Fox and Hounds Daily Says Goodbye

With this article, we end publication of Fox and Hounds Daily. It has been a satisfying 12½ year run. When we opened in May 2008, our site was designed to offer an opportunity to those who wished to engage in public debate on many issues, especially in politics and business, but found it difficult to get placed in newspaper op-ed pages. 

Co-publishers Tom Ross, Bryan Merica and I have kept F&H going over this time investing our own time, funding, and staff help. Last year at this time we considered closing the site, however with an election on the horizon we decided to keep F&H going through the election year. With the election come and gone, and with no sense of additional resources, we have decided to close the site down. 

Fox and Hounds will live on, at least, with my articles collected in the California State Library.

On a personal note, I have spent over 40 years in California policy and politics. There have been some incredible high moments and some difficult low points. It pains me that politics too often is a blood sport, frequently demonizing the motives of opponents and using the legal system as a weapon in public discourse. At Fox & Hounds, we tried to adhere to the practice of giving all a voice in the debate, yet keep the commentaries civil and avoided personal attacks.

F&H offered the opportunity to publish different perspectives (even ones that criticized my writings!).  We had success as indicated by the Washington Post twice citing Fox and Hounds Daily one of the best California political websites and many other positive affirmations and comments received over the years.

Tom, Bryan and I want to thank our many readers and writers for being part of our journey.  The publishers of Fox and Hounds Daily believe that we added value to California and its people. We hope you agree.

The Athletics Party and the Dodgers Party

Convention wisdom is that California politics is divided between Democrats and Republicans, with a growing number of unaffiliated voters.

But does that explain the reality of California’s political divides. The Republicans are shrinking into irrelevance. The Democrats have less than a majority, but so many of the supposedly unaffiliated voters cast their ballots with the Democrats that they enjoy significant majorities of the votes. However, that big party is also a diverse party, with different strains. So how best to understand the real divides?

Here’s one attempt at an answer:

Look to the baseball playoffs.

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Anti-UFW Farm Workers Seek Help from Gov. Jerry Brown

Roll over, Cesar Chavez, here comes Silvia Lopez.

Silvia Lopez is a quiet, thoughtful 15-year Gerawan Farming employee, and the de facto leader of thousands of Central Valley farm workers who have been protesting for nearly a year to oust the United Farm Workers union from the farming company.

Seven hundred Gerawan farm workers took a day off without pay and descended on Sacramento Wednesday to attend a meeting at the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.  Then they walked to the State Capitol to meet Gov. Jerry Brown.

Six of the farm workers tried to ask Brown to intervene with the ALRB to allow them to vote on whether to keep or oust the UFW from Gerawan Farming.

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What Happens When the Prop 30 Taxes End?

What California faces when the Proposition 30 temporary taxes run their course was a question addressed by a couple of panels, one on which I participated, at Governing Magazine’s  Leadership Forum in Sacramento yesterday.

Proposition 30 passed by voters last November increased sales and income taxes temporarily. The quarter-cent sales tax portion is scheduled to expire in 2016, the income tax piece runs through 2018.

What happens then? Will there be a huge hole in the state budget when all those taxes go away? The idea expressed by proponents of Prop 30 was that the economy would stage a comeback over the time period in which the temporary taxes are in effect. But, if that’s the plan, the timing might not be so good.

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Recall? What Recall?

Do you even recall the recall?

Ten years ago this week, it was big news. California’s voters approved the yanking of Governor Gray Davis by big majorities. We made history. No statewide elected official had ever been recalled in California before, and none has since. Indeed, Davis was only the second governor in U.S. history ever to be recalled.

The recall was sexy. In one poll, 99 percent of state residents said they were following news of it. The recall made headlines across the country and around the world. It wasn’t just political. It was cultural; it was entertaining; it was literary. It made The New Yorker and the National Enquirer, Oprah and Howard Stern, NPR and Fox. Most elections offer voters a choice of a half-dozen dull candidates. The recall offered 135 choices, including a porn star, Gary Coleman (God rest his soul), a sumo wrestler, and a couple of dudes promoting beer.

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Small Business Sizes Up the Affordable Care Act

With all the media coverage of the federal government shutdown, there was some news about the historic launch the California’s health care market place but details were few.  So what exactly is happening?

On Oct. 1, Covered California (California’s state-run health coverage exchange), as well as other state and federally-run health care marketplaces created by the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), officially opened their doors for enrollment. Here in California, I hear hundreds of thousands of people went online to www.coveredca.com in Covered California’s first few hours of operation to find out whether or not they can get affordable health care coverage.  In searching for answers to that question, Covered California has two marketplaces: One for individuals (which is getting the lion’s share of media coverage); and a separate Small Business Healthcare Options Program, or SHOP, for companies with 50 employees or fewer.

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AB 109 Turns Two: What’s Next?

As we mark the two year anniversary of Assembly Bill 109’s implementation, realignment is still not an issue that lends itself easily to sound bites. It’s complex, it’s a long slog without immediate results and the collaboration required to get it right is unprecedented.

What AB 109 offers counties is money to explore alternatives to locking criminals up, throwing away the key and expecting them to be different human beings a year (or many years) later.

Good things are happening and with a little discipline and some smart tweaks to the law, they will continue to. There is certainly a need for additional reform as well as improved communication and collaboration among stakeholders to maintain this trajectory.

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