Political Landscape:

Rep. Adam Schiff called on U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Hodler on Wednesday to accept an appellate court decision to repeal Bush-era background checks for employees at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and instead develop a new security system “without trampling on the privacy of our best scientists and engineers.”

JPL scientists and engineers won a legal victory June 4 in their fight against a Bush-era directive to submit to more intrusive background checks after the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a 2008 injunction against the practice.

The class-action lawsuit against Homeland Security Directive 12, issued under the Bush administration in 2004, was filed in 2007 by 28 JPL employees after they were told they would have to submit to an extensive background check that could include interviews with friends, neighbors and co-workers or anyone the agency deemed important. The checks could also include questions regarding an individual’s health history and sexual orientation.

In his letter urging Holder to accept the appellate court’s decision, Schiff acknowledged the need to safeguard cutting-edge NASA research performed at JPL’s Pasadena campus, but urged the attorney general to accept the appellate court’s decision, arguing that the terms of Directive 12 “are clearly unnecessary and violative of the plaintiffs’ privacy without any corresponding gain to national security.”

The federal government now has 60 days from the June 4 ruling to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Antonovich joins protest over cut funding to jails

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich on Thursday announced his intent to introduce a motion that would join a growing chorus of opposition to proposed cuts in federal funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who runs the largest county jail system in the nation, has said the loss of about $14 million in federal funding — proposed as part of President Obama’s budget released last month — would be especially harsh in light of potential cuts that could come down as a result of the state budget crisis.