The debate over homelessness in California seemed to shift last fall, when dozens of local governments supplied or co-signed amicus briefs in a case in which Boise, Idaho, officials urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that banned arrests of people sleeping in public if they had nowhere else to go....

When Gov. Jerry Brown left office in January 2019, most of the reviews of his second eight-year stint as leader of the nation’s richest, most populous state were effusive. Citing his restoration of fiscal stability after the Capitol chaos seen in the last three years of the Schwarzenegger administration, Brown biographer Narda Zacchino declared he...

The conventional wisdom about Proposition 13 — the only ballot measure before California voters in the March 3 election — is that the $15 billion construction bond benefitting public schools, state universities and community colleges is of relatively little importance to the average voter. While there are concerns that local districts will have to raise...

A decade ago, when the U.S. Census Bureau began issuing a measure of poverty that included the cost of living, Californians found out something that had somehow eluded the thousands of journalists, authors and academics who chronicled life here. Because of the cost of housing, California — not West Virginia or Mississippi — had the...

When Gov. Gavin Newsom took office in January 2019 — aware that 10 of California’s 20 most destructive wildfires had occurred since 2015 — he promised an “all of the above” approach to reducing the threat that fires poised to public safety and property in a hot, dry era. In his first full day on...

After being discussed for decades, a privately funded 170-mile high-speed rail link through the desert between Las Vegas and Victorville — 90 miles east-northeast of Los Angeles — could get final approval in coming weeks from the Federal Railroad Administration. After that happens, the California and Nevada state governments are expected to give final approval...

On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom presented a 2020-21 state budget that includes more money for K-12 public schools than ever before. But even as metrics-driven education reforms over the past quarter-century have paid major dividends in both union states (Massachusetts, New Jersey) and non-union states (Florida, Texas), California lawmakers have never seriously considered trying to...

Republican City Councilman Kevin Faulconer handily defeated Democrat City Councilman David Alvarez with 54.4% of the vote in a February 11, 2014 special election runoff for Mayor of San Diego. The result went against usual expectations. Contrary to the common perception that campaign spending by “big business” often overwhelms humble community-based union-backed campaigns, more money...