Public sector unions constitute the bedrock of progressive power in the United States. The estimated total nationwide membership exceeds 7 million, or 32 percent of all public employees. This compares to an equal number of unionized employees in the private sector, 7 million, but that only represents 6 percent of private sector employees. The fact...
The short answer is no. Never. What is happening with the Sites Reservoir is a case study in why, if the people running California today were in charge in the 1950s and 1960s, the California Water Project would never have been built. This reservoir, approved by voters in 2014, could have been built by now....
California’s school districts, counties and cities are fiscally strapped. And the public employee unions just cut their noses off to spite their faces, adding to the consternation. As a member of the California Assembly, Lorena Gonzalez-Fletcher felt that organizations and school districts should be held financially responsible for the bad acts of their employees who...
The argument against gerrymandering begins with visuals. Across the U.S., almost without exception, if you view a map of state and federal electoral districts, they appear as convoluted, obviously contrived jigsaw puzzles, drawn with no regard for geographic features or municipal boundaries. In the face of such obvious manipulation, so the argument goes, the process...
ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization and winner of multiple Pulitzer prizes, recently published a report “The Drying Planet.” They report that “Moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the...
Ian Choudri, the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s relatively new CEO has rolled out a new proposal for the bullet train’s future. His newly released supplemental project update report offers more realistic projections and some worthwhile ideas, but they are not consistent with current law. If Choudri wants to reimagine the high-speed rail program, the Authority...
August 23, 2025 CONTACT: Dawn Collier; Communications Director California Policy Center dawn@calpolicycenter.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Los Angeles — California Policy Center proudly congratulates attorney Julie Hamill on her new role at the United States Attorney’s Office, Central District of California in Los Angeles. Hamill will be serving as a Civil Rights Assistant United States Attorney...
California voters will have the final say on November 4th over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest power grab: a constitutional amendment that scraps the state’s independent redistricting commission and replaces it with gerrymandered maps drawn by Democratic politicians. Newsom never tires of warning that President Donald Trump is a “threat to democracy” — even as the...
Those of us following water politics and the water industry have become familiar with the most common units of water volume and water flow. Professionals in the industry make constant use of terms, often reduced to acronyms, forgetting that the rest of us may have no idea what they’re talking about. When it comes to...
A few years ago, former US Senator Phil Gramm published a book that offers important insights into the status of low-income communities in the United States. Titled “The Myth of American Inequality” and scrupulously researched, the book evaluates U.S. household income by quintiles. It concludes that the bottom quintile (the lowest 20 percent) actually has...
Newsom’s gerrymandering scheme not only disenfranchises independent and conservative voters in California, but all citizens of this State. The California Constitution guarantees citizens the right to meaningfully participate in the democratic process and be informed regarding legislation. In order to effectuate this guarantee, the people of California insisted on a minimum 30-day waiting period between...
This study analyzes the financial performance of 85 California transit operators for fiscal year 2023, revealing a significant gap between revenue and expenses that necessitates over $10 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies. The report identifies long-term cost escalation, driven by what economist William Baumol termed “Cost Disease,” as a core issue. It concludes that without...
In the case Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency can regulate greenhouse gases because they qualify as air pollutants. And ever since, electric power plants using “thermal” fuels have faced escalating regulatory pressure. How this has played out for coal fired power plants in the Western United States is summarized...