California’s legislature is controlled by Democratic super-majorities in both houses. These Democrat politicians, in turn, are controlled by public sector unions. They are now considering Assembly Bill 828, which will empower courts to summarily reduce rents by up to 25 percent and create additional barriers to the eviction process. Passage of this law would be a disaster. It’s...

When it comes to affordable housing, what California’s state legislators have done epitomizes what happens when you have a government bureaucracy that serves itself instead of the public, one that is under the complete control of special interests. They have enacted laws that make it nearly impossible for the private sector to build homes, which...

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...

Cronyism is alive and well in San Francisco  Fourteen months have passed since San Francisco voters passed Prop J, the establishment of a Legacy Business Historic Preservation Fund.  This is a government-sponsored grant program devised by then-Supervisor David Campos to help traditional San Francisco businesses keep their doors amidst rising costs.  We recently checked the...

Back in the late 1970’s something happened to the Santa Clara Valley. Increasingly it became referred to as the Silicon Valley, because the emerging silicon based semiconductor industry found its first home in plants nestled along the southern shores of the San Francisco Bay. Boasting what are among the finest universities in the United States –...