A.M. Splash: Following Disappointing House Results, Whither Pelosi?; Calif. Gay Marriage Activists Look to Courts

Speculation about Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's future is intensifying after House Democrats failed to net more than a single-digit gain in Tuesday's election, despite gaining at least four seats, and possibly as many as six seats, in California. Pelosi's office is tamping down the idea that she might step down as minority leader. But the San Francisco Democrat has been uncharacteristically quiet, holding no post-election conference calls with the caucus.

With thousands of ballots yet to be counted, City College of San Francisco’s board of trustees race remains in limbo. The seven-member board had four seats up for grabs in Tuesday’s election, with 10 candidates running. As of Thursday, a few hundred votes separated fourth and fifth place. Incumbent Steve Ngo is leading the pack with 81,386 votes, according to the Department of Elections. Rafael Mandelman jumped into second place with 77,206 votes. That left incumbent Natalie Berg in third with 76,723 votes. Chris Jackson, also an incumbent, currently has the fourth-highest vote total with 73,008, but a mere 549 votes behind him is Amy Bacharach. An estimated 74,000 ballots still need to be counted, which could tip the race one way or another. An additional 24,000 provisional ballots won’t be looked at until Tuesday.

The outcome of the District 7 supervisorial election is far from resolved, after labor leader F.X. Crowley’s margin over his closest competitor decreased Thursday from 331 votes to just 97 after 3,400 additional ballots were counted. The race appears to be a tossup between Crowley and Board of Education President Norman Yee, who is viewed as the more progressive of the two candidates.

The Bay Area job market should expand more quickly than California and the nation over the next two years, primarily because of solid employment growth in the San Jose and San Francisco area, although the Oakland area should expand as well, a report released Thursday shows. Over the two years that include 2013 and 2014, job totals in the Bay Area should expand by 7.2 percent, the Bay Area Council's Economic Institute reported. That would mean average growth in the 3.5 percent range for each of the two years.

The historic votes of four states this week in favor of gay marriage -- an apparent sea change in U.S. public opinion -- have sparked the hopes of many Californians who want to turn the tide in the Golden State. But that doesn't mean advocates of gay marriage want to see Californians vote on another ballot measure here. Instead, they're counting on a relatively conservative U.S. Supreme Court to make same-sex unions legal throughout the country.

Proposition 30's victory at the polls may have ended the prospect of deep midyear budget cuts for California's public universities, but students are in no mood to celebrate. On Thursday, some of the very students who helped rally their campuses around the tax measure demonstrated across the Bay Area, demanding rollbacks to ever-rising tuition hikes and more space in overcrowded classes.

Next week, when California State University trustees meet in Long Beach, they will consider the age-old "super senior" problem in a new way -- through extra fees. If the trustees approve, starting next fall, students who retake a class, or take a long time to graduate, or who sign up for more than a full course load in a semester would be charged extra for it.

Residents of Treasure and Yerba Buena islands may have million-dollar views, but they're tired of paying an unexpected price for them - living in the dark for several hours a week. Since the start of the year, power on the islands has gone out an average of once a week for four hours at a time, according