Hey Central Valley, Happy Bizarro-Earth Day!
In Superman comics, “Bizarro World” is a universe where wrong is right, and Superman’s clone is a villain. The parallel planet’s name is “Earth” spelled backwards – htraE. But it’s not just in comic books that you encounter the specter of evil twins and vertigo-inducing inversions. Today, as we mark Earth Day, 2015 – with […]
Lincoln Would Remind Us: California Can’t Flout Federal Mining Law
A century and a half ago today, before he left for Ford’s Theater on the fateful evening of April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was thinking about California. More precisely, California’s fabled Mother Lode was on his mind. House Speaker Schuyler Colfax was about to travel west, and Lincoln asked him to carry greetings to the men […]
Stop the Federal Water Wasters
If you came across somebody gasping with thirst, you wouldn’t give him one of those prank drinking cups that would trickle water down his shirt. By the same token, in drought-parched California, we can’t afford to have federal environmental bureaucrats drilling holes in our dams. Yet that’s what they’ve been doing, figuratively, by imposing Endangered […]
Magna Carta vs. Cap and Trade
Cue the candles and cake: One of the great documents of liberty hits the big Eight-0-0 this year. Eight centuries ago, at Runnymede, England’s barons forced a resentful King John to accept landmark limits on royal power. Magna Carta – the “Great Charter” – set precedents that undergird our freedoms to this day: protections for […]
Razing Anti-Business Roadblocks, In Reagan’s Name
For most of us, the trip from California to Nevada can be a hassle-free jaunt. Not for small-business owner Steven Saxon. He has hit a surprising regulatory roadblock at the state line. His fight to raze it bears watching if you think government’s proper role is to smooth the path for honest entrepreneurs, not blockade […]
High Court’s Rulings Resonate in the Golden State
For those of us on the West Coast, is there a “local angle” to the high-profile stories out of the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday? Four actions by the court – the two big cases that were decided, and two other big cases that were passed over – resonate in California in a special way. But […]
Appellate Court Hearing Is Friday: The Case For Blocking The High Speed Rail Bonds
When the California High Speed Rail bonds were on the ballot back in 2008, as Proposition 1A, were you on the winning side, voting “yes” along with 52.6 percent of the electorate? Maybe you shouted “Wooh hooh!” when the result was announced? Then you ought to hope the bonds are rejected by the state appellate […]
San Diego Case Asks: Can Unions Boot Pension Reform from the Ballot?
If taxpayers want to curb pension costs with a ballot measure, do they need an OK from unions before they start collecting signatures? San Diego’s Municipal Employees Association seems to think so. The MEA, which represents 6,000 workers on the city payroll, wants government unions to have a gatekeeper role in the initiative process — […]
Another Legal Misfire Against Prop. 13
The legacies of Howard Jarvis and Hiram Johnson are in the crosshairs in a lawsuit that was heard by a state appellate court last week. So is your pocketbook. Filed by former UCLA Chancellor Charles Young, the suit aims to open new spigots of cash for government by cancelling one of Jarvis’ great bequests to […]