Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Wednesday

Yesterday we covered the special election jockeying that is already underway to replace recently passed Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald. Now Politico has picked up the story and thrown out one name mulling over getting in the race: Councilwoman Janice Hahn. Stay tuned.

After the leap: Losing the American dream, when is a blogger a Downtown blogger and the latest Bitter Bernie photo op.

It used to be the American dream if you worked hard and played by the rules, it was your right to own a bigger home on your property. Now that's been equated with pornography, toxic waste dumping and beating up old ladies with a heavily emotionally charged term; mansionization. Of course, many of the City officials who impose these laws on you and me live in mansions of their own. The Times covers a new direction of the LA City Planning Commission, some of which is productive, but overall amounts to further nanny state overregulation of private property owners (usually by other private property owners).

Both Curbed LA and LAist bring us the news that Outside.in has named Downtown LA as the third bloggiest community in the US. However, it begs the question what is a downtown LA blog? A graphic displayed on LAist which seems to imply that blogs such LAist itself, LAVoice, Curbed LA and Metroblogging LA - among others - are downtown blogs. Despite the fact these blogs have citywide focuses. How about the Sister City? Probably 80% of the new we cover happens downtown (though our writers are based all over Los Angeles). In my view the real downtown blogs are those that are actually based there, most notably Don Garza's Downtown Central City East Blog.

Even though Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez has proposed the idea, some Democrats aren't biting at his plan to bring some fairness to legislative re-districting: turn the job over to the bi-partisan Little Hoover Commission. Sounds like a good idea to me.

When will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi be prosecuted for breaking Federal law by traveling to Syria and conduct foreign relations? An interesting blog called Stalin's Chickens makes the case.

If you can make this event I highly recommend it - a reception for super smart ABC newsman John Stossel.

And finally, I'll take Political Photo Ops for $200. The answer is "Giving a city proclamation to Jeopardy host Alex Trebek." The question: "How is City Council Member 'Bitter' Bernie Parks planning to waste precious Council time this Friday?" (Don't get me wrong, Alex is a great guy but come on man we have business to attend to. Occasional proclamations for great civic deeds are acceptable but the Friday practice has become quite excessive in recent years.)