Edward Ring is the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for American Greatness, and a regular contributor to the California Globe. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, National Review, City Journal, and other media outlets. Ring’s undergraduate degree is in Political Science from UC Davis, and he has an MBA in Finance from USC. Ring is the author of several books, including “Fixing California – Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism” (2021), “The Abundance Choice – Our Fight for More Water in California” (2022), and “Solutions – Innovative Public Policy for California” (2024).
As reported by the Ventura County Star, the City of Oxnard faces budget headwinds. Quoted in the article, Mayor Tim Flynn had this to say: We’re making decisions that should have been made 10, 20 years ago to put the city on a sustainable path,” Flynn said. “These are very painful cuts, but we have to...
By Edward Ring
On June 27, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Janus vs AFSCME. An immediate consequence of this ruling was that public sector unions could no longer collect so-called “agency fees” from workers in their bargaining units who had opted out of full union membership. The other main consequence of the Janus ruling was that those...
By Edward Ring
When discussing the seemingly intractable and growing problem of homeless people living in California, journalists reporting on the issue don’t spend enough time questioning the numbers, much less the policies driving the insane numbers. A recent article in the San Jose Mercury provides a perfect example. The article gets off to a good start with a provocative, and very...
By Edward Ring
The union assault on charter schools in California has intensified, but resistance is not futile. Parents, students, conscientious teachers, lawmakers and concerned citizens are stepping up. There are many ways to fight for charter schools, which represent one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal performance by California’s K-12 system of public education. In an April...
By Edward Ring
California has a well-deserved reputation as the global epicenter of high technology. In nearly every critical area, from aerospace to biotech, nanotech to green tech, to telecommunications, to microchip design, California’s universities and private companies are some of best in the world and counted among the leaders. At the pinnacle of global achievement is California’s...
By Edward Ring
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...
By Edward Ring
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...
By Edward Ring
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...
By Edward Ring
“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...
By Edward Ring
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...
By Edward Ring
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...
By Edward Ring
Earlier this week the California Supreme Court ruled in the case CalFire vs CalPERS. The case challenged one of the provisions of California’s 2014 pension reform legislation (PEPRA) which had eliminated the purchase of “Airtime.” This was the practice whereby retiring public employees could purchase “service credits” that would lengthen the number of years they worked,...
By Edward Ring
Crony capitalism is an economy in which businesses thrive not as a result of risk, but rather as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business class and the political class. This is done using state power to crush genuine competition in handing out permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other...
By Edward Ring
One of the most frustrating contradictions inherent in the policies being enacted by California’s one-party state goes something like this: We are inviting the welfare cases of America and the expatriates of the world to move here, while simultaneously enacting environmental policies that make it extremely time consuming and expensive to build anything. No wonder there’s a “housing crisis.” Until demand...
By Edward Ring
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