Needed: A Human Rights Exception on Ballot Initiatives
The Prop 8 case now in the U.S. Supreme Court has inspired a debate in California, and elsewhere, about ballot initiatives themselves. Joel Fox in this space, and many others, have identified the issue well. If the governor and attorney general refuse to defend a ballot initiative that has passed and been successfully challenged, doesn’t […]
Riding the Rails to the ‘Great Train Robbery’
The United States Government Accounting Office backed up California’s High-Speed Rail Authority by leaking a report last week that claimed the ridership projections for the new bullet train were “reasonable” – that’s the new ridership projections, which have dropped considerably from earlier reports. Still, those new projections, at somewhere between 16.1 and 26.8 million passengers […]
The Governor’s New State Military Council…Keeping our State & Nation out of Harm’s Way
“Successful organizations, including the Military, have learned that the higher the risk, the more necessary it is to engage everyone’s commitment and intelligence.” Margaret J. Wheatley Kudos to Governor Brown for doing just that. The Governor recently convened a new Military Council charged with helping preserve and strengthen California’s defense complex which plays a central […]
Pensions: Why CA is So Screwed Up, in a Nutshell
So CalPERS’ actuary, in a fit of unusual honesty, says the pension giant’s finances are in bad shape in the long run and need to be firmed up. But Alan Milligan realizes that asking his labor-dominated board of directors to have public employees pay more toward pension costs is a nonstarter. So what does he […]