UCLA Prof. Ernest Morrell has announced on his Facebook page that he has abandoned plans to run for the Democratic nomination in the 37th Assembly District -- a development that likely means schoolteacher and Saudi Arabian immigrant Ferial Masry will now have a clear field in the primary to become the party's nomination for the fourth straight time.

Another candidate who had expressed an interest, Pleasant Valley School District Trustee Warren Harwood now intends to run for county treasurer instead.

The district is believed to be potentially competitive by strategists from both parties. The seat will be open, as incumbent Audra Strickland is termed out. And although Republicans enjoy a 5 percentage point advantage among registered voters, Strickland beat Masry by only 4 points in 2008.

This time, Masry's likely opponent will be Republican Jeff Gorell, an attorney and former county prosecutor. As with Masry, it appears that Gorell will be uncontested in his party's primary.

It's a good thing they didn't need to take the high school graduation test in civics today, because members of the Assembly would have flunked.

Last week the Senate passed a series of midyear budget actions, designed to shave about $5 billion off the state's projected $20 billion budget shortfall. All the Senate votes were taken on bills that had originated in the Assembly and were amended in the Senate. If you took an American government class in high school, you probably know what needed to happen next: To send the bills to the governor, the Assembly needed to agree with the Senate amendments.

Instead, inexplicably, Assembly Budget Chairwoman Noreen Evans began taking up a series of Senate bills, amending in the same language that had been passed by the Senate. There was some debate about the bills, including customary complaints by some members that they hadn't had sufficient time to review what they were voting on. Assemblyman Charles Calderon, a veteran lawmaker, chided the critics, saying the language had been in print since Friday and they should be fully briefed by now. "This is the big leagues," he said.

Meantime, Senate Budget Chairwoman Denise Ducheny wandered up to the presiding officer and had an animated conversation. Thereafter, Majority Leader Alberto Torrico announced that the Assembly had been voting on the wrong bills. They expunged those actions and then took up the Assembly-originated bills they were supposed to have been voting on from the start.

Asked Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries: "Is this what the big leaguers do?"

The application period closed Tuesday for those who want to be considered for the Citizens Redistricting Commission, the panel created by Proposition 11 to draw legislative district lines in California following the 2010 census.

Across the state, more than 31,000 eligible applicatants responded to the call, including 497 from Ventura County (350 men, 147 women). Now that the deadline has closed, their applications have become public. Here's the list of Ventura County applicants. Among the local applicants are some familiar names from civic affairs in the county, including former Moorpark Mayor Patrick Hunter, Ventura City Manager Rick Cole and former Ventura City Councilman Todd Collart.

To continue along the process, these folks will now be required to submit a supplemental application, which must include a couple of short essays and recommendations from others. The public is invited to comment on applicants, pro or con.

Good luck to those who stepped forward. It takes some courage to submit oneself to such public scrutiny; already, information about their political party affiliation, family heritage and household income is available for inspection online.

This time of year, announcements of endorsements by various political candidates become tiresome, and serve not much more function than to clutter up the e-mail inboxes of political reporters.

But two came across the transom over the last 24 hours that caught my attention because they indicate a potentially important trend in the two campaigns.

First, Ventura County sheriff candidate Geoff Dean, whose support heretofore has come from local elected officials, police chiefs and rank-and-file deputies, announced the endorsement of former Sheriff John Gillespie. While Gillespie has been out of office for nearly two decades, his support is interesting because it signals a defection from the Sheriff's Department's establishment, which had been uniformly aligned with Chief Deputy Dennis Carpenter. It will now be more difficult for Carpenter's campaign to argue that Dean would harm the traditional cohesion of the department's management.

Second, Simi Valley Supervisor Peter Foy, who toyed with the idea of running for governor last year as the true-blue conservative in the field, announced today that he is endorsing Steve Poizner for governor. Foy discusses his reasons in an essay published on the Flash Report. It's the latest indication that Poizner is positioning himself to use the party's conservative grassroots as a springboard as he attempts to overcome the sizeable polling advantage enjoyed by ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

If you've ever paid $200 for a concert ticket or a night out at a fancy restaurant and felt ripped off, you can take some pleasure in the tales of Ventura County legislators who will end up paying more for gifts of entertainment than they would have paid had they shelled out the dough in the first place.

The Fair Political Practices Commission has levied the following fines on county legislators (and, in one instance, a staff member) for failure to properly report the receipt of gifts:

Assemblyman Pedro Nava: A $400 fine for failing to report a reception hosted by Bank of America valued at $74 and a dinner from the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians valued at $95.

Sen. George Runner: A $400 fine for failure to report gifts of two concert tickets with a combined value of $115.75 from the Pechanga tribe.

Elizabeth Fenton, chief of staff to Sen. Fran Pavley: A $200 fine for failure to report tickets, parking and refreshments at a performance of the Blue Man Group, a gift from AT&T valued at $130.52.

Assemblywoman Audra Strickland: A $200 fine for concert tickets from the Pechanga tribe valued at $89.50.

When the U.S. Supreme Court, in its controversial campaign-finance decision last month, ruled that independent expenditure committees do not create even the appearance of corruption, it effectively rendered meaningless a portion of the County of Ventura's campaign-finance ordinance.

The county ordinance, in addition to limiting contributions to candidates at $700, also sets a $700 limit on contributions to independent expenditure committees. But since the court has ruled that there is no valid government interest in regulating such committees (because the "appearance of conflict" argument didn't fly with the justices), local governments can no longer impose such restrictions.

Supervisor Steve Bennett acknowledged to me today that he has regretfully come to that conclusion and will ask the board to rescind that portion of the ordinance.

The decision will come just in time to clear the way for independent expenditure committees to potentially play a large role in Assemblywoman Audra Strickland's upcoming challenge of Supervisor Linda Parks.

The Supreme Court majority's reasoning is that since independent expenditures do not flow through the hands of a candidates, one cannot say it creates the taint of conflict if, say, the pharmaceutical industry puts together a million-dollar independent campaign to support a member of Congress who later votes to prohibit U.S. citizens from purchasing prescription drugs from Canada.

It's a puzzling argument. As FPPC Chairman Ross Johnson told me last month, it "assumes that candidates and officeholders live in caves."

(An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported data about Susan Jordan's report)

After playing a tiresome game of chicken throughout the day on Monday, 35th Assembly District Democratic candidates finally filed their campaign finance reports in the evening (Das Williams blinked first, shortly before 6; Susan Jordan waited until almost 9 p.m.).

When it was finally available, however, the information was indeed revealing. It showed Williams has not only a substantial advantage ($103,000 more in the bank), but also that he is very good at raising money.

By Williams' count, he has received contributions from nearly 600 separate donors, about three-quarters of them individuals in the district. He told me that an online appeal in late December was fabulously successful, a statement confirmed by the number of contributions in his report that list the online service ActBlue as an intermediary. That suggests that Santa Barbara has become a very good place for Democrats to raise money; those who got engaged in donating to campaigns during the 2008 presidential campaign and the no-holds-barred race for state Senate in the area may be ready to make a habit of it.

Jordan's numbers were not so good. She reached the $100,000 mark during the last half with the help of a $3,400 transfer on Dec. 28 from the campaign account of her husband, Assemblyman Pedro Nava.

Still, it's enough to be competitive. The guess here is that both candidates will have to spend all or nearly all of what they have by the June primary.

That's good news for Republican candidate Mike Stoker, who has $98,000 in the bank and will be able to hold on to nearly all of it through June. That will give him a big jump on the general election, as the winning Democrat will have to start raising money all over again.