Author: Joe Mathews

Over the years, I’ve not often been on the winning side of many races. But this Election Day, I won big. By not voting. It

SACRAMENTO (AP) – Desperate for revenues, California’s top officials and interest groups are engaged in a high-stakes, behind-the-scenes battle over competing, yet-to-be-released plans to tax

The presidential nominating process is over. The numbers of people turning in their mail ballots are way down. The propositions are pretty much meaningless. And

Crossposted on Prop Zero Goodness knows that more Californians need access to higher education. And that scholarship money for middle-class families — who don’t have

It’s one of the standard allegations thrown at any new ballot initiative that starts a new program – “this initiative will establish an expensive new

Regular readers know that I find Gov. Jerry Brown’s approach to the budget crisis (aka “the Steinbergian problem”) and to California’s governance nightmare totally puzzling.

I attended the California Economic Summit in Santa Clara last week. I was impressed by the ideas produced in workshop sessions, and by the smart

When you write about initiatives, you spend a lot of time hearing from and about rich people. And the main message is that they are

Welcome to the think tank game, Sam Blakeslee. The state senator from the Central Coast, a moderate Republican who is not running for re-election, recently