The new voter registration statistics are bad news for Republicans, and the closer you look, the worse it becomes for the GOP. When the Secretary of State released the new report the other day, plenty of people noted that statewide Republican registration is now at an all-time low of 30.4. But even more striking is [...]

Here’s the most interesting thing about the new PPIC poll: One of the most popular ideas with voters is something that almost nobody talks about. The pollsters ticked off a series of potential tax increases and asked if people favored or opposed each: higher income taxes for the wealthy, a split roll for property taxes, [...]

In making his case during the State of the State speech for the proposed high-speed rail system and the pending water bond, Gov. Jerry Brown acknowledged that big-bucks projects are often met with derision. He noted that the Central Valley Project was begun during the 1930s, when critics called it a “fantastic dream” that “will [...]

The “diversity bake sale” by the Berkeley College Republicans and the resulting whirlwind of counter-protests prove yet again that Berkeley suffers no shortage of self-righteous ire, left or right. The irony is that the pending legislation lying at the center of the whole flap is essentially meaningless. The Republicans staged their bake sale as a [...]

Why
would anybody want to be governor of California? With huge budget
deficits, a dysfunctional system of governance, and a grumpy
electorate, can any governor actually accomplish very much?

Five experts on California politics will gather Monday, Sept. 20 on the
Cal campus in Berkeley to talk about what the next governor should do
– no matter who ends up taking the oath of office.

The panelists include writer Mark Paul, author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It; Debra Saunders, columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle; Yvonne
Walker, president of SEIU Local 1000, California’s largest state
employees union; and Bill Whalen of the Hoover Institution. Ted
Lempert, former member of the Assembly and current president of
Children Now, will moderate.