The Price For Moving Primary Up Should Be Ditching Top Two

The big conversation in Sacramento is now about moving up the presidential primary so that California plays a bigger role in selecting a president. That’s fine. But California’s two political parties shouldn’t go along with the change – unless it’s accompanied by the repeal of the top two system. The parties would be in the […]

Leaving California? After slowing, the trend intensifies 

Given its iconic hold on the American imagination, the idea that more Americans are leaving California than coming breaches our own sense of uniqueness and promise. Yet, even as the economy has recovered, notably in the Bay Area and in pockets along the coast, the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates show that domestic migrants continue […]

Healthcare Providers Aren’t Greedier than Uber

I just read An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Kaiser Health News Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal, a fact-filled* critique of the American health system. The author does a marvelous job of describing the Kafkaesque world in which Americans all-too-often find themselves — no fixed prices for procedures or tests, no […]

Free Market Would Do More to Protect California’s Environment Than State Regulation

California is home to six of the 10 cities with the worst air pollution in the country. This seems inconceivable, given that the state has the strictest environmental rules in the nation. Clearly, policymakers have been making the wrong choices. Of course, there’s little chance they’ll admit error. Their response is more likely to simply […]

California public libraries show resiliency

When Governor Brown added $4.8 million to the budget to enhance the California Library Services Act in the last budget, he took a bold step toward re-energizing the state’s public libraries that have experienced a tough post-recession environment. The state’s property values and associated taxes that fund many libraries have not bounced back, and library […]