Union bosses investing in Ohio Senate Republicans By Jason Hart, October 28, 2014, Ohio Watchdog Labor groups supporting big government and mandatory union dues gave $178,867 to eight Republican incumbents in the Ohio Senate during the most recent campaign finance period. Kevin Bacon, Bill Beagle, Cliff Hite, Shannon Jones, Frank LaRose, Gayle Manning, Scott Oelslager...

“As the result of California Courts refusing to uphold the language of the High Speed Rail bonds, the opponents of any bond proposal, at either the state or local level, need only point to High-Speed Rail to remind voters that promises in a voter approved bond proposal are meaningless and unenforceable.” –  Jon Coupal, October...

It was only a matter of time before the Los Angeles school chief was run out of town. John Deasy is the latest to exit the fast-moving revolving door known as Los Angeles School Superintendent. The job – really an impossible one – saw Roy Romer replace Ray Cortines in 2001. Romer in turn was...

California’s quest to end global climate change is inspiring many obscure, complicated, and costly regulations. And when state executive branch agencies propose new regulations to save the planet, unions are there with their own agendas. California Can’t Let Just Anyone Check Your Dimmer Switches The 2013 revisions to California’s Building Energy Efficiency Standards (in the...

The names Doreen Diaz and Bartola Del Villar appear nowhere in the text of the Parent Empowerment Act, also known as the Parent Trigger, that I wrote in 2010. The law empowers parents to bypass the political paralysis of our education bureaucracy that is responsible for perpetuating the status quo failure of our schools. Today,...

Napa County declares impasse in labor negotiations By Barry Eberling, October 21, 2014, Napa Valley Register Napa County has declared an impasse in its contract negotiations with its largest employees union and the union’s response raises the possibility of a strike, though one has not been called. Both sides issued press releases on Monday and...

Weakening pensions is a choice, not an imperative. The crisis is political, not actuarial. – Susan Greenbaum, guest editorial, Al Jazeera America, October 20, 2014 With this thesis highlighted, Greenbaum, a retired professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida, has just published a guest editorial that provides in one place a useful example...

When it comes to organized labor, California is a friendly state. We long ago eschewed right-to-work status. Labor unions enjoy a web of laws that ease organizing workers, like  farmworkers,refinery employees, teachers, and state and local government workers. Other laws give union contracts special status unavailable to nonunion employees, such as the ability to work longer days without triggering overtime and avoid the new sick...

Reformer battles with teachers union darling for top education position in Sacramento. “Teachers Unions Are Putting Themselves On November’s Ballot” was the headline in a recent article by Haley Edwards in Time Magazine. Okay, this is hardly news, but the extent of the largess is eye-opening. Considering that this is not a presidential election year,...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sacramento, California, October 16, 2014 Contact: press@calpolicycenter.org, 916-439-2159 Concerned About Debt, California Policy Center Seeks to Increase Public Awareness of How Municipal Bonds Work The California Policy Center has just released some preliminary findings from an ongoing study of school bond financing. The complete study will be released later this year. In...