Legislation & Regulations | California Policy Center

California’s Excessive Occupational Licensing Requirements Hurt Workers and the Economy

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...

By Edison Lee

A Tale of Two Bad Bills

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),...

By California Policy Center

Dear California: The winter wave is over. Let’s reopen.

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...

By Brandon Ristoff

Open Letter to Gov. Newsom: ‘Don’t Make it Easy to Leave the State We Love’

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...

By California Policy Center

How to Save California’s Forests

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...

By Edward Ring

Grassroots Infrastructure for Initiatives and Recalls is Growing in California

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...

By Edward Ring

California’s Progressive War on Suburbia

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...

By Edward Ring

Fighting the One-Party State at the Local Level in California

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...

By Edward Ring

Teachers Union Promotes Property Tax Increase

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...

By Edward Ring

Using Online Resources to Qualify Ballot Measures

There is a mass delusion afflicting millions of Californians. They endure a cost-of-living nearly twice the national average, high taxes, the highest incidence of poverty, the most hostile business climate, some of the worst K-12 schools, well over a $1.0 trillion in bond and pension debt, unaffordable homes, among the highest prices in the nation for gasoline and electricity, water rationing, and they drive on congested and decaying...

By Edward Ring

How California embraced Corporate Socialism

Gavin Newsom, the lily white, urbane, coiffured scion of San Francisco’s posh royalty, is California’s highest ranking Democrat. He presides over a party that has taken progressive ideals beyond absurdity to the brink of tyranny. One would think that the party of Gavin Newsom is bent on destroying everything Gavin Newsom represents. So what’s going on?...

By Edward Ring

The Many Unintended Consequences of AB 5

By now anyone who works as an independent contractor in California has heard of AB 5, which will force companies to reclassify them as employees. The justification for AB 5, which was reportedly written by the AFL-CIO, is to prevent companies from exploiting workers. Without AB 5, the reasoning goes, companies hire freelancers to do the same work...

By Edward Ring

How Federal Intervention Can Ease California’s Homeless Crisis

California’s homeless crisis is now visible to everyone living in the state. Along with tens of thousands of homeless who are concentrated in various districts of the major cities, additional thousands are widely dispersed. If you drive into most major urban centers, you will see their tent encampments along freeway junctions, under bridges, along frontages,...

By Edward Ring

Venice Beach’s Monster on the Median

When President Trump arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday, he had a few words to say about the city’s homeless problem. “We can’t let Los Angeles, San Francisco and numerous other cities destroy themselves by allowing what’s happening,” the president told reporters. “In many cases came from other countries and they moved to Los Angeles or...

By Edward Ring