Proposition 15 would have been the largest tax increase in California history and its defeat this month was, by any definition, a huge setback for its sponsors, primarily public employee unions. They had been yearning for decades to crack Proposition 13, the 1978 ballot measure that limits property taxes, and convinced themselves that singling out […]

As Gov. Gavin Newsom makes the final decisions on writing a 2021-22 budget, he’s receiving some good revenue news from his beancounters. During the first four months of the 2020-21 budget cycle, which began on July 1, state general fund revenues were more than $11 billion higher than the apocalyptic estimates on which the budget […]

Proposition 15, which would have boosted property taxes on commercial real estate by billions of dollars a year, finally bit the dust last week. It wasn’t a surprise. Although its advocates — unions, mostly — may cite the COVID-19 pandemic and recession as causes for failure, the measure never polled strongly even before the twin […]

California has been a one-party state for the last decade, with Democratic governors and supermajorities in both legislative houses doing pretty much as they pleased without paying any attention to the relative handful of Republican legislators. However, one-party rule gave way to one-man rule eight months ago when Gov. Gavin Newsom declared an emergency due […]

It’s by no means certain that California voters will pass Proposition 15, but if they do, it would be the largest tax increase in the state’s history. That said, it would provide a relatively small down payment on the long-standing desire of the state’s educational establishment for a massive increase in spending that’s needed, advocates […]

California voters are not only voting on presidential, congressional, legislative and local government offices and a dozen statewide ballot measures but deciding the fate of 234 local tax and bond measures. The California Taxpayers Association estimates that if passed, the local tax measures would raise about $1.5 billion a year in new revenues. The proposed […]

As COVID-19 slammed into California a half-year ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered a partial shutdown of what had been a high-flying economy to combat the deadly virus, plunging the state into its worst recession since the Great Depression. In turn, the pandemic and the recession spawned a flurry of legislative bills aimed, their sponsors said, […]

When the Legislature reconvened in January, the stage was seemingly set for a year of sweeping action on California’s most vexing political issues, such as a chronic housing shortage, homelessness and an embarrassingly high poverty rate. Democrats enjoyed overwhelming majorities in both legislative houses, the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, was fond of pursuing “big hairy, […]

Year by year and article by article, Ralph Vartabedian has revealed to Californians the woeful shortcomings of the state’s largest public works project, a north-south bullet train. Vartabedian, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, has made a virtual career of uncovering the project’s managerial, financial and political failings, lending factual credence to the conclusion […]

Four of the 12 measures on California’s November ballot were placed there by the Legislature. Let’s assume that legislators had also appropriated $100 million in taxpayers’ money for campaigns to persuade voters to approve the four. It would have been an outrageous and likely illegal misappropriation of public funds under several laws. Using public funds […]