In November 2018, the Liberty Justice Center and California Policy Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of special education teacher Thomas Few against the United Teachers of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District for violating Few’s First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of association. Despite the decisive victory for workers’...
In 2012, San Diego voters approved Proposition B, a pension reform measure that replaced pensions for new hires with a 401K plan. Seven years later, this reform is likely to be completely unwound, because union attorneys successfully argued that the city did not “meet and confer” with the unions before putting the reform measure on...
Charter school leaders and supporters took aim at Assemblymember Kevin McCarty during a March 13 protest on the steps of the state capitol in Sacramento. McCarty, a Sacramento Democrat, found himself under fire for sponsoring a bill to cap the number of public charter schools in California. Public charter schools, which are privately operated public...
Kamala Harris has concocted a brazen plan to get the teacher union endorsement in 2020. In July, 2015, a full year before the last Democratic National Convention, the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. This infuriated many teachers, who preferred Bernie Sanders, rightfully feeling they had no role in the decision. AFT...
California’s political elites are at odds with history and the natural preferences of millions of Californians. The good life in California is out of reach to ordinary people. The reason for that is simple: homes cost too much, energy costs too much, water costs too much, and transportation infrastructure is inadequate. In each of these...
Week 32’s winning entry is from Contessa Mendoza (the_barefoot_contessa14) for her wonderful, high-social-impact post. The post clearly shows both the product (Human HeartGreens™) and the Prop 65 warning and in the process, focuses on one of the great ironies of Prop65: the treatment of natural versus processed food. How can a heart-healthy superfood, like HeartGreens™,...
Should the government spend money to benefit private companies? Should the government spend money to influence voters? In California, they do this all the time. There are laws specifically written to prevent this, but they are undermined by aggressive exploitation of loopholes combined with lax enforcement. And to be fair, genuine ambiguity often makes it...
The radical sexual agenda in California and elsewhere has mothers and fathers furious, and ready to act. When I speak to groups in California about the problems with public education and parents ask what they can do to change things, I advise them to speak to their kids daily about what they have learned in...
America’s most dysfunctional school district has stepped in it again. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), apparently coming to the shocking realization that there was no way they could pay for the horrible deal they just cut with the unions, has hurriedly placed on the ballot for June a new property tax that leaves...
Mary Eyde’s Bendy Man Tweet wins week 31. The combination of a clear readable warning, a picture of the product itself, illustrations of the ways the product can be used, a funny quip, and a strong social media score, are attributes CPC’s judges are seeking. One can only wonder how a lighted product intended to...
“The ruling is also an implicit endorsement of the state Public Employment Relations Board’s conclusion that the employees hired since the measure took effect must be made whole and get a pension equivalent to what they would have received pre-Proposition B.” – Editorial, San Diego Union Tribune, March 18, 2019 The ruling in question is the...
Instead of American history, students now learn about the evils of capitalism, airplanes and cow farts. “‘Education is Political’: Neutrality in the Classroom Shortchanges Students” read a recent headline on the National Education Association website. What the teachers union is essentially saying is that an objective approach to controversial subjects does a disservice to the...
In the birthplace of high tech, government financial statements exist only in PDF format. Last year, California’s state Senate and Assembly passed 1,217 pieces of legislation. Governor Brown signed 1,016 of them into law, and most took effect January 1st. Included were predictable acts of liberal zealotry – sanctuary for the undocumented, gender equity on corporate boards, gun...
The recent ruling by the California Supreme Court in the case CalFire vs CalPERS has garnered much attention from pension reformers. While falling short of being a landmark ruling, the result was nonetheless encouraging. The court left open the possibility that vesting does not protect prospective benefits of current employees. The implications of that are left to related, still...