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.
Banquo’s Ghost as a Minimum Wage Initiative
In all respects except one, the last week couldn’t have been better for my California initiative to raise the state minimum wage to $12 per hour, the highest in the America.
NPR broadcast a remarkably long 14 minute interview segment on my effort. Although the airing of the show had been delayed a couple of weeks, I couldn’t have been happier with the discussion, which provided me an ideal platform to explain in detail the numerous reasons why both liberals and conservatives should naturally endorse a much higher minimum wage. During the previous week widely syndicated columns by Debra Saunders and Thomas Elias had covered similar ground. And just this morning legendary public advocate Ralph Nader published a major column in USA Today recapitulating those same obvious reasons why America should “give workers a raise.”
Bio-Oil Mandate? More Pain, No Gain
There’s an old saying: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In California, we seem to have an addiction to believing that if a new “green” product sounds good, it must be good. But ironically, its success can only be achieved through a legislative requirement. Never mind actual performance.
Such is the case with SB 916 (Correa), a bill that would ban conventional engine lubricating oil in California and mandate a new blend containing at least 25% “biosynthetic” content. This new oil is engineered from crops like soybeans. Now this may seem like a good idea, but the reality is SB 916 is likely to cost consumers millions of dollars not only in the form of higher prices for products from motor oil to milk, but for equipment failure as well.
Gone to Texas
Texas Governor Rick Perry is returning to California, and to left-leaning politicians in Sacramento he is about as welcome as Godzilla in Tokyo. The cause of this consternation is Perry’s pro-business record which exposes all the weaknesses of the California approach to governing. While Texas focuses on job creation, California lawmakers give their highest priority to reducing the calories in soft drinks. While Texas cut taxes last year, Sacramento is constantly searching for new ways to burden taxpayers.
For defenders of the California system, where the trivial is exalted and issues about which real people care are ignored, it gets even worse when Perry leaves. This is because so many California businesses are following him back to Texas. After comparing the two states and seeing that Texas’ taxes are lower, regulations are more reasonable and the legal system more fair, over 50 companies have relocated or expanded in Texas in the last year and a half. This business flight has shifted thousands of California jobs to the Lone Star State. And we are not just talking about small or insignificant businesses. Last month, oil giant Occidental Petroleum, a major presence in California for nearly a century, announced its relocation to Houston.
Affirmative Action Blows Up
Assembly Speaker John Perez killed the Senate bill restoring affirmative action on Monday after howls of outrage from Asian Americans when they realized the bill imposed a quota system on how many of their children could go to public colleges and universities. Perhaps the Speaker’s next move should be to require courses in California history for all legislators before they do this again.
They might start with the year 1878 which begins a long and sordid history of “Yellow Peril“ anti-Asian policies that includes Asiatic coolieism, the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Alien Land Acts, all of which were intended to repress California’s Chinese and Japanese populations. Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, restoring affirmative action, while not as extreme, clearly fits into a long pattern of resentment at the success of Asians in California, by taking aim at the number of Asian students at our public colleges and universities.
Attention: Media. Here’s One Way to Do Dan Schnur A Solid
Media favorite Dan Schnur, candidate for California Secretary of State, has a political problem. He’s not a registered member of any political party. And such independent candidates have a hard time winning – because voters who are members of parties are much more likely to vote than voters who, like Dan, are unaffiliated.
That problem is especially acute during primaries. Independents don’t show up for primaries because primaries are by definition party affairs, and so independents don’t have all that much to choose from. (Democrats, to their credit, included independents in California while Republicans more recently kept them out).
Now, in California we have a new system that eliminated primaries and replaced them with a two-round top-two system. All the candidates are on the ballot in the first round, and the top two vote getters in the first round advancing to the second round.
The Wrong Way To Elect A Speaker
Yesterday San Diego Assemblywoman Toni Atkins was formally elected to be Speaker of the Assembly. She will assume her office later this year, succeeding current Speaker John Perez. Ideologically there is hardly a lick of difference between these two liberal Democrats, though many have shared with me privately that Atkins style of doing business may be more pleasing to those participating in the legislative process than that of Perez. Whatever.
Let me add to the chorus of those wishing Speaker-Elect Atkins congratulations on her election — what a tremendous personal achievement! She and her family can be quite proud, indeed.
That said, let me just express after-the-fact, as the vote was held yesterday, my disappointment that Atkins was elected to the Assembly’s top spot via a unanimous voice vote. Let’s get real. The office of Assembly Speaker is a partisan office at the top of a partisan institution. Toni Atkins may be Speaker of the entire Assembly, but she is the leader of the Democrats, chosen by them behind closed doors and put up by the Democrats as their choice for Speaker. Republicans weren’t part of that discussion. Yesterday’s vote was a formality, truly.