 2005 to 2007. A Democrat, he earned a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School.

Chanee Franklin Minor, 37, of Oakland, has been a staff attorney for the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board since 2011. She was an associate at Cooley Godward Kronish LLP from 2006 to 2009, and a staff attorney at the Eviction Defense Center in 2005. Franklin Minor served as commissioner at the Oakland Residential Rent Adjustment Board from 2008 to 2009. A Democrat, Franklin Minor earned a law degree from Cornell Law School.

Brown also today named to the council Patricia Perez, 45, of Encinitas, president and chief executive officer at Puente Consulting APC, and Andrew Schneiderman, 57, of South Pasadena vice president and general counsel at the California Commerce Club Inc. since 1994. Perez is registered with no party preference, Schneiderman is a Democrat.

The compensation for these positions is $100 per diem.

A Bay Area lawmaker says today’s California Supreme Court decision that local governments can ban medical marijuana dispensaries is all the more reason to support his bill to create statewide regulation under the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

AB 473, by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, was passed by the Assembly Public Safety Committee two weeks ago on a 5-2 vote, and now is pending before the Appropriations Committee. Here’s what Ammiano said today:

“As I understand it, the court ruling says Riverside County can, under current state law, prohibit dispensaries. However, it allows a big hole for the legislature to drive through. The court wrote: ‘Of course, nothing prevents future efforts by the Legislature, or by the People, to adopt a different approach. In the meantime, however, we must conclude that Riverside‘s ordinances are not preempted by state law.’

“To me, that sounds like a call for the Legislature to act. I hope to move toward that different approach so we can ensure that patients have access to medical cannabis wherever they live.

“That’s what the voters of California wanted when they passed the Compassionate Use Act.

“In the meantime, my AB 473 can be a kind of friendly persuasion. It provides a way to make localities more open to allowing dispensaries. State regulation should reassure them (and the federal government) that dispensaries can operate safely, legally without threats to the communities where they are located.

“In fact, I think they will see that dispensaries often stabilize and contribute to their communities because of greater attention to security and increased tax revenues.”

Drug-reform groups are on aboard, given today’s court ruling.

“It is time for the state legislature to enact state-wide medical marijuana oversight and regulation that both protects patient access and eases the burden on localities to deal with this issue on their own,” Tamar Todd, senior staff attorney for the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a news release. “Localities will stop enacting bans once the state has stepped up and assumed its responsibility to regulate.”

Don Duncan, California policy director of Americans for Safe Access, said “the ball is in the legislature’s court to establish statewide regulations that both meet the needs of patients and keep communities safe.”

Here’s another sign that California Republicans are stepping up their efforts to attract Latino voters: Two well-known consultants are teaming up to create a Latino-focused polling firm.

Latino Edge Research’s principals are billing their new venture as “the only all Latino Republican survey research firm,” which “provides the insight and understanding of Latino voters so that messaging will reach them, persuade them and activate them.”

John Nienstedt, whose Competitive Edge Research & Communication is based in San Diego, will be Latino Edge’s research director while Hector Barajas – who has held top communications jobs for the California Republican Party, the Republican National Committee, 2010 gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman and the state Senate Republican Caucus – will be in charge of message development. Barajas most recently has worked at Revolvis, and Latino Edge reportedly will be run out of CERC’s and Revolvis’ existing offices.

“Latino Edge focuses exclusively on Latino and Hispanic voters, diving deep into this diverse community to understand the values, language and priorities necessary to develop winning center-right messages,” the new firm’s news release said.

This news comes just a few months after GROW Elect – a group founded in 2011 to recruit, endorse, train and fund Latino Republican candidates in California – announced it had hired former Bush White House aide and former San Mateo County Supervisor Ruben Barrales as its first president and CEO. Barrales reportedly has thrown himself into the job, including doing some face-time and fundraising with Republicans across the state; case in point, he’ll be joining state GOP Chairman Jim Brulte this Friday, May 10, at the San Mateo County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, and next Thursday at the Alameda County Republican Party’s leadership dinner.

Undaunted by last year’s defeat of a similar ballot measure, U.S. Barbara Boxer is talking tough in support of her bill to requiring the labeling of genetically engineered foods.

Boxer, D-Calif., was at Clif Bar’s Emeryville headquarters Thursday to tout her “Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act,” S.809, which she introduced a few weeks ago. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., has introduced a companion House bill.

“We deserve to have the right to know what’s in the foods we eat,” Boxer said, noting she first introduced a similar bill 13 years ago when public support was far less than it is today. “If these companies believe in their products, they should have nothing to fear.”

Boxer’s said more than 90 percent of Americans support the labeling of genetically engineered foods. The Food and Drug Administration now requires labeling of more than 3,000 ingredients, additives and processes, but in a 1992 policy statement allowed genetically engineered foods to be marketed without labeling, claiming that these foods were not “materially” different from other foods because the genetic differences could not be recognized by taste, smell or other senses.

But the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has recognized that these foods are materially different and novel for patent purposes, Boxer noted, and more than 1.5 million Americans have filed comments with the FDA urging the agency to label GE foods.

The food industry spent about $46 million last year to defeat California’s Proposition 37, a similar labeling measure, Boxer said Thursday. But she noted the Senate and House bills already have several dozen co-sponsors and around a hundred organizational supporters, and with more than 20 states currently considering their own labeling bills, it would be better to have a single federal standard than a state-by-state patchwork.

“Let’s trust each other to make the right decisions for our families,” she said. “I think we’re on the way to success.”

Asked whether she herself believes genetically engineered foods could be harmful, she said she preferred to answer as a mother and grandmother rather than as a lawmaker. Determining the safety of such foods requires long-term scientific study, and that’s not yet been accomplished, she said: “I’m very conservative when it comes to this.”

UPDATE @ 2:52 P.M.: Actually, genetically engineered crops have been studied and deemed safe hundreds of times in recent decades. And a review of two dozen long-term studies, published last year in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, found genetically modified crops had no effects on the animals that ate them. And the American Association for the Advancement of Science last year issued a statement saying “foods containing ingredients from genetically modified (GM) crops pose no greater risk than the same foods made from crops modified by conventional plant breeding techniques.”

The Boxer and DeFazio bills would require clear labels for genetically engineered whole foods and processed foods, including fish and seafood; the FDA would be directed to write new labeling standards consistent with other U.S. and international standards. So far, 64 nations already require labeling of GE foods, including all the member of the European Union, Russia, Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand.

Boxer acknowledged Thursday her bill would not cover beef or milk from cows that consume genetically modified corn.

Boxer was flanked at the news conference by Clif Bar CEO Kevin Cleary; Jessica Lundberg of Richvale, Calif., rice producer Lundberg Family Farms; and restauranteur Charles Phan, best known for the Slanted Door in San Francisco.

“This is very exciting for us,” Lundberg said. “Consumers are concerned about the purity of their food, the nutrition of their food, and how their food is grown.”

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law a Bay Area senator’s bill to use $24 million from gun background-check fees to boost a program that takes handguns and assault weapons away from those who aren’t legally allowed to have them.

This is the first gun-policy bill to make it to Brown’s desk this year.

SB 140 by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, gives a big boost to the state Justice Department’s Armed Prohibited Persons System (APPS), which cross-references the state’s list of handgun and assault-weapon owners with ever-updated lists of newly convicted felons and mental-health commitments. APPS, launched in 2007, had developed a huge backlog; the new law is effective immediately because it was designated an urgency measure.

“While our state is the only one in the nation that has a system to track and identify persons who at one time made legal purchases of firearms but are now barred from possessing them, until now we have lacked sufficient resources to take back those weapons,” Leno said in a news release. “We know for the safety of our communities that these people should not possess guns, and our reinvestment in this tracking program gives us the opportunity to confiscate them.”

The Justice Department’s Firearms Bureau has identified about 20,000 Californians who illegally possess an estimated 40,000 handguns and assault weapons, and the list grows longer by 15 to 20 people per day. Attorney General Kamala Harris said the money will let her increase the number of agents who go out and seize these firearms.

Agents last year seized more than 2,000 firearms, 117,000 rounds of ammunition and 11,072 illegal high-capacity magazines in targeted sweeps.

Gun-rights and lobbying groups including the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the California Rifle and Pistol Association had opposed the bill, saying lawful gun owners shouldn’t pay the cost of such a program; any surplus background-check fee money should be returned or lead to a reduction in the fee, they said.

The Legislature’s final votes on SB 140 were 65-10 in the Assembly and 37-0 in the state Senate.

I happened across this story posted yesterday by the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky:

A 5-year-old boy who was playing with a .22-caliber rifle accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister in Cumberland County on Tuesday afternoon, according to a news release from the state police.

The shooting happened just after 1 p.m. at a home on Lawson’s Bottom Road.

The 2-year-old was taken to Cumberland County Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead. An autopsy has been scheduled for Wednesday.

Cumberland County Coroner Gary White identified the girl as Caroline Starks.

He said the children’s mother was at home when the shooting occurred, and the gun was a gift the boy received last year.

“It’s a Crickett,” he said. “It’s a little rifle for a kid. …The little boy’s used to shooting the little gun.”

White said the gun was kept in a corner, and the family did not realize a shell had been left in it.
He said the shooting will be ruled accidental.

“Just one of those crazy accidents,” White said.

No. No, no, no.

This is not “just one of those crazy accidents.” This is negligence, it’s deadly malfeasance, it’s a crime.

Gifting a deadly firearm to a 5-year-old is questionable at best, but leaving it loaded and standing in a corner where he can reach it unattended is criminal.

“Well, it’s Kentucky…” won’t fly – Kentucky is still part of the United States of America, not some third-world backwater. And don’t dare say, “Well, they have a different gun culture there;” any culture that allows for any number of toddlers being shot to death isn’t a culture at all, it’s a sickness.

This is not the price of freedom.

I’ve spent a significant chunk of my professional time since late December writing gun-policy stories, but this tragedy isn’t debatable. Gun-rights enthusiasts – sane ones, at least, must be horrified by a story like this; it goes against every tenet of responsible gun ownership, every tenet of parenting, every tenet of humanity.

We ignore such stories at our own souls’ peril.