Anyone involved in state or local politics in California soon realizes that government unions are the most powerful special interest in the state. From time to time, as the ride-share behemoths proved in spectacular fashion last November with Proposition 22, corporations will defy the unions on very specific issues. But by and large California’s corporations...

CLICK HERE to see which benchmarks your county has passed this week. New updates to COVID-19 restrictions has led to more questions when it comes to reopening schools. Recently it was announced that theme parks and outdoor entertainment venues can reopen at limited capacity. Previously, large theme parks like Disneyland could only reopen once they...

Until Gov. Gavin Newsom declared most California schools closed for the fall, he had left school re-openings to local officials. But before that declaration, Orange County Board of Education trustees had voted 4-1 to approve the reopening of schools in that county. California Policy Center helped draft an early version of those recommendations, and though the final...

A conservative response to police-reform protests Intense public protests and riots following George Floyd’s deadly encounter with a Minneapolis police officer in May have caught many conservatives off guard. Because of their overall support for police officers and their respect for public order, conservatives seem generally troubled by the public reaction. They have – at...

On July 1 the City of Placentia will begin to operate a fire department independent of the Orange County Fire Authority. The motivation for the Placentia’s City Council to take this step was to provide equal or greater service at a lower cost. In this report, those cost savings will be summarized. The figures were...

In June 2019 the City of Placentia, in a 3-1 council vote, decided to leave the Orange County Fire Authority and build their own fire department. The reasons for this decision, and the means to accomplish it, will be explored in greater detail in a follow-up article. But the decision came down to this: a majority...

The economy has been booming over the last decade, which has provided local governments with a windfall in sales and property taxes. Despite the economic fat times, California cities have been complaining about their dire economic straits, with some of them even fearing insolvency unless something is done to change the financial trajectory. What explains...

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...

In 2004, following decades of poor student performance and gang crime, parents at San Diego’s Gompers Middle School and the school’s principal used a little-known state law to convert their campus into a public charter school. The new school, called Gompers Preparatory Academy, thrived. Campus safety improved, test scores rose, and students and teachers lined...