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.
This Year’s Budget? We Don’t Even Know What the 2011-12 Budget Was
Is the budget in surplus? By how much? Does this mean we can put money away for a rainy day fund (that doesn’t save much for a rainy day)? Doesn’t this mean that California is back?
You can laugh – and safely ignore this budget conversation this budget season. No one knows what the 2014-15 budget will be now. Heck, no one may know for sure what the 2014-15 budget will be next year. Or in 2018.
This is California: where we don’t know whether previous budgets were balanced or not – many years after those budget years are over.
California #1 Riskiest State for Employee Lawsuits
While there are a lot of reasons California has been the #1 Judicial Hellhole for two years running, how we deal with employment lawsuits is one reason we will probably stay at the top of the list for a third straight year.
According to a new study by Hiscox, on average, a United States-based business with at least 10 employees has a 12.5% chance of having an employment liability charge filed against them in a given year. Businesses in states like California face higher levels of exposure to litigation than others due to their unbalanced laws.
Here are the five states with where employers face the highest risk of employee lawsuits:
Council Pulls the Plug — L.A. Street Tax Hits too Many Pot Holes
The City Council will not place the half cent, $4.5 billion increase in our sales tax on the November ballot because the lack of trust in City Hall makes the odds of a majority of voters approving this measure slim. And achieving the necessary two-thirds approval is even more of long shot.
Under the “Save Our Streets – LA” program to repair our lunar cratered streets, the City would increase our regressive sales tax by a half cent to a job killing 9 ½ %, one of the highest rates in the country. Over the next fifteen years, this tax would funnel $4.5 billion into the city’s coffers to fund a twenty year street reconstruction program.
But the City Council is fighting an uphill battle as it is holding our streets hostage for a princely ransom.
Republicans Improved Outlook For Congress
What a difference a week makes. Just a week ago Roll Call carried an article that with GOP Assemblyman Tim Donnelly in the runoff with Gov. Jerry Brown, Democrats would score big wins in Congressional races in California. But after Tuesday’s election, it now looks as through Republicans, not Democrats, might make congressional gains in California.
First, Donnelly is not in the runoff; Neel Kashkari is. Kashkari, son of Indian immigrant parents, will have some ability to win over middle class Latinos and Asians that the GOP has lost in droves in recent elections. This will help down ticket Republicans running in seats with high Latino and Asian populations.
Republicans will, however, have to deal with losing one congressional seat right out of the box, District 31, that of retiring Rep. Gary Miller in San Bernardino County. Democrat Pete Aguilar barely made the runoff this time (he lost it in 2012) and will win the seat in the fall. Republicans needed two Republicans in the top two this cycle as they got in 2012; they did not get it and the seat is just too Democratic. (more…)
East Bay Republicans’ Surprise – GOP Giant Killers Oust Noteworthy Dems
They say that politics makes strange bedfellows and that certainly was the case last Tuesday as voters appear to have retired former Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, State Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett and political heavyweight Steve Glazer.
Assembly District 16: The strongest is clearly Catharine Baker, the sole Republican and top vote-getter who won with 36.5% of the vote. Baker ran a great race, raised money, and is well prepared to face union-backed Tim Sbranti, who garnered 29.7% in the sweepstakes. Latest figures show some $5.6 million spent on this race. Of that chunk of change, about a third was spent by IE’s like the California Realtors PAC, JOBS PAC, and the Charter School Association on behalf of Orinda councilman and Jerry Brown consultant Steve Glazer, who fell short of Sbranti with 22.5% of the vote.
Glazer may have run the best race ever to lose in AD-16. (more…)
Asian Quotas in the Ivy League? “We See Nothing! Nothing!”
I was invited to speak at the annual conference of the Education Writers Association, with the topic of my panel being the perspective of Asian-Americans on Affirmative Action policies in college admissions. Despite having the only white face among the four presenters, I believe my analysis made a useful contribution.
A couple of months ago, the issue had unexpectedly moved to the fore of the national debate. Democrats in the California State Legislature had unanimously backed SCA-5, a proposed 2014 ballot measure intended to repeal Prop. 209 and thereby restore Affirmative Action, banned in 1996. Since the 1990s, California had effectively become a one-party Democratic state, and many expected the voters would roll back that controversial legacy of the Pete Wilson Era. Every Asian in the Legislature is a Democrat and every Asian had supported the repeal without hesitation.
But once word of the proposal filtered out into the general Asian-American community, massive opposition spontaneously erupted, and within three weeks nearly 120,000 Asians had signed an electronic petition denouncing the proposal. Their intense hostility centered on the restoration of racially-conscious admissions policies for the prestigious state university system, reflecting their widespread belief that this would eventually result in the establishment of “Asian Quotas,” denying Asian students an equal chance for admission to public universities. (more…)