Should It Really Be Easier to Remove Local Officials?
The LA Times’ George Skelton argues in a recent column that the case of San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is evidence that California local governments need more tools for removing officeholders. Filner, in his view, was too hard to remove from office, given the expense and difficulty of recalling mayors in San Diego. Skelton wants […]
Unions and Howard Jarvis Join Forces to Keep Democracy Private
(Editor’s Note: UPDATE. The original article reported that Common Cause was part of the pro-SB 594 effort but moved to neutrality. At the request of the author, Common Cause was removed from the article’s title.) California’s system of direct democracy is a thoroughly private business. Initiatives are written privately. They’re sponsored privately. They’re shaped by […]
Yellen or Secession?
What does a Californian have to do to get the most important job in the world? It’s a relevant question since Janet Yellen, a longtime UC Berkeley economist who served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and now is #2 at the Federal Reserve, is a contender to be Fed chairman. […]
An Illogical Hunger Strike
Let me see if I understand your logic correctly, striking inmates of the California state prison system. You are refusing to eat – and thus risking death, right? And you are doing this to convince Gov. Jerry Brown to end indefinite solitary confinement and improve other conditions that you can claim are humane? Correct? And […]
Wake Me When Session Is Over
Both houses of the legislature are finally back! Big stuff is about to happen! The end of the session is nigh! Wake me when it’s over. Sacramento and the rest of the state have different definitions of big. In Sacramento, big means: there are lots of people with money on both sides of an issue. […]
All Aboard the Hyperloop!
There are now two high-profile major transportation projects promising fast trips between Los Angeles and San Francisco. One of them has a big unknown price tag and no known funding for the balance of it, is based on plans that don’t have all the details, and may never be built. The other one is Elon […]
Does L.A. History Include Humans?
We Angelenos were never supposed to be here. In an 1868 essay considered so powerful it was taught to schoolchildren for a century, writer and economist Henry George predicted that California would become one of the most prosperous places on earth. San Diego was destined to become a major destination. Oakland’s docks would grow to […]
Scalia’s Gift to Brown
Gov Jerry Brown lost his latest appeal of federal court order requiring him to reduce the prison population by the end of the year. But Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia handed him a victory in defeat. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold the federal order last week. One of the dissenters was Scalia, […]
In California, Holding Young People Back Is Almost State Policy
There’s a nasty California disease spreading so fast that even our baseball teams have caught it. Last year, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim kept their best player, then-20-year-old Mike Trout, in the minor leagues for the first month of the Major League Baseball season. This year, the L.A. Dodgers held down their most talented […]
The Very Quiet Governor
I keep reading that Gov. Jerry Brown is on a roll, but I don’t see him in a sandwich shop. Or anywhere else for that matter. For Southern Californians, he has become almost invisible. And we kind of like it. This makes all the political sense in the world. The more people see and hear […]