Assembly Bill 5: California’s ‘Swiss Cheese’ Law
California voters pulled the teeth out of Assembly Bill 5, the labor classification legislation that outlawed gig work, when they approved Proposition 22 last month. The ballot measure didn’t strike AB5 from the books, but it is a statute in trouble, further weakened by a recent lawsuit. With every punch that lands on AB5, there’s […]
Blue State, Red Tape — California is Shedding Residents and Businesses
A Sacramento Bee headline from late October, “How liberal politics, COVID-19 and a high cost of living are fueling a new California exodus,” could have been written, without the virus reference, a year ago. Or ten years ago. The flight from California kicked off long before this year’s pandemic. Eight years ago, an Investor’s Business […]
California Has an Outmigration Problem
Recent Census Bureau data tell a story that surprises no one who keeps up with current events in California: The state is losing residents like few others. According to economist Mark J. Perry, only four other states – New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Louisiana – had a greater net outflow in 2019. Using Census numbers, […]
California’s Political Poison Oozes East
Gavin Newsom says California is “America on fast forward.” Heaven help America. Newsom was referring to what he believes are the effects of man-made global warming while taking in the damage of the North Complex fire last month. But his comments are consistent with the long-accepted notion that the state is America’s lodestar. Its present […]
New CA Task Force on Reparations is a Dangerous Exercise in Virtue-Signaling
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez suggests that California should pay reparations — not for slavery, but for subjecting everyone in the state to a lousy political class. He has a point. As the Golden State’s landscape burned, power grid faltered, and social fabric frayed, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill empaneling a nine-member […]
CalPERS’ Effort to Become a Lender Takes Curious Turn with Sudden CIO Resignation
Now that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System has decided to become a lender, it follows that the taxpayers who finance the pension fund have the right to know what types of loans will be made and to whom. The process, though, will unlikely be sufficiently transparent. There is legitimate concern that CalPERS will be […]
Cancel Culture Finds the SF Museum of Modern Art
A “white supremacist” organized exhibits for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for nearly 20 years? How did his hateful bigotry go undetected for so long in a city whose vanity is in large part fueled by its Wokeness? Gary Garrels, the museum’s senior curator of painting and sculpture, resigned earlier this month over […]
CalPERS, Corruption And Cronyism
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which has a history of making poor choices, plans to become a lending institution. A healthy pension fund wouldn’t be making such a risky decision. Still hurting from $100 billion in losses from the Great Recession, CalPERS was bruised again by the coronavirus pandemic. Now, funded at only 71%, […]
State Move Toward All-Electric Buildings Would Be Another Hit to California’s Working Class
At roughly the same time the state Air Resources Board issued a rule forcing trucks and vans to transition from diesel to electric motors, the state moved closer to a policy framework in which new buildings must be all-electric. The smiling environmental lobby feels no mercy toward the poor, who will have to carry the […]
Newsom: Police And Firefighters Will Be Laid Off But We’ll Spend Millions To Enforce AB5
Gov. Gavin Newsom is leveraging the state’s $54.3 billion budget deficit. Give us what we want, he demands, or public safety programs will be cut. At the same time, he wants $20 million to enforce Assembly Bill 5, maybe the most damaging piece of legislation that ever became law in California. Appearing on CNN, Newsom […]