Want Your Prius Serviced in LA? It’s Houston’s Problem
About 30 seconds into the conversation, I knew something was wrong. I was trying to schedule the 5,000-mile service that was part of the package when I bought a Toyota Prius V late last year. So I called the number of the service department for the Toyota dealership where the service was supposed to take […]
When You Go to Sacramento to Ask for Money, Dress as a Basketball Team
On a plane to Sacramento last week, a bunch of SEIU folks were also on the flight. But they were dressed wrong. They chose purple T-shirts, and explained they were there to lobby for more money for a variety of programs and bills. I wished them luck, but didn’t have high hopes for them. Don’t […]
Let Them Eat Top Two
John Wildermuth, writing in this space, made an argument to which I’m deeply sympathetic: we should embrace the top two primary because it makes for better stories. “Even the folks who don’t particularly like California’s new top-two primary system have to admit that it’s going to make elections a lot more fun to watch in […]
Do We Need 150 More Years of Getting California Wrong?
California is a famously volatile place—lurching from boom to bust and from sunshine to natural disaster—but it’s nowhere near as volatile as the perceptions of California. Only last year, the state was being routinely compared to Greece. The Economist devoted big chunks of its weekly issues to California’s “failure.” In the fall, Bloomberg reported, “California […]
Cancel This Election! The Rational Non-Voting Majority in LA
Why don’t those terribly apathetic people down in LA do their civic duty and cast a vote for mayor? How can Angelenos defend sub-20 percent turnout they saw in initial counts from March’s first round of the 2013 mayoral elections? Easy. Being mayor doesn’t matter. Says who? Says many of the same civic leaders who […]
Needed: A Human Rights Exception on Ballot Initiatives
The Prop 8 case now in the U.S. Supreme Court has inspired a debate in California, and elsewhere, about ballot initiatives themselves. Joel Fox in this space, and many others, have identified the issue well. If the governor and attorney general refuse to defend a ballot initiative that has passed and been successfully challenged, doesn’t […]
The LA Election Is California’s Future
“The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.” – Annie Savoy says of Nuke LaLoosh in the film Bull Durham Nuke Laloosh, the minor league pitcher who lacked such self-awareness, has nothing on California pundits. Since the Los Angeles mayoral election in early March, the state’s good-government-oriented pundits have been lamenting the […]
Tax This Post!
LA Times columnist George Skelton this week came out in favor of a brand new tax: on the emails you send. He likes the idea of a Berkeley city councilman who believes we can cut down on spammers with a tiny per email tax. It would hit only those people who send a lot of […]
California GOP Needs to Learn to Love California Again
The California GOP’s problems aren’t merely about expenses or organizing, about the good government community’s war against parties, or about immigration or a lack of moderation. When it comes to messaging, the state Republican party’s chief problem is that it sounds like it hates California. Republicans should listen to themselves. Moderate or conservative, coastal or […]
Replace Low-Turnout Specials With Party Lists
Why are turnouts so low in these special elections to fill empty Assembly and state Senate seats? Because Californians aren’t honest with themselves. We tell ourselves that, in election contests, we vote for the person. But the fact is we rarely have any idea who the person we vote for is. That’s especially true in […]