Far West

Vallejo, Calif., City Council members will weigh a plan to emerge from bankruptcy later this month, but the city is still likely more than half a year away from exiting the largest municipal bankruptcy in more than a decade.

Robert Dean Pope, a partner at Hunton & Williams in Richmond, Va., was elected president of the American College of Bond Counsel at the group's annual meeting late last month in San Antonio.

Securities and Exchange Commission member Elisse Walter wants Congress to do away with the exemptions for municipal debt in the federal securities laws, but probably would not want the SEC to collect bond documents from issuers prior to issuance, according to bond attorneys familiar with the matter.

Late budgets will be a thing of the past, a key California lawmaker promised Wednesday, a day after the state's voters approved a measure that allows spending plans to pass the Legislature with a majority vote instead of two-thirds.

The prospects for a comprehensive climate-change bill favored by public power utilities is presumed dead following Tuesday's election because Republicans, who will control the House in January, have opposed such measures, sources said Thursday.

The Internal Revenue Service has completed an audit of $67.6 million of bonds issued by Washington's Vancouver Downtown Redevelopment Authority in 2003 with no change to the bonds' tax-exempt status, the issuer disclosed this week.

Democrat John Kitzhaber will be back to serve another term as Oregon governor.

Nevada Treasurer Kate Marshall will serve a second term.

Idaho voters Tuesday approved three constitutional amendments that make it easier for governments and agencies to issue revenue bonds.

Longtime Congressman Neil Abercrombie won a resounding election as Hawaii's governor Tuesday, on a night when the state bucked the national Republican trend.