Register now for CPC Parent Union’s fourth annual Parents, Not Partisans Summit
Register now for CPC Parent Union’s fourth annual Parents, Not Partisans Summit
Don’t miss California Policy Center fourth annual “Parents, Not Partisans” Summit — California at the Crossroads of Education — March 18-19, 2025 in Sacramento! This transformative two-day event brings together parent group leaders, education reform advocates, and school board members from across California to learn, network, and mobilize. Day 1: Our all-day conference at the Embassy...
By California Policy Center
Redefining Environmentalism
Redefining Environmentalism
“I think what we can learn here is that we are guests in this landscape.” – Marissa Christiansen, Executive Director of the Climate and Wildfire Institute, Los Angeles If you’re looking for one sentence that encapsulates the mentality and premise that underlines mainstream environmentalism in America today, these words from Marissa Christiansen, quoted in the...
By Edward Ring
Wildfires and the Efficient Government Trap
Wildfires and the Efficient Government Trap
The misguided quest for efficient government As the wildfires raged in southern California last month, we witnessed bipartisan support for the reintroduction of The Fix our Forests Act, ostensibly designed to reform forest management. At the same time, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced that it will submit to outside investigations to...
By Mark Moses
Twelve Scarcity-Enabling Laws to Scrap
Twelve Scarcity-Enabling Laws to Scrap
Last week, as a representative of the California Policy Center, I had the opportunity to testify before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee at a hearing on the topic of “California Fires and the Consequences of Overregulation.” While my remarks were limited to five minutes, the written testimony that we entered into the Congressional Record...
By Edward Ring
On Behalf of California Policy Center, The Liberty Justice Center and California Justice Center Challenge Employer Censorship Law
On Behalf of California Policy Center, The Liberty Justice Center and California Justice Center Challenge Employer Censorship Law
On February 11, the Liberty Justice Center and California Justice Center filed a federal lawsuit challenging a California law that violates employers’ First Amendment rights by prohibiting companies from discussing any “religious or political matters” at mandatory meetings. On September 27, 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 399 (SB 399) into law. Although labeled the...
By California Policy Center
Prairie Fire, 50 Years Later
Prairie Fire, 50 Years Later
Fifty years ago, in late July and August 1974, a 156-page paperback book with a red cover showed up in alternative bookstores, radical collectives, and coffee houses across America seemingly from nowhere. The book, Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism, electrified and reinvigorated the nation’s dispirited and dispersing leftist radicals and exacerbated a new...
By Truman Angell
Edward Ring Testifies before Congress on the California Fires and the Consequences of Overregulation
Edward Ring Testifies before Congress on the California Fires and the Consequences of Overregulation
Edward Ring, Director of Water and Energy Policy at California Policy Center, testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust on Thursday, February 7, 2025. The hearing, “California Fires and the Consequences of Overregulation,” examined the ways years of overregulation on environmental issues has thwarted effective fire...
By California Policy Center
Conditions to Put on Federal Relief Funds
Conditions to Put on Federal Relief Funds
What can President Trump do to pressure Governor Newsom and the California legislature to manage the state’s water projects in a way that doesn’t simply offset the federal efforts? What leverage does he have, if for every federal regulation that is relaxed, its equivalent in California is further tightened? As it turns out, there’s a...
By Edward Ring
California Fires Don’t Justify an Energy Industry Shakedown
California Fires Don’t Justify an Energy Industry Shakedown
A bill that would allow state residents to sue private companies for restitution is only the latest front in California’s ongoing war on oil producers. L.A.’s wildfires are still burning, but that hasn’t stopped anyone with eyeballs from identifying the likely causes: America’s costliest natural disaster isn’t “natural,” really, or not entirely. It is, in fact, the...
By Will Swaim
Time to Bring California Out of the Municipal Reporting Stone Age
Time to Bring California Out of the Municipal Reporting Stone Age
California brands itself as the global leader in technology and innovation. Yet when it comes to modernizing state and municipal government financial reporting, the Golden State is stuck in the digital stone age. Currently, California’s local governments submit their Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (ACFRs) — audited financial statements, detailing financial positions and changes in a...
By Andrew Davenport
Burnt Wiener Sandwich
Burnt Wiener Sandwich
San Francisco State Senator Scott Wiener is California’s most devious and craven politician. Sensing an opportunity to pit two despised industries against one another, he submitted a new bill, seemingly overnight, that blames California’s recent wildfires on oil companies and allows insurance companies to sue them. Senate Bill 222 is another bill in a long...
By Truman Angell
Ten State Water Laws to Scrap
Ten State Water Laws to Scrap
There are two ways we can respond as Californians to the wildfires in Los Angeles, and for those who share this concern, to the climate crisis which they cite as an underlying cause. We can ration our consumption and retreat into increasingly dense urban cores. That’s one option. Or, alternatively, we can adapt and advance,...
By Edward Ring
When Will Gavin Newsom Stop Deflecting Blame for the Wildfires?
When Will Gavin Newsom Stop Deflecting Blame for the Wildfires?
His responses to criticism don’t withstand scrutiny. The people of Los Angeles are experiencing one of the most horrific disasters in the city’s history. Wind-driven fires have raced through the canyons and into neighborhoods, destroying thousands of homes and costing dozens of lives. The ordeal has only begun; rebuilding is certain to take years. For...
By Edward Ring