Will New Higher Initiative Fee Mean More Initiative Errors?
I’ll write more here in the weeks to come about Gov. Brown’s bad decision to sign a bill raising the ballot initiative filing fee from
Joe Mathews
September 4, 2015
Author: Joe Mathews
Connecting California Columnist and Editor, Zócalo Public Square, Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (UC Press, 2010)
Send California Your Anchor Babies
You better anchor me, baby. Because I find it impossible to write with restraint when politicians start using babies – babies using babies! – to
Joe Mathews
September 3, 2015
The Easy Fix for Prop 39
Let’s chill out at Prop 39. It’s easy to fix. Yes, the AP and other media have reported on how little of the money collected
Joe Mathews
September 1, 2015
Passports, Religions and Wolves
With apologies to the late, great Los Angeles sports journalist Allan Malamud, here are some late-summer notes on the California scorecard. Passports The LA Times
Joe Mathews
August 28, 2015
Why Is It So Hard to Enroll a Kid in Public School?
A wiseacre neighbor walked by the corner where I was standing and shouted, “Is this the line for the U2 tickets?” Nope. The line, which
Joe Mathews
August 27, 2015
An Interesting Initiative Reform Idea That Was a Draper Loser
Reading through the ideas submitted to Tim Draper’s Fix California Challenge is frustrating, for a couple reasons. The first is that so few of the
Joe Mathews
August 25, 2015
Top 10 Reasons Why Arnold Is Not Donald
I keep getting emails from friends with a link to a Washington Post piece arguing that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Donald Trump are, politically speaking, basically
Joe Mathews
August 21, 2015
Don’t Believe All The Hype Around Straight Outta Compton
Reading about the new hit movie about the groundbreaking rap group N.W.A., you might think the biggest problem facing Compton is its unfair and outdated
Joe Mathews
August 20, 2015
Are Second Terms for Climate Change Speechmaking?
Gov. Jerry Brown’s second term is starting to resemble Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s in one way: Brown, like his successor, seems to be finding more and
Joe Mathews
August 19, 2015