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...
Progressive politicians have created the homeless crisis. Their policies have made housing unaffordable, driven away decent job opportunities, and encouraged vagrancy and drug addiction. Their solution – to build taxpayer subsidized housing, provided free and with no conditions to any homeless person – is a special interest scam, guaranteed to never solve the problem. Nowhere...
Amid a mass shortage of teachers across California, Governor Newsom accomplished something long overdue. He made it easier for qualified teaching staff to be hired. In January, Newsom signed an executive order to relax regulations that would have delayed the hiring of new substitute teachers. Executive Order N-3-22 also removes barriers to the reinstatement of...
California’s powerful unions had the state Assembly in its usual vise grip Monday as a legislative deadline loomed that made it do-or-die for some bills. All eyes were on AB1400, the bill that would put the state government in charge of healthcare for every Californian. But Monday afternoon, the legislation’s sponsor, Assemblyman Ash Kalra (D-San Jose),...
Think back to late December. Christmas was approaching and the news in California was getting grimmer by the day. California had one of the highest COVID case rates of any state. Just a month earlier, Governor Newsom locked down the state yet again. Hospitals were packed and there was a shortage of body bags. There...
Editor’s note: A Southern California businessman copied us on his open letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Given his reasonable fear of political retribution – from state tax investigators, for instance, or regulators – we honored his request to remain anonymous. Dear Gov. Newsom, I am writing as a lifelong resident of California. I was born...
For about twenty million years, California’s forests endured countless droughts, some lasting over a century. Natural fires, started by lightning and very frequent in the Sierras, were essential to keep forest ecosystems healthy. In Yosemite, for example, meadows used to cover most of the valley floor, because while forests constantly encroached, fires would periodically wipe...
Earlier this month the effort to recall Gavin Newsom was officially ended. As reported in the Times of San Diego on March 17, “Last week, the California Secretary of State’s Office informed Erin Cruz of Palm Springs that her petition effort to oust the Democratic governor had failed. A year earlier, an initiative to repeal California’s gas tax made...
For three years in a row, California’s progressive lawmakers have attempted to legislate high density housing by taking away the ability of cities and counties to enforce local zoning laws. And for the third year in a row, the proposed law, Senate Bill 50, was narrowly defeated. But eventually something like SB 50 is going to...
It isn’t a partisan observation to say that California is a one-party state. It’s just stating a fact. The Democratic Party controls all the levers of political power in California. Consider the evidence: GOP registration is down to 23 percent of registered voters. There is a Democratic “mega-majority” (75% or more) in both chambers of the...
Last week what is arguably California’s most powerful political special interest, the California Teachers Association (CTA), or teachers union, held its quarterly State Council of Education meeting at the plush Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The CTA reported revenues of $209 million on their most recent IRS Form 990 (results through 8/31/2018), and their total assets increased...