“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean.” What’s happening in California isn’t politics in any conventional sense. No debate is underway, and no policy choices are being hashed out. We’re in the land beyond. In Our Democracy™, declarations are made, and...
Last month, Rubio’s Coastal Grill announced the permanent shutdown of 48 of their California locations. Ralph Rubio opened his first restaurant in 1983 in San Diego with a loan from his dad. After years of effort, Rubio’s expanded to approximately 200 locations throughout several states. Traditionally, this anecdote would serve as an example of the...
Last month, the California Teachers Association posted on Instagram: “This #WomensHistoryMonth, let’s fix a broken system that leaves educators without any paid disability related to pregnancy!” The fix, California’s largest teachers union asserts, is Assembly Bill 2901, authored by Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters). If passed, the state would require school districts and community...
In recent years, Californians have seen government intrusion on overdrive. From water rationing to cracking down on the “gig economy,” Sacramento has been telling us how to live our lives and run our businesses. Now, the state government has its eyes set on one of our most fundamental rights: the freedom of contract. Contracting is...
The state’s laboratory of policy chaos has produced another misbegotten experiment for progressives to replicate elsewhere. Gavin Newsom doesn’t need to run for president in order to shape national policy. The Biden administration has made clear it’ll follow California off a cliff, taking Newsom’s campaign against independent contractors national with a March 2024 Department of Labor...
Editor’s note: There’s so much misinformation about the state of AB 5, that we asked Karen Anderson, founder of Freelancers Against AB 5, for an update. AB5 has not been overturned. It is still the law and continues to wreak havoc across a vast swath of professions and sectors in California—everything from performing arts, event...
This past summer, the National Civic League published an article entitled “Is It None of Our Business?” The purpose of the article was to evaluate whether local government agencies should be undertaking national issues, which the League characterizes as “the ‘nationalization’ of local government matters.” The League concludes that such nationalization constitutes a “positive phenomenon.”...
In the devil’s workshop we call the state legislature, government union leaders are hard at work — destroying another of California’s democratic institutions. Fresh off the shutdown of Los Angeles Unified schools and the overthrow of their own elected president — and facing steep declines in membership and revenue — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) activists are...
A practical way for citizens to fight ill-conceived school bond measures View our full School Bonds Toolkit here for additional resources. School bonds are designed to fund the building and maintenance of school facilities, but there have been increasing concerns about bond oversight and how districts utilize bonds. Too often, school districts put bond measures on...
When state ballot initiatives propose new taxes, it’s big news. But while every election features a handful of state tax and bond proposals that get statewide attention, additional hundreds of local state and bond proposals fly under the radar. Fortunately, after each election cycle and once all the votes are certified – something that in...
California is considering paying “reparations” to Black Californians who are directly descended from enslaved people, which may surprise most Californians. After all, slavery was never legal in the Golden State. Governor Newsom, heedless of the fiasco he’s inviting, formed a “Reparations Task Force,” no doubt with his future presidential aspirations in mind. The task force...
Even by national standards, state ballot initiative campaigns in California are big time politics. You can run a campaign for U.S. Senator in most states in America for less than it costs to qualify and successfully campaign to pass a statewide ballot initiative in California. Political insiders in Sacramento describe any controversial initiative with well...