All State Businesses Deserve Tax Help
Hooray for Hollywood! Oh, yes, and hooray for batteries for electric cars. And another hooray for some jet plane manufacturers. It seems the state Legislature has found a number of causes to create state tax credits to encourage business and jobs in the Golden State. All well and good, but what about businesses that don’t […]
Will Effort to Overturn Citizens United Someday Affect CA Ballot Measures?
The item that caught my eye in the recently passed California legislative resolution (AJR1) seeking an amendment to the U. S. constitution to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court decision is the clause that mentions ballot measures. The resolution is a call for a federal constitutional amendment to limit corporate campaign contributions yet there are no […]
Berkeley Soda Tax Proposal: Questions & Confusions
Twenty-two years ago California voters showed disdain for putting a tax on snack foods by overwhelming passing Proposition 163 to rescind what was called “snack taxes” imposed at the behest of the Wilson Administration in the early 1990s budget crisis. This came to mind when the city council of Berkeley voted just before the July […]
Will the Controller Recount Affect November’s Election?
Assembly Speaker emeritus and Democratic Controller candidate John Perez announced over the weekend that he would seek a recount to determine who finished second in the June election. Board of Equalization member Betty Yee, another Democrat, beat Perez for second place by 481 votes. The second place finisher will face Republican Ashley Swearengin in November. […]
Thinking About the Idea of America on July 4th
To honor America on its 238th birthday we offer a short clip of the singer Bono speaking to a Georgetown University audience about the idea of America. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfuOOwJxsdU Fox and Hounds will take off tomorrow, July 4th and begin publishing again on Monday July 7th. Happy 4th.
Cost of Energy Big Political Issue in CA
Yesterday, on this site we ran a column by Joel Kotkin saying that the fight over the types of energy sources will have a profound effect on national elections in November. While California is certainly involved in that larger picture, the actual cost of energy will be a focus in California as well. With cap-and-trade […]
The Splintering of One-Party Rule
When Democrats took two-thirds majority of both legislative houses and won all the constitutional offices in the last election some commentators suggested that one-party control would result in opposing factions forming in the ruling party. There are signs that it is starting to happen. Before going on let’s stipulate here that the Republican Party in […]
Testing my Political Theory with Two Experts
Looking at the results of the recent Field Poll on the governor’s race, I came up with a theory I decided to run by two of the most knowledgeable political analysts in the state. I asked Allan Hoffenblum, editor and co-publisher of the Target Book and John Pitney, Jr., professor at Claremont McKenna College, if […]
SF Resolution Not About Fairness; It’s About More Tax Revenue
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution this month seeking to undo a major part of Proposition 13 that is cloaked in claims of fairness but is clearly nothing more than a call to raise and spend more tax revenue. The resolution says Proposition 13 is unfair because commercial and residential property are […]
Water and Rail in the Central Valley
California’s Central Valley has been the focus of two big issues that have grabbed legislative attention – water and the high-speed rail. Is it possible that the two could come together in a political mix? Hovering over the debate about replacing the water bond that is slated for the November ballot is the question: Will […]