CalPERS pounds the table in response to reports showing a looming state pension crisis

Court smacks down union-friendly agency’s destruction of farm workers’ right to vote

Sacramento One of Gov. Jerry Brown’s early acts in office during his first term in 1975 was to grant California’s farm workers the right to collectively bargain – and to create a new agency that would ensure that farm workers had the right “to full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their...

By Steven Greenhut

Formerly bankrupt Stockton is fiscally healthy again, but offers warning to others

Sacramento Two mid-sized California cities, Irvine and Stockton, have topped a national list of financially healthy governments compiled by an influential watchdog group. Irvine’s top ranking shouldn’t surprise anyone, given that the affluent Orange County city has long been a model for prudence, despite some high-profile spending miscues over the years. But the second-place ranking...

By Steven Greenhut

Brown right to give cities dose of reality, but wrong to punt on pension issue

Sacramento It’s rare that a politician will say something that is praiseworthy and anger-inducing in the same breath. Nevertheless, Gov. Jerry Brown accomplished that unusual feat when he released his May revised budget, and told cities that the state government isn’t in a position to help them with their soaring pension costs. “They have to...

By Steven Greenhut

After scandal, City of Bell’s fiscal revival shows importance of civic engagement

Sacramento – The city of Bell has been California’s poster child for local-government corruption, ever since the Los Angeles Times in 2010 exposed the greed and mismanagement that plagued the Los Angeles County burg. The story was a juicy one: The leaders of a tiny impoverished city lavished huge salaries and benefit packages on themselves,...

By Steven Greenhut

CalPERS board’s antics highlight political nature of nation’s largest pension fund

Sacramento — In its argument in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus case, which challenges the right of unions to collect union dues for collective-bargaining purposes, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees argues that collective bargaining is not inherently political. But the plaintiff Mark Janus, an Illinois state employee, argues that everything a...

By Steven Greenhut

Under guise of ‘affordable housing,’ abusive agencies might be making a comeback

Sacramento – In the seven years since Gov. Jerry Brown shut down California’s redevelopment agencies, their defenders have managed to resuscitate their image. Never mind that these controversial agencies ladled out corporate welfare, wantonly abused eminent domain on behalf of developers and diverted $5 billion annually from public services. A new bill would bring them...

By Steven Greenhut

Pension bills are common sense – yet have little chance of passage in Capitol

Sacramento The California Public Employees’ Retirement System’s report released last week touts all of the pension fund’s good news, which it says “has built a solid path forward for the long-term future of the fund.” But as longtime pension reporter Ed Mendel pointed out in his recent blog, the pension fund’s future is still quite...

By Steven Greenhut

California should copy New Jersey’s union fund takeover, but with one caveat

New Jersey’s police and fire unions have demanded that the state give them control over their own pension destiny, and have convinced the Legislature to transfer management of their pension fund to a union-controlled board of trustees. Some Garden State residents have denounced the plan as the equivalent of giving unions a “blank check,” given...

By Steven Greenhut

Gas-tax repeal gets closer to vote as train spotlights state’s misplaced priorities

Sacramento Almost everyone agrees that California’s infrastructure is shockingly decrepit, yet public anger over a 12-cent-a-gallon gas tax to address that problem has not subsided. Although an effort by GOP gubernatorial candidate Travis Allen to repeal the tax never got traction, a separate effort led by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, former San Diego Councilman...

By Steven Greenhut

California unions show rare impotence as they deal with coming Supreme Court ruling

Sacramento — California’s public-sector unions are so accustomed to getting their way in the state Capitol that it’s almost entertaining watching them respond to a coming U.S. Supreme Court decision that is likely to slash their political and economic power. They are sponsoring a variety of bills designed to mute that decision, but there’s surprisingly...

By Steven Greenhut

Deputies’ failure to engage killer springs partly from union priorities

Sacramento Among the biggest news stories to emerge following the horrific murders of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14 was the failure of the armed deputy assigned to the school to enter the building and engage the shooter. Other news stories report that three other deputies who...

By Steven Greenhut

Unions are back with bill to give them private workers’ phone numbers, addresses

Sacramento Despite a stinging rebuke from Gov. Jerry Brown last year, California’s union-allied lawmakers are back with a plan to force private employees working for privately funded organizations to provide their cellphone numbers and home addresses to any union organizer that demands them. The bill’s backers want to intimidate people into paying union dues, even...

By Steven Greenhut

Read before signing: Fearing Janus case, unions try to trap workers into dues payments

Sacramento — With the end of mandatory unionization on the horizon thanks to an expected U.S. Supreme Court decision, the nation’s public-sector unions are trying a variety of tactics – some laudable, others sleazy – to maintain their large ranks of dues-paying members and massive war chests. On the laudable side, some unions have talked...

By Steven Greenhut