On Friday, April 10, at 5 p.m., Californians learned I had resigned as Chief Economic and Business Advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom and chair of the California High Speed Rail Authority.  The press release stated I was leaving “to focus on family and personal business.” In corporate speak, this usually means someone got fired. I […]

Editor’s Note: Governor Newsom’s new Chief Business and Economic Adviser, Lenny Mendonca, recently spoke to the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation’s Board of Governors about his priorities for ensuring that every person has a pathway to prosperity in any region of the state. The following excerpt of his remark were originally published in David Abel’s […]

By definition, conventional wisdom is convention. It often has the added value of being right. I read a commentary by Joe Matthews in Fox and Hounds recently that argued California’s Top Two Primary works against centrists and actually increases the advantage of t­he more ideological candidates of the left and right. He argued that the pending primary […]

It is not impossible to tell how Hiram Johnson would be keeping score on his Progressive Era reforms, and in particular the initiative process. He would clearly see some successes to set beside the shortcomings the Bee editorial board pointed out last week. For starters, he would count Proposition 11, the citizens redistricting measure from 2008, […]

Tesla’s decision to build its $5 billion gigafactory in Reno, Nev. is disappointing – but not the loss decried by its harshest critics. It is impossible from the outside to know the details of what was offered, promised, and conditioned. To be certain, California’s leaders were deeply engaged and willing to make a deal if […]