Pines gets a parachute

Burt Pines used to be the elected Los Angeles city attorney and most recently has been the judicial appointments secretary for Gray Davis, helping the governor choose which lawyers to make judges. On Tuesday, with his time running out, Davis put Pines himself on the L.A. Superior Court bench.

Update: Then the soon-to-be-ex governor appointed 187 others to various posts. Press secretary Steve Maviglio, for example, is named to the state's Italian-American Task Force. (And Willie Mays to the California African-American Museum board of directors.) Davis says he spoke with Schwarzenegger first, and has made fewer transition appointments than governors Brown (397), Deukmejian (235) or Wilson (435).