Initiative Reform Is Working – To Aid Extortion
California’s governing and reform elite are far better at self-congratulation than actual reform. The pattern appears again in the orgy of self-congratulation after three initiatives were removed from the ballot as the result of negotiations with the legislature at the end of June. The self-congratulation is over the 2014 reform that allowed for such removals […]
The Legislature Nose-to-Nose with Ballot Initiatives
The talk of the Capitol last week was of “the Hertzberg bill,” which changed the calendar for certain activities related to ballot measures, with the intent to ease legislative fixes to proposed ballot measures – if proponents were amenable. Though the bill was enacted in 2014, the new process hasn’t been employed until this year, when […]
Could Decades of Big Government Be Why Bay Area Residents Want to Leave?
Between 1850 and 1860, California’s population grew by 410 percent – a rapid expansion fueled by the Gold Rush. The rush today, though, is more outbound than inbound. From 2007 to 2016, 6 million people left the state while only 5 million moved in. One could argue that with a population of nearly 40 million, […]
Mass Transit Ridership Losses
The Economist provides a useful perspective on the continuing decline of mass transit ridership in its current number. It starts with relating how Juana, a Guatemalan immigrant to Los Angeles, no longer takes the bus and now drives everywhere. She told The Economist that she had “two aspirations, to learn English and get a car,” which she did. I heard […]