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.

No Room at the Inn: California’s Latino Legislative Caucus Closes Door on Republicans

The influential California Latino Legislative Caucus has a generic moniker and an ostensibly-benign mission statement which promotes “legislation and policies that have a direct impact on Latinos from all walks of life,” and “diversity in state government…by advancing qualified candidates from all walks of California.”

Well, in carefully choreographed subterfuge, this public face of the Latino political establishment conveniently left out: “… except if you are Republican, in which case, we want nothing to do with you!” Now, a series of newspaper articles reveal a persistent pattern of discrimination against Latino Republicans perpetrated by the taxpayer-funded organization based at the State Capitol. Clearly, the group’s actions are more articulate than the mission statement. (more…)

How Soccer Explains Elections

While many records are broken every year, there are two worth drawing attention to during the first half of 2014: the levels of participation in elections and soccer.

With 25.2% turnout, California appears headed to a record low for a statewide primary. Explanations vary, ranging from voter contentment to structural shortcomings to California’s turnout is actually fairly high.

Most of these ideas are not terribly compelling, since most Californians think we are headed in the wrong direction; recent structural changes have made the primaries more compelling for independent and minority party candidates; and a record low is still that, regardless of context. (more…)

The California Economy: When Vigor and Frailty Collide (Part. 1)

California is a place of extremes. It has beaches, mountains, valleys and deserts. It has glaciers and, just a few miles away, hot, dry deserts. Some years it doesn’t rain. Some years it rains all winter. Those extremes are part of what makes California the attractive place that it is, and, west of the high mountains, California is mostly an extremely comfortable place to live.

Today, we have some new extremes. Some of our coastal communities are as wealthy as any in the world. At the other extreme, we have some of America’s poorest communities. San Bernardino, for example, has America’s second-highest poverty rate for cities with population over 200,000. (more…)

7 Ways James Fallows is Wrong About the CA Bullet Train

Writing on The Atlantic’s website, the much-respected journalist/intellectual James Fallows — a Redlands native who knows California better than nearly all other national pundits — has come out as a big fan of the state’s bullet-train project. He promises to return frequently to the project in coming months and explain all the ways that it is wonderful.

In his first installment, his focus is on how much better life is in places with fast, convenient trains and how big infrastructure projects can tranform regions for the better. Then he cites studies which talk about this specific project’s benefits in helping local economies and reducing pollution.

The problem is that Fallows is describing California’s high-speed rail project in a vacuum. When someone just hears the concept, of course they are likely to think it sounds cool. (more…)

Racial Voting in the Controller’s Race

The Controller’s race recount brings up a topic rarely discussed in California, racially polarized voting, especially racially motivated voting in Democratic primaries.  John Perez, the overwhelming favorite for the Democratic nod in the controller’s race, lost the Controller’s primary because not enough Latino Democrats turned out to vote for him and too few white Democrats voted for him.

A careful look at the Democratic primary for Controller shows that Perez’s 21.7 percent share of the overall vote was made up almost exclusively of Latino Democrats.  His recount strategy concentrates on the most Latino portions of California’s heaviest Latino counties, starting with his best county and the most Latino county in the state, Imperial County, where Perez received 41 percent of the vote. (more…)

The Citizens United Debate: Dangers of Amending the First Amendment

Joel Fox raises a good point about the California Legislature’s request to Congress to propose the first amendment of the venerable First Amendment in our history:  Will the proposed amendment allow the federal government and State governments to restrict corporate contributions and expenditures related to ballot measures?

The Legislative resolution referring to candidates and ballot measures is not specific about the scope of the proposed constitutional amendment, and doesn’t contain the actual language of the proposed constitutional amendment.

My reading of the version of the proposed amendment that passed the U.S. Senate judiciary committee a few weeks ago is that it would give Congress and the States extremely broad authority to regulate campaign finance and doesn’t limit that grant of authority only to regulation of candidate campaigns. (more…)