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.
CA Could Lose Congressional Seats if Supreme Court Changes Law to ‘One Citizen-One Vote’
While the immediate reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court taking up the “one-person, one vote case” has been liberals and minority groups saying “Oh, S***” and conservatives getting excited, the case is much more complicated than that. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of plaintiffs, it would affect two distinct (and often confused) processes. Most articles I’ve read have focused on the affect of district lines.
However, the (and perhaps most significant) effect would be on the apportionment of congressional seats among the states. As Paul Mitchell has pointed out, states with a greater percentage of undocumented immigrants or documented non-citizen residents or even more kids (California, Texas) would lose congressional seats–since they are not considered in the Census’s Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP). (more…)
Stock Market Soars — And So Do Public Pension Costs
The way our government accounts for public employee pension promises is nothing short of fraud, yet no public official has gone to jail or paid a price for what surely ranks among the largest muggings of citizens in US history. Let me explain.
As the stock market reaches record levels, little is heard anymore from public officials who used to blame market declines for rising pension costs. A few years ago, the CEO of the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) attributed his pension fund’s deficit to the 2008-09 market decline. Yet despite a stock market that now stands 2.5 times above its 2009 low, CalSTRS’s shortfall is so large that to help address the deficit, California recently enacted legislation that will divert at least $170 billion from classrooms over the next 30 years. That means current and future schoolchildren are paying off past pension promises. (more…)
Will The Supreme Court Remake California Politics?
Like a bolt out of the blue the US Supreme Court has suddenly thrust front and center the most important question in a democracy: who should exercise political power. Should it be all the people, or should it just be those citizens qualified to vote? The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case out of Texas that challenges the 50-year methodology of using all the people in drawing legislative districts. The ruling could drop on California politics like a brick on a tea cup.
Beginning in 1962, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren handed down a series of rulings that said legislative and congressional districts must be drawn on the basis of equal populations – one person, one vote. This did away with the old rural-based State Senates, including California’s where three small counties had one senator and Los Angeles had one senator. “Legislators represent people, not trees or acres,” said Warren in explaining why malapportioned districts were unconstitutional. (more…)
Crippling the Initiative Process by Jacking Up Filing Fees
No one should be fooled — the Assembly bill passed to raise the filing fee for an initiative proposal to $8000 is an attempt to squash the initiative process. The argument that the fee has not been raised in over seventy years rings hollow when any on-line inflation calculator will tell you that inflation over that time has risen no more than one-fourth the amount that the bill, AB 1100, co-authored by Democratic assembly members Richard Bloom and Evan Low demands.
Legislators generally do not like the initiative process. They don’t like the “masses” playing in their backyard of lawmaking. An opportunity to cripple the process was presented when an Orange County lawyer filed a despicable measure that on its face authorized the killing of gays. As I noted previously on this page, “Shame, chastise and rebuke authors like Matt McLaughlin who submitted the Sodomite Suppression Act, as he so much deserves for his heinous proposal. And, don’t give bizarre initiatives the attention they crave. Most will disappear without a trace. But the legislature should not use the righteous outrage people feel over the filing of one particular initiative proposal to undercut the people’s initiative power.” (more…)
GOP Builds Infrastructure To Train Candidates, Keep Legislative Seats
If you’ve read or watched political news reports over the last several months, you might think Republicans are nearing extinction in California, and it’s unlikely conservative leaders will ever regain leadership in the Golden State. Public opinion research and registration data shows the GOP has a mountain to climb to regain confidence from voters, no doubt; however, the prospect of a Republican comeback is much brighter. GOP leaders are working hard to recruit, train and elect the next generation of Republican leaders to state legislative office. And that’s important for the future of the GOP, and the future of our state. A thriving democracy relies upon robust debate and exchange, not one-party rule, which can often dominate the legislature. (more…)
The Corinthian Colleges Debacle—And the Continued Shortcomings In Our Higher Ed System
In late April, Corinthian Colleges, administrator of the Everest College, WyoTech and Heald College campuses, abruptly closed its California sites, leaving more than 10,000 students out in the cold.
As described by Chris Kirkham, most of the students engaged in Corinthian’s vocational classes find themselves with no clear path to training completion. The federal government will lose at least millions of dollars of government-insured education grants. (more…)