Flyers distributed in Capistrano Unified School District schools and the main office promote the district’s upcoming $889 million property tax increase as a benefit to homeowners. That claim would appear to be a political response to criticism of Measure M, the controversial bond on the South Orange County district’s November 8 ballot. Critics have said...

  Editor’s Note: Members of the Libertarian Party of San Francisco (LPSF) tried and failed to include an opposing argument to an extension and increase of a Community College parcel tax in the Voters Handbook. Here Party Chair Aubrey Freedman describes the process by which the San Francisco Department of Elections silenced not only the...

State law prohibits government officials from using taxpayer dollars in political campaigns. But on June 8, Keith Weaver of Government Financial Strategies stood before the Capistrano Unified school board, coaching trustees on how to pass an $889 bond measure on the November 8 ballot. “November elections do better,” said Weaver, whose Sacramento-based firm has been paid...

The state government pension crisis: You will be made to care By Chuck Devore, October 11, 2016, Washington Examiner California Gov. Jerry Brown just signed SB 1234, a bill that establishes the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Trust, a state-run retirement fund for 7.5 million Californians. All firms with more than four employees will be...

“Political Parties,” published by the German political theorist Roberto Michels in 1911, is a relatively obscure book. But in this book, Michels offers a concept that has increasing relevance today, the “Iron Law of Oligarchy.” This law is summed up reasonably well in its Wikipedia entry: “According to Michels all organizations eventually come to be...

For Immediate Release October 11, 2016 California Policy Center Contact: Will Swaim Will@CalPolicyCenter.org (714) 573-2231 Vernon, California is so famous for its history of corruption that it was the municipal star of season 2 of HBO’s “True Detective” series. Now the diminutive L.A. County town can claim another achievement: Vernon is the only California city with more public employees than...

AFT continues to use teachers as ATM machines to fund their pet leftist causes. The latest American Federation of Teachers annual financial disclosure has been released (H/T RiShawn Biddle). This year’s LM-2 is filled with goodies that are sure to warm the cockles of leftist teacher union members, but apolitical educators, centrists and certainly those...

National Public Radio’s Sunday morning story last month was a failure of basic journalism. “In Silicon Valley, Where a Teacher Works for Uber to Stay Middle-Class” features Matthew Barry, a high school economics teacher in California’s Morgan Hill Unified School District (MHUSD). He says his $69,000 annual salary is so insufficient to his surroundings in the...

It’s rare to see a California local government rescind a vote. But on October 4, 2016, the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 to rescind a controversial and probably illegal vote taken three weeks earlier to satisfy the political demands of construction unions. Rescind Project Labor Agreement Vote – San Joaquin County Board of...