Year: 2017

The Great Migration Myth

Tell me if you’ve heard this story before: thanks to sky-high housing costs, over-taxation, and/or failed liberal policies, Californians, especially the middle class, are fleeing the state. There’s one huge flaw: Californians aren’t actually leaving the state at anything like a significant rate. According the U.S. Census, between 2014 and 2015, California had thesecond lowest out-migration rate after […]

To Fix ‘Unfair’ Bail System, Will California Copy Kentucky?

“It’s rare that a California lawmaker seeking a policy model would turn to Kentucky. But with the Legislature on summer recess, that’s precisely what Sen. Bob Hertzberg is doing. The mission: travel to the Bluegrass state to investigate how Kentucky gets its defendants awaiting trial to show up for court dates and keep them from […]

Brown’s blunder down under

The biggest news story last week appeared in the classifieds. The legal notice declared a summons for all interested persons to appear in court in Sacramento as a defendant in a lawsuit. The lawsuit names the California Department of Water Resources vs. All Persons Interested in the matter of the Authorization of California Water Fix […]

California’s Attempt At “Massive Resistance”

California’s decision to become a “Sanctuary State” and defy the federal government on immigration, likely to become law later this month, places California in the company of state’s rights extremists that once tried to stop public school integration by much the same means. In 1956, in response to the Supreme Court’s 1954 school integration decision, […]

California already may be paying for Trump’s hypothetical tax cuts

Tax reform may not be much more than a glimmer in the eye of Republicans in Washington D.C., but their promise of lower rates and closed loopholes appears to be already jostling state and local finances. Exhibit One comes in the form of a disappointing haul for California tax collectors this summer. In June, the […]

Reconciling the three Democratic parties

With President Donald Trump’s Dr. Demento impersonation undermining his own party, the road should be open for Democrats to sweep the next election cycle. And, for the first time since their horrific defeat of 2016, not only nationally but also in the states, the Democrats are slowly waking up to the reality that they need […]

CalPERS’ divestment goals in crosshairs as coal stocks soar

A newly released report from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System confirms that, fulfilling the Legislature’s directive to divest from coal-related investments, the pension fund has now largely exited from coal stocks. But as news reports this week suggest, this “socially responsible” investment policy has come at a price, as coal stocks soar under the Trump administration’s […]

Surfing to the Governor’s Chair on an Initiative

To use an analogy that surfer (and assemblyman) Travis Allen might appreciate, can the ballot measure he champions to repeal the gas tax be the surfboard he needs to carve over the choppy waves of a governor’s race and get him safely to shore. The Huntington Beach Republican is putting his hopes on the gas […]