California Treasurer Chiang Calls Out Pay To Play In School Bond Elections
California State Treasurer John Chiang and a coalition of county treasurers and tax collectors today moved to stop questionable bankrolling of campaign activities in local bond election campaigns. “There are unscrupulous Wall Street firms offering to fund local bond campaigns in exchange for lucrative contracts,” said Chiang. “Not only are these pay-to-play arrangements unlawful, they […]
Giving a Voice to All Asian Americans in California Classrooms
U.S. Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders put education reform at the center of their political agenda. Here in California, the recent hearings conducted by the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC), an advisory body to the California State Board of Education, will have profound implications on the education system here in California. At the […]
Unconventional Wisdom Philadelphia
* The Democratic convention offered quite a valedictory for both President Obama and Vice-president Biden. Their boffo speeches left a high bar Hillary to clear. Did she? She is not an orator in a league with Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, but she was comfortable in the spotlight and got her points across. She can’t […]
With Trump, Some Hysteria Is In Order
Tony Quinn bemoans in this space that the possibility of Donald Trump winning the presidency “has set off high decibels of hysteria among the political establishment, and no more so than in blue California.” He takes newspapers to task for publishing opinion pieces defending Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s criticism of Trump, and the […]
A Topsy-Turvey Political World
Listening to political speeches and talking heads around the national party conventions I get the feeling I have fallen through to DC Comics Bizarro World where everything is weirdly opposite of what one would expect. The conventions and their fallout have presented topsy-turvy politics. It is Trump now, not Obama as before, who is basically […]
Why Are State Lawmakers Kicking Online Education Students to the Curb?
Imagine enjoying your summer holiday vacation only to learn that special interest lawmakers beholden to the California Teachers Association are voting to close down your child’s school. As a parent, you’ve never received any school closure information or a single news report. Sound far-fetched? Actually, it’s not. When the State Legislature reconvenes on August 1, lawmakers will […]
Making State Government More User Friendly for Business
(Editor’s Note: The following is a release from the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, Go-Biz) Building on the Administration’s efforts to make state government more efficient, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) today awarded 23 state officials across various agencies and departments certificates of completion for the Lean 6-Sigma training […]
Harris-Sanchez’ Top Two Disaster
The Top Two Primary System voters enacted in 2010 with Proposition 14 has flopped in the race to replace Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate. The official summary that year was written by then-Attorney General Jerry Brown, who supported Prop. 14, and read, “Encourages increased participation in elections for congressional, legislative, and statewide offices by […]
California’s Coming Election Has More in Common With Brexit Than You Think
Do you think Brexit was a singularly British form of folly, having little to do with California? Think again. California is the global capital of Brexit-style votes, and this November’s state ballot is littered with mini-Brexits. Don’t think of “a Brexit” as a vote to leave a larger political or economic union. (California isn’t about […]