California’s Election Reform Flops
Crossposted at the Los Angles Times Hollywood produced “Ishtar” and, more recently, Disney’s “John Carter.” But it has never made a bomb quite like Tuesday’s California elections. Expectations were high. California’s political reformers told us that this would be the year everything changed. After a decade and a half of reform efforts, a new system […]
Does Death Penalty Repeal Have a Prop 29 Problem?
Prop 29, the cigarette-tax-for-cancer-research initiative, had trouble attracting some natural supporters (those who support cigarette taxes) because it locked up the money it raised outside the general fund, giving money to cancer research when more important state programs are cash-starved. Don’t look now, but there’s a November ballot initiative that’s vulnerable in a similar way: […]
On Election Day, My Side Won – By a Landslide!
Over the years, I’ve not often been on the winning side of many races. But this Election Day, I won big. By not voting. It was a landslide. Four out of five Californians who are eligible to vote didn’t cast a ballot. North of 80 percent. (Conventional turnout rates miss the point, since they are […]
EXCLUSIVE! Big Battle Over Competing Tax Plans on Psychic Income
SACRAMENTO (AP) – Desperate for revenues, California’s top officials and interest groups are engaged in a high-stakes, behind-the-scenes battle over competing, yet-to-be-released plans to tax psychic income, the Associated Press has learned. Such income has not been taxed by an American state, but Gov. Jerry Brown put the notion in play for policymakers after he […]
Cancel This Election!
The presidential nominating process is over. The numbers of people turning in their mail ballots are way down. The propositions are pretty much meaningless. And the main attraction is a primary election that doesn’t have party primaries, which is sort of like an ice cream social without ice cream. Welcome to the utterly pointless June […]
Playing Politics with Scholarships and the Middle Class
Crossposted on Prop Zero Goodness knows that more Californians need access to higher education. And that scholarship money for middle-class families — who don’t have all the money for higher tuition or the full benefit of breaks for those on the lower ends of the income scale — would be a good public policy. But […]
Actually, I’d Like Some Bureaucracy With That $735 Million
It’s one of the standard allegations thrown at any new ballot initiative that starts a new program – “this initiative will establish an expensive new bureaucracy,” we are told. Now it’s being used against Prop 29 – because it makes political sense. But there’s a policy problem. When you spend big money, you need some […]
What If Jerry Had a Secret Reform Plan After All?
Regular readers know that I find Gov. Jerry Brown’s approach to the budget crisis (aka “the Steinbergian problem”) and to California’s governance nightmare totally puzzling. Nothing he does seem to make any sense. But perhaps I’m wrong. So after much thinking and too much time in the afternoon San Gabriel Valley sun, this thought occurs: […]
The Amazing George Shultz
I attended the California Economic Summit in Santa Clara last week. I was impressed by the ideas produced in workshop sessions, and by the smart thinking about how to build the state’s very distinct economic regions (both by reinforcing their differences and by linking them). But I also was very impressed by George Shultz. Shultz […]
If Tom Steyer Is So Smart…
When you write about initiatives, you spend a lot of time hearing from and about rich people. And the main message is that they are brilliant people who have put together groundbreaking proposals that no one else would have the courage (and the scratch) to back. Usually, I hold my tongue. Being in the nonprofit […]