The Reality And The Politics Of DACA
The Trump decision to eliminate DACA will not lead to massive deportations of so-called Dreamers; in fact it is likely to have little effect at all. The 800,000 DACA immigrants were in this country before DACA was enacted in 2012; they are likely to be here long after it ends, if it does end. That’s […]
Put the Local Races on the Top of the Ballot
Anthony Portantino, the state senator from the western San Gabriel Valley, is advancing a smart idea that deserves immediate attention: putting local races at the top of the ballot. Portantino, in a news release, attributed the idea to Glendale’s city clerk, Ardy Kassakhian, who clearly has good sense. California has undertaken significant changes to local […]
Why California’s jobs engine has remained resilient for 50 years
Labor Day 2017 finds California in the midst of an employment boom that has lasted more than seven years. Since February 2010, the state has gained nearly 2.6 million jobs. How long will this boom last? As we look over the ups and downs of employment in our state since World War II, we find […]
The Suspense Files: California bills vanish almost without a trace
Shortly after last year’s presidential election, Democrats in the California Legislature drew headlines by introducing a flurry of bills attacking “fake news.” They called for more resources to teach media literacy, so public school students could better discern facts from the kind of bogus stories that proliferated online during the campaign. Yet in the months since, all […]
Someone to blame for skyrocketing drug prices
They operate in secret. They have no laboratories or research centers, and produce nothing. But they control a critical intersection of our health care system, influencing the price we pay for prescription drugs and skimming off billions of dollars for themselves. They are called “pharmacy benefit managers,” or PBMs. From their creation in the 1960s […]