Should voters approve new taxes without seeing the books?
Should voters approve new taxes without seeing the books?
As Californians head to the polls, voters statewide will be deciding on whether to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in local tax hikes and new government bonds. The problem? Over two dozen cities, counties and school districts are asking for more money, but elected officials in those jurisdictions don’t even know what their financial...
By Andrew Davenport
Golden Debacle – The California political machine is no model for the nation
Golden Debacle – The California political machine is no model for the nation
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has been light on policy specifics, but her political inheritance provides clues. Harris is a creature, after all, of the California political machine. What real-world results has that machine produced? The Golden State still has a powerful economic base, though its government budgets are once again in deficit territory. California’s success,...
By Edward Ring
California’s Unstoppable Taxation Machine
California’s Unstoppable Taxation Machine
The powers that be seek to make it virtually impossible for state residents to restrain taxation and spending. Every two years, in addition to electing their state and local officials, Californians participate in so-called citizen democracy, a process by which they approve or reject legislation in the form of ballot initiatives. This election season is...
By Edward Ring
Ways California Can Have Abundant Energy
Ways California Can Have Abundant Energy
With the right combination of new policies in California, abundant energy ought to be just around the corner. Nearly all new energy development can be privately financed, and it can be delivered while creating tens of thousands of high paying jobs. But for this to happen, California’s state legislators will need to accept the following...
By Edward Ring
Would Suing the Bureaucracy Bring Us More Water?
Would Suing the Bureaucracy Bring Us More Water?
There isn’t a major water project in California in the last 30 years or more that hasn’t been subject to relentless litigation. Usually the litigators represent powerful environmentalist organizations, sometimes they represent social justice groups, and sometimes they represent labor. But in every case, they hit water projects from every legal angle imaginable, either completely...
By Edward Ring
What the City of Santa Ana Does Not Want the Public to Know
What the City of Santa Ana Does Not Want the Public to Know
Longtime teacher Brenda Lebsack noticed some disconcerting statistics coming out of the Santa Ana Unified School District. Only 30% of students are proficient in reading and 20% are proficient in math, but graduation rates are at 91%. To raise awareness in the community, she called the City of Santa Ana seeking to place the following...
By Julie Hamill
California Student Test Scores Fall Short but Education Officials Ignore Root Causes
California Student Test Scores Fall Short but Education Officials Ignore Root Causes
The California Department of Education released its annual student test scores this week and the news is sobering. The state’s California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) results for the 2023-24 school year show the percentage of students who have met or exceeded state standards for English language arts, math and science has increased only slightly...
By California Policy Center
The Disruptive Potential of Photovoltaics
The Disruptive Potential of Photovoltaics
Earlier this year the New York Times published an opinion piece “What Will We Do With Our Free Power?,” written by David Wallace Wells. The sheer optimism of the piece was a breath of fresh air. Rather than emphasizing the existential terror of a climate crisis that renewable energy may help us avert, the author focused on...
By Edward Ring
CPC files amicus brief in support of Temecula school district
CPC files amicus brief in support of Temecula school district
CPC Amicus Brief in Support of District Read the Full Amicus Brief Here. In Mae M. v. Komrosky, the trial court upheld Temecula Valley Unified School District’s (“TVUSD”) resolution against teaching racist and divisive theories and policy requiring parental notification when students change their identity at school. Union plaintiffs appealed, contending that the district was...
By Julie Hamill
Time to Gut and Amend California’s Rogue Water Agencies
Time to Gut and Amend California’s Rogue Water Agencies
In California today, we have given unelected state bureaucrats the power to make decisions that affect millions of people and cost billions of dollars, and there is almost no recourse. There is also very little public criticism of the decisions these agencies make. That’s because the people who are most familiar with the extraordinary power...
By Edward Ring
California parents and voters wait too long for vital data
California parents and voters wait too long for vital data
As the 2024-25 school year is underway, Californians await the results for last school year’s CAASPP testing. CAASPP (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress) assessments measure student achievement in the areas of English, math, and science, and are taken in the spring; Results are then publicly released the following fall. The release date for...
By Sheridan Karras
Newsom’s “Special Session” on Gasoline Prices
Newsom’s “Special Session” on Gasoline Prices
By now most of the mega-majority Democrats in our state legislature understand basic facts about energy in California: We still derive 50 percent of our total energy from petroleum, and another 30 percent of our energy from natural gas. This makes them understandably reluctant to kill California’s oil and gas industry, and gives them pause...
By Edward Ring
Congress Comes to Santa Nella to Talk About Water
Congress Comes to Santa Nella to Talk About Water
The Great Valley of California, one of “the more notable structural depressions in the world,” covers an area of 20,000 square miles. More than half of it, about 6.7 million acres, or over 10,000 square miles, is irrigated farmland. If you drive south on the main north-south artery, Interstate 5, orchards and cultivated fields appear as...
By Edward Ring