Why is it axiomatic among California’s water agencies and policymakers that large scale desalination is inconceivable in California? That certainly isn’t the case in other arid locales. In 2024, an estimated 30 million acre feet of fresh water was produced by desalination plants worldwide. On the coast of the Red Sea, about 60 miles south of the...
As California wallows in continued low student performance, a new study shows that school choice is making a positive difference in student outcomes in Arkansas. Recently released scores on California’s state tests in English and math show huge proportions of students failing to achieve proficiency in the basic subjects. More than half of California students...
A federal judge has certified a landmark class action lawsuit that could finally bring an end to California’s state-sanctioned “Parental Exclusion Policies” that order teachers to hide a child’s gender transition at school from their own parents. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California issued the October 15 order in Mirabelli v. Olson, a lawsuit...
Preparing school budgets is a monumental task. Julie Hamill, former trustee on the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District Board, recently recommended a great book on the subject. I’m sure most school trustees in California have heard of it. “Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools” (2022) is by Nathan Levenson, and it was a great read. Levenson...
SEIU (the Service Employees International Union) is at it again. After failing three times to use California ballot initiatives to shake down dialysis providers, the union is now turning its ballot warfare to a new target: California’s 200 or so billionaires. SEIU is sponsoring the “2026 Billionaires Tax Act”. The measure, recently listed on the...
An opinion piece in the Santa Barbara Independent, published last week, heralded the decision by the Santa Barbara County board of supervisors to phase out oil drilling, which as the authors put it, “will save lives, reduce air pollution, and help meet our climate goals.” Meanwhile, a study about to be publicly released by James Rector,...
During this month’s government shutdown, Bernie Sanders has been repeating the standard Progressive shibboleth: “Healthcare is a Right!” While this slogan appears to be sufficient to silence opposition, it does not receive sufficient examination. But as this month’s strike at Kaiser Permanente shows, union rights, another major Progressive cause, can and does trump the alleged...
While the progressive candidates in America rely on millions of college-educated liberals as its base, it depends on two additional sources of political power. The loss of either one could be fatal to the party’s ability to win elections. The first is America’s financial elites, providing money and institutional support. The second is America’s low-income...
Earlier this month a letter was sent to Governor Newsom from the State Water Contractors, an association of 27 water agencies that together deliver water to nearly 30 million Californians and irrigate nearly one million acres of farmland. This letter is a document of extraordinary importance to the future of California’s water supply. It summarizes several significant reasons...
The California High-Speed Rail Authority has finally recognized the obvious: there is no path to connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco with trains running at 220mph. With state rail officials now accepting reality, the question is whether northern California transit planners will do so as well by cancelling their plan to extend California High-Speed Rail...
About four months have passed since most local government agencies adopted FY2025‑26 budgets, and roughly four months remain before leaders begin planning FY2026‑27. But waiting to think about budget decisions until the official start of the budget process is a costly mistake. Every day that passes with inaction is a lost opportunity to improve both...
For partisan Democrats and Republicans, deciding how to vote on Proposition 50 is simple, since it is likely to shift five House seats into the Democratic column in what promises to be a closely fought 2026 Congressional election. But for decline-to-state and third-party voters, as well as less passionate major party registrants, the choice will...
Sacramento – The City of Petaluma issued a lengthy press release last week in an attempt to spin its way out of the “F” grade it earned for ranking dead last among California cities on the California Policy Center’s 2024 Local Fiscal Health Dashboard. Petaluma ranked No. 328 out of 328 cities with reported data....
For the most part, California’s farmers grow food, not fuel. But the fuel required to operate farm equipment is diesel fuel, increasingly refined from food grown on America’s great plains. Digging into this reveals a rabbit hole of such depth and complexity that I’ll skip to the conclusion before evaluating just a few critical details....