Brown’s Water Plan Faces New Geographic Fight
Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan for a massive, $24 billion water project rests on the innocuously named Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which weighs in at a door-stopping 30,000 pages and took seven years to complete. An early version of the draft environmental impact report, released recently, killed another 20,000 pages worth of trees. In the interests […]
Governing is About Tough Choices
During the Legislature’s hectic “house of origin” deadline—when each bill that originates in either the Senate or the Assembly must pass out of its respective house or it dies—many bills with sweeping implications for California’s economy come before us. Oftentimes it is easiest to simply vote “No” and move on since many bills are simply […]
Superstores Create Jobs, Legislators Kill Them
When a bill came across Governor Jerry Brown’s desk, just 18 months ago, that would have required yet another reporting and review period before any large retail store could be built in California, the Governor rightly vetoed it. “Plenty of laws are already on the books that enable and in some cases require cities and […]
The Thank God We Didn’t Buy That Drug Cheat’s Ballot Box Budgeting Measure Tax
Last year, we were presented with a tempting proposal, the ballot initiative known as Prop 29. It was a cigarette tax that had everything: high-profile, white-hat backers in disease charities (like that of Lance Armstrong), proper bad guys in the tobacco companies, a good tax policy (a higher cigarette tax), and the promises of money […]
Washington Post Column Picks CA Best Political Reporters
Who are California’s best political reporters? The Washington Post “The Fix” column asks readers from all 50 states to nominate the reporters they thought were the best in their state, then Post staffers worked through the nominees and made their selections. As ‘The Fix” columnist, Chris Cillizza, states, “Inevitably when conducting a project like this, […]