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.
California’s U.S. Senate Seats in Spotlight
Chatter around political circles last week frequently focused on California politicians who were not even on Tuesday’s ballot. Would U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer, 74 tomorrow, and Dianne Feinstein, 81, run for re-election? The speculation was enhanced after the USC Dornsife College/Los Angeles Times poll released over the weekend showed that a majority of Californians would like to see new candidates run for those senatorial chairs.
Mind you, the question did not mention the senators by name – only if it would be a good idea to replace senators who served 22 years in that one office. Sixty percent of the voters said it would be a good idea if new candidates were elected.
California made history in 1992 electing two women to the U.S. Senate. The satirical musical group Capitol Steps celebrated the event at the time with one of their spoof songs applying recognized tunes to new lyrics, in this case using a Beach Boys’ classic when they sang about the senate: “I wish they all could be California girls.” (more…)
Goodbye, Supermajorities
I’m not a Democrat, but I once had high hopes for the legislative Democratic supermajorities. California’s governance system is so supermajority mad – we added a new one by Prop 47 in this election – that legislative supermajorities offered the promise of action on taxes, spending and constitutional revision that the state has needed for decades. Surely, Democrats would use this power.
As we know from watching the last two years, they didn’t. Instead, the Democrats preached caution and largely locked deeper into the system the budget austerity that the broken governance system and the Great Recession wrought. Did they restructure the tax system to increase revenues and improve competitiveness? No? Did they remove restraints on democratic decision-making and budgeting? No. Did they pass constitutional changes or pursue a broader constitutional convention or revision commission? No. (more…)
California’s Southern Discomfort
We know this was a harsh recession, followed by, at best, a tepid recovery for the vast majority of Americans. But some people and some regions have surged somewhat ahead, while others have stagnated or worse.
Greater Los Angeles fails to make the grade. In per capita growth of gross domestic product since 2010, according to analyst Aaron Renn, our region ranks a very mediocre 38th out of 52 metro areas, with a measly 1.5 percent, well below the national average of 3.8 percent. It places behind up-and-comers among the Texas cities, Oklahoma City and some tech-oriented clusters – Silicon Valley ranked second, after Houston. These places have growth rates roughly twice those of the Southland.
When we wanted to drill down to the more local level, and analyze what is happening by county, we needed to go to the Census Bureau, as opposed to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, where we could glean what is happening in our communities. Our analysis is based on those figures, and neither of us hopes the Southern California region continues to stagnate or decline. (more…)
Confessions of a Poll Worker
In a rabid fit of misguided pat-tree-uh-tism, I signed up to be a volunteer poll worker.
I was tasked with the Casa de Cadillac beat on Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks. They were hard up for warm bodies, and I committed to the cause.
A $25 stipend was offered to volunteers who showed up for a two-hour training class, and I made my way to the Van Nuys Senior Center on the designated day. The instructors crammed so much detailed information about the convoluted set up, I thought my head was going to explode. A kindly veteran, who recognized my zombie glaze, said, “You never get it all the first time.”
“I didn’t realize it was going to be a 14-hour day,” I said. (more…)
Higher Ed Tuition Hikes for What Purpose?
Yesterday, on a post-election panel presented by Capitol Weekly, I raised the issue of potential tax increases being contemplated by public unions and other groups in the next election and said that one of the reasons more revenue was sought was to cover pension obligations.
A union representative on the panel scoffed that pensions were “yesterday’s news.”
Actually, pensions were that day’s news if you read accounts about the University of California’s request that tuition be raised by 5-percent a year for a five year period.
The chief reason for the tuition increase appears to be retirement costs.
According to the Sacramento Bee, UC Chief Financial Officer Nathan Brostrom cited retirement costs in explaining the need for tuition hikes. This is how the Bee put it: “Brostrom emphasized that UC feels it is not getting what was promised to the university with the Proposition 30 tax hikes, which increased revenues by 8 percent, and that it could avoid raising tuition if the state helped fund its retiree costs.” (My emphasis.) (more…)
Covering California’s Least Amazing Race
In the end, Neel Kashkari lacked the courage to do the one thing that might have made him a household name, and thus competitive in the race for California governor:
Get infected with Ebola.
Media coverage of elections matters in California, in part because we ask our voters to make dozens of decisions in candidate contests and ballot measures. But this year’s state election coverage has been so meager in quantity and so half-hearted in quality that that one wonders why journalists bothered. On television and online, election news was eclipsed by scary-bad coverage of Ebola, which as of this writing had infected not a single Californian and had killed fewer U.S. residents than Kim Kardashian has married. Yet CBS 2’s “Ebola in America” graphic now appears in my nightmares. Yes, yes, I can hear your protests, my fellow media types. Times are tough in the business, we need to give audiences what they want, and complaints about media coverage are as tired and dull as, well, this year’s California elections coverage. Yes, I understand that the races weren’t close and the public wasn’t engaged and that only 40 percent of Americans can name all three branches of government. But, my friends, please: is it just Kashkari’s fault that 70 percent of Californians have no idea who the Republican candidate for governor was? (more…)