In 2018, the United States Supreme Court issued its landmark Janus decision, confirming that it’s unconstitutional for government employers to deduct union dues or fees from employee paychecks without the employee’s permission. In other words, no employee whose workplace is represented by a government union can be forced to pay any part of his or...
There is no special interest in California that wields more influence over state and local politics than public sector unions. At every level of government, from the office of the governor to a school board managing a district with only a few hundred students, public sector unions are omnipresent. With rare exceptions, to defy their...
Emilie Daedler | California Policy Center If you hope to reform policing in America, you have to reform the unions that invariably protect bad cops. That’s how Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, though trailing at least 17 excessive-force complaints, ended up on duty on May 25, the day George Floyd died. And that’s how San...
By Dennis Hull | California Policy Center By the time we saw him kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin already had at least 17 excessive-force complaints against him, just one of which ended in disciplinary action. Neither the city’s progressive city council nor its black police chief could alter that tragedy...
The one-size-fits-all regimen for schools needs to end. Originating in the Catholic Church, subsidiarity is an organizing principle that stipulates “matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority.” And our times are most definitely screaming for this simple but powerful concept to be applied to schooling. A perfect example...
On Thursday the California Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case Alameda County Deputy Sheriff’s Association vs Alameda County Employees’ Retirement Association. In plain English, this was a case where attorneys representing government unions were challenging pension reforms enacted by California’s state legislature in 2013. The ruling, which had the potential to empower dramatic changes...
The California Policy Center (CPC) has joined as local counsel on litigation over CARES Act relief for private schools. CPC joins a coalition of around 40 state and national groups led by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) advocating for private schools. CPC signed onto an amicus brief Wednesday in Michigan v. DeVos, a legal...
In April, with the pandemic shutdown sending California’s economy into free fall, Gavin Newsom convened a Zoom meeting with the four living California ex governors. He asked them to describe the biggest crisis they faced while in office. As reported by the New York Times, according to Pete Wilson, it was the 1994 Northridge earthquake. For Gray Davis,...
Last week, the school wars intensified on many fronts. Since Governor Gavin Newsom’s July 17th edict closing all but a handful of schools in California, much has transpired. First, it was uncovered a few days later that schools in the Golden State could apply for a waiver to reopen, something Newsom mysteriously omitted in his...
Until Gov. Gavin Newsom declared most California schools closed for the fall, he had left school re-openings to local officials. But before that declaration, Orange County Board of Education trustees had voted 4-1 to approve the reopening of schools in that county. California Policy Center helped draft an early version of those recommendations, and though the final...
With the economic shutdown devastating private sector employment in California, with small family-owned businesses the worst hit, how are California’s public employees doing? A recent report by NPR paints a grim picture, “Cities Have Never Seen A Downturn Like This, And Things Will Only Get Worse.” From the San Francisco Chronicle, “California cities warn of widespread...
Governor Newsom and teachers unions nix in-person instruction for most school kids in the fall. The writing was on the chalkboard when the California Teachers Association released a statement on July 8th asserting that, due to coronavirus concerns, schools should not open in the fall. The following day, the United Teachers of Los Angeles echoed...
Wiki Commons The second-largest public school district in the United States is in turmoil. Los Angeles Unified School District, with over 600,000 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade at over 1,000 schools, may not be open for the business of teaching on August 18. How to handle the COVID-19 pandemic is the issue, and there is...
Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders team up with the teachers unions; the big losers are poor and minority families. Back in May, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden tapped Senator Bernie Sanders to help assemble six task forces which would make recommendations for the party’s 2020 platform. The allegedly moderate Biden joined up with the...