Charlie Kirk was murdered Wednesday in front of thousands of Utah Valley University students who had come to hear him, cheer him, and challenge him. It was the first stop on his fall “American Comeback Tour,” though he had been visiting college campuses all year — including right here in California. Kirk founded Turning Point...
The argument against gerrymandering begins with visuals. Across the U.S., almost without exception, if you view a map of state and federal electoral districts, they appear as convoluted, obviously contrived jigsaw puzzles, drawn with no regard for geographic features or municipal boundaries. In the face of such obvious manipulation, so the argument goes, the process...
California voters will have the final say on November 4th over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest power grab: a constitutional amendment that scraps the state’s independent redistricting commission and replaces it with gerrymandered maps drawn by Democratic politicians. Newsom never tires of warning that President Donald Trump is a “threat to democracy” — even as the...
Newsom’s gerrymandering scheme not only disenfranchises independent and conservative voters in California, but all citizens of this State. The California Constitution guarantees citizens the right to meaningfully participate in the democratic process and be informed regarding legislation. In order to effectuate this guarantee, the people of California insisted on a minimum 30-day waiting period between...
The British philosopher G.K. Chesterton is most famous for his mystery series featuring Father Brown, a Catholic priest who moonlights as a detective. But geeks also rightly honor his anti-populist defense of time-honored principles neatly summed up in what we’ve come to call Chesterton’s Fence. Chesterton (1874–1936) put it this way: if you’re walking through a forest...
Partisan redistricting rigs elections coast to coast—but a cure may lie in algorithms that draw fairer maps than any politician ever will. Few events in politics are more consequential while being less understood than redistricting. The consequences are obvious. If your party controls a state legislature, then once every ten years, when it comes time...
After six years of budget shortfalls, rising homelessness, and an exodus of residents and businesses, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled his $321.9 billion May Revision to California’s 2025–26 state budget on Wednesday — which he acknowledged is upside down by roughly $12 billion. Now, with just weeks until the June 15th deadline, he must work with...
President Trump has pushed aside Governor Gavin Newsom and driven the nation’s most populous state toward something approaching sanity. President Trump’s (second) first 100 days have generated some amount of horse excrement. It’s hard to see how it serves Trump’s interests to anger allies in advance of a trade war with China, to drive the economy into...
The U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday that it will investigate California for violating the authority of parents over their children who attend public schools, specifically on matters of gender identity. According to the Los Angeles Times, the investigation was initiated in response to a January 31 complaint filed by the California Justice Center. In that complaint, California Policy Center’s...
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...
We don’t generally discuss national politics here at CPC World HQ – we’ve got our hands full dealing with Gov. Gavin Newsom and his confederacy of dunces in the state capitol. But let’s acknowledge some of President-elect Donald Trump’s great choices for key administration positions – including Scott Bessent at Treasury, Chris Wright at Energy,...
Interactive Database Reveals which Local Governments are Fiscally Sound or at High-Risk of Fiscal Crisis As of November 19, 2024, California Policy Center has updated its General Fund Reserves scoring to give maximum credit to entities whose unrestricted reserves equal 32% of general fund expenses. This replaces the previous scale, which ranged up to a 75%...