The Best Argument to Support Prop 70 Won’t be Made
Here’s something that the California Democratic Party and California Republican Party agree on—they oppose Proposition 70 on the June ballot. Prop 70 was part of the compromise engineered by Gov. Jerry Brown and then Republican assembly leader Chad Mayes to extend the cap-and-trade law to 2030. The deal cost Mayes his leadership position. The deal […]
The FPPC Chair Should Be Part-Time, Not Full-Time
I made a mistake when drafting the Political Reform Act of 1974, Proposition 9 passed by 70% of California’s voters in June of 1974. When Dan Lowenstein, the chief drafter of the Act, and I worked together on the measure, he insisted that the chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission be full-time while the […]
5 Questions Posed by the Gubernatorial Debate
This week’s debate between six candidates for California governor was full of short and cut-off answers, given the small amounts of time for answers (60 seconds for a direct question, 30 seconds for rebuttals) and to the whole debate (only 60 minutes statewide, plus 30 minutes for Bay Area viewers). A debate like that is […]
Back to the Future in the San Fernando Valley
Imagine, if you will, being able to ride a rail line on Van Nuys Boulevard in the northeast San Fernando Valley to the West Valley along Sherman Way and across the Cahuenga Pass to downtown Los Angeles. No, I’m not talking about the distant future, but rather the recent past. The year was 1911, the […]