California AG Sues Big Oil

Fiscal Rankings for Los Angeles County’s 88 Cities Finally Available, for 2020

The city of Huntington Park, California has finally released its Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) for the year ending June 30, 2020. The audit by external independent auditors was finally completed on Aug. 10, but was not released until Dec. 5. Thus, Huntington Park won the race for dead last in transparency and accountability among...

By John Moorlach

How Alleged Corruption Can Stun a City

In their book, “Bridgebuilders: How Government Can Transcend Boundaries to Solve Big Problems,” William Eggers and Donald Kettl make a simple observation: “Accountability and trust go hand in hand.” What if a government doesn’t provide transparency that allows for accountability? It makes building trust very difficult. What happens when a government is so shell-shocked from...

By John Moorlach

Battery Innovations for EVs and the Grid

If there is anything that unites Californians it is a belief that anything is possible. How else to explain our state’s mad rush into renewables. Even a skeptic ought to be impressed. With massive wealth, a diverse and resilient economy, abundant sunshine and mild winters, and infinite reserves of imagination that define our culture, the...

By Edward Ring

Temecula Teachers Want Education, Not Indoctrination

Many teachers in California are fed up with the political activism of their teachers’ union that is not aligned with the interests of educators and students — and often disrupts and derails classroom instruction in favor of political agendas. A case in point is the United Educators of San Francisco, which recently issued statements calling...

By Andrew Davenport

The Newsom-DeSantis debate was over before it started

The Thursday night debate between California Governor Gavin Newsom and Florida’s Ron DeSantis was over before the Klieg lights went up. The facts of California’s decline are evident to everyone but the most disingenuous. As the old saying goes, “Facts is facts,” and on the facts, DeSantis had the debate won by Wednesday. All that...

By Will Swaim

Energy and Water Killing Legislation

As we move into the final month of 2023, it is appropriate to review recent legislative actions that will have a significant impact on California’s ability to deliver abundant and affordable energy and water to its residents. There isn’t much good news. Almost without exception, the California Legislature is making energy and water scarce and...

By Edward Ring

California Teachers Association is Losing Members

California’s political landscape is changing, and that’s cause for celebration. In 2018, the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling prohibited the collection of union dues from public employees as a condition of employment. Before that ruling, with few exceptions, no dues meant no job. By protecting a worker’s right to choose to financially support a union, Janus...

By Chris LaBella

When Will California Quit Holding Up Annual Fiscal Rankings?

There are several metrics that can be used to effectively rank the fiscal status of our nation’s 50 states. The top resource for years, when one searched for this information, was the Mercatus School at George Mason University. US News & World Report has and continues to provide an annual ranking of the states. The...

By John Moorlach

California State Auditor Removes Fiscal Accountability Dashboard

California’s fiscal accountability dashboard for cities, which was implemented in 2019 and identified local governments with financial problems, was taken down last month. Why? First, some background. The County of Orange in Southern California incurred an infamous fiscal calamity in the closing month of 1994 that resulted in nearly $1.7 billion in investment losses. It...

By John Moorlach

Former State Sen. John Moorlach joins California Policy Center

TUSTIN, CA (Nov. 13, 2023) — Former California state Senator John Moorlach has joined California Policy Center (CPC) as senior fellow and director of CPC’s Center for Public Accountability. “I’ve known John as a friend, a finance whiz and principled leader since Ronald Reagan’s second term,” said CPC president Will Swaim. “His consistent approach to fiscal...

By California Policy Center

California Bureaucrats Embrace Water Rationing

On October 4 the California State Water Board held a hearing to discuss how it will implement Senate Bill 1157, passed by the state legislature in 2022, which lowers indoor water-use standards to 47 gallons per person starting in 2025 and 42 gallons in 2030. The title of the hearing was “Making Water Conservation a Way...

By Edward Ring

Climate Data Refutes Crisis Narrative

On September 16, with great fanfare, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced his office had filed a lawsuit against five major oil companies. Accusing them of knowingly misleading the public regarding the alleged harm that fossil fuels would inflict on the climate, Bonta’s office seeks billions in compensatory damages. But the climate change theory that...

By Edward Ring

The California State Auditor is Again Driving Without a Dashboard

Last spring, when I wrote “The Rise of Zombie Cities,” I thought that, by now, some of my statements would have been proven prophetic. In the article, I discussed the results of the California State Auditor’s 2022 report on the “Fiscal Health of Cities.” I also noted several negative trends affecting city finances, such as...

By Mark Moses

“Don’t lie, don’t deceive, don’t hide from the public clean energy pathways forward, and don’t hide from the public the existential threat that fossil fuels created in terms of climate change and extreme weather and damage to the environment.” — California Attorney General Rob Bonta, PBS interview, Sept. 20, 2023 Bonta’s statement exposes the inherent and...

By Edward Ring