Fox and Hounds Daily Says Goodbye

With this article, we end publication of Fox and Hounds Daily. It has been a satisfying 12½ year run. When we opened in May 2008, our site was designed to offer an opportunity to those who wished to engage in public debate on many issues, especially in politics and business, but found it difficult to get placed in newspaper op-ed pages. 

Co-publishers Tom Ross, Bryan Merica and I have kept F&H going over this time investing our own time, funding, and staff help. Last year at this time we considered closing the site, however with an election on the horizon we decided to keep F&H going through the election year. With the election come and gone, and with no sense of additional resources, we have decided to close the site down. 

Fox and Hounds will live on, at least, with my articles collected in the California State Library.

On a personal note, I have spent over 40 years in California policy and politics. There have been some incredible high moments and some difficult low points. It pains me that politics too often is a blood sport, frequently demonizing the motives of opponents and using the legal system as a weapon in public discourse. At Fox & Hounds, we tried to adhere to the practice of giving all a voice in the debate, yet keep the commentaries civil and avoided personal attacks.

F&H offered the opportunity to publish different perspectives (even ones that criticized my writings!).  We had success as indicated by the Washington Post twice citing Fox and Hounds Daily one of the best California political websites and many other positive affirmations and comments received over the years.

Tom, Bryan and I want to thank our many readers and writers for being part of our journey.  The publishers of Fox and Hounds Daily believe that we added value to California and its people. We hope you agree.

Another Shakedown ADA Lawsuit Against a California Business Shows the Need for Reform

Just ask small businessman Jerry Brannon in Stockton.  He recently got sued by Scott Johnson for $38,000 for non-compliance with the Americans With Disability Act. However, instead of settling, Mr. Brannon has decided to fight. He plans to spend up to $50,000 fighting this lawsuit.

According to a television news report, “Scott Johnson has made legal claims against many business owners in the Sacramento area, claiming he’s suffered because his disability won’t allow him to fully access their stores and restaurants.”

Brannon said Johnson has “taken the ADA and made a business out of it.”

According to the news report, Johnson has been linked to thousands of lawsuits.  (more…)

State Assembly 39: Explaining Patty Lopez’s Potential Upset of Asm. Raul Bocanegra

Upsets happen every election cycle. But, every once in a while, there’s an upset so big that nobody – not even the underdog candidate- saw it coming.

That happened last week in the 39th Assembly District, where Democrat Patty Lopez is leading incumbent Democratic Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra by just 32 votes. All the political professionals in Sacramento are scratching their heads, asking “What the hell happened?”

The first-take analysis is that a popular lawmaker, well-known in Sacramento, with strong leadership skills, lost track of his first priority: getting re-elected. The vast majority of money raised by Bocanegra, along with his personal and staff time, went into races known to be competitive. A team player, Bocanegra dedicated his time to the key races that could swing the partisan makeup of the State Assembly. (more…)

A New Direct Democracy Right We Need Now in California

The experience of Props 1 and 2 was frustrating to watch. On two significant proposals – a water bond and a budget-debt-reserve formula – voters only got one side of the story (the no campaigns for both were practically nonexistent). Both measures easily passed, without much debate (beyond the Prop 2 debate I tried to instigate here at Fox & Hounds Daily).

Even worse, voters got only one choice – the choice that the legislature wanted them to have. It was take it or leave it. The people couldn’t offer their own counter-proposal – a better water bond, a better reserve proposal.

The people of California deserve to have the right to such a counter-proposal. And it wouldn’t require a new invention. Such a counterproposal exists in some Swiss cantons, or states, where it’s called the “constructive referendum” or the “people’s amendment.” (more…)

The Administration Should Not Regulate the Internet

For decades the Internet has grown, spread, and positively altered our culture and economy, all with little regulation from Washington. But the Obama Administration now wants to threaten that progress by imposing rules written in the 1930s to cover public utilities to now regulate the Internet.

Allowing Washington bureaucrats to use the same rules that were written when people used a live operator to place a telephone call to now start regulating the Internet is a recipe for disaster. The Internet has created growth and enabled innovation. It has added to our economy in countless ways and has improved the lives of billions of people. Outdated regulations from federal bureaucrats will hurt our economy and reduce job creation by restricting the growth of the Internet.

The Internet has been and needs to remain free and open. The House will continue to resist the Administration’s attempts to make it anything else.

California’s Emerging Good Government Coalition

The 2014 mid-term elections will be remembered for many things – pioneering use of information technology to comprehensively profile and micro-target voters, escalating use of polarizing rhetoric, historically low levels of voter turnout, and historic records in total spending. In California, in spite of all this money and technology – or perhaps because of it – the political landscape is probably not going to change very much this time around. But appearances can be deceiving. While Democrats will still control California’s state legislature and nearly all of California’s large cities and urban counties, new fault lines are forming within California’s electorate that defy conventional definitions of Republican and Democrat, or conservative and liberal.

Because as it is, California’s schools are failing, businesses and middle-income residents are fleeing, and the cost of living is the highest in America. Three powerful groups benefit from and perpetuate this arrangement with their money and their votes:  Wealthy individuals and crony capitalists, unionized public sector workers, and low-income residents who have become entirely dependent on government and are susceptible to their rhetoric. The terms of this alliance are financially unsustainable and even now, they harm low income residents more than they help them. It will crack as soon as a viable opposition coalesces. And that is happening. (more…)

L.A. Pensions: Pay Now or Pay Much More Later

As part of Mayor Garcetti’s agenda for fiscal responsibility, the Board of Administration of the Los Angeles Employees Retirement System (“LACERS”) took the long term view when it approved lowering the investment rate assumption to 7.5% from 7.75%, overcoming the objections of the self-serving Coalition of LA City Unions.  This action will require our cash strapped City, facing a budget deficit of $165 million next year, to pony up an additional $50 million to this seriously underfunded pension plan.

LACERS is one of the City’s two pension plans, serving 24,000 civilian employees and providing benefits to 18,000 retirees and their beneficiaries.  Unfortunately, this pension plan is underfunded by $5.4 billion (less than 70% funded) as its assets of $11.9 billion do not cover its obligations of $17.3 billion to current and future retirees.  This deficit would increase to at least $8.5 billion (less than 60% funded) if a more realistic investment rate assumption was used. (more…)