I’m Voting 25 Times. And You Should Too!
In his latest false attack on California, President Trump suggests he’d win California because we Californians all vote three times every election. If only voting here were that easy. I’m voting 25 times in the fall election. And that’s perfectly legal because I live in Los Angeles County. On just one ballot, I face 24 […]
Killing Us Slowly With Their Laws
The California Legislature last month ended its 2020 legislative session where most of the final day of session was spent arguing about partisanship and figuring out how to conduct business virtually. I wrote a column about it, which was featured in Business Journal. You should go read it. We know 2020 has been a year […]
The Ex-Governors As Initiative Warriors
Old California governors don’t die. They just play initiative politics. Just look at our two most recent ex-governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown. They’ve gone beyond the past ex-governor practice of endorsing the occasional measure to being major players in the system. They are using more than their names or political brands. They are also […]
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 […]
Misusing taxpayers’ money for campaigns
California voters are not only voting on presidential, congressional, legislative and local government offices and a dozen statewide ballot measures but deciding the fate of 234 local tax and bond measures. The California Taxpayers Association estimates that if passed, the local tax measures would raise about $1.5 billion a year in new revenues. The proposed […]
California Initiative Editorial Scorecard
California Strategies and Forward Observer are pleased to present the California Initiative Editorial Scorecard. For this 2020 edition of the scorecard, we track editorials on the 12 ballot measures that California voters will decide on Tuesday, November 3. This year’s editorial scorecard is based on circulation data from the Alliance for Audited Media for 22 […]
Consequences from the Ballot Harvesting Law
Those unofficial “official” ballot boxes that have popped up in a few counties are an outgrowth of the legislative edict to allow for ballot harvesting, a practice fraught with potential mischief or abuse. The boxes marked “official” and set up by state and county Republican organizations may violate state law. The Republicans argue it is […]
Reading the Props: Would 21 Be Better With a Different Sponsor?
Every two years, I read the full text of all statewide ballot propositions—because at least one Californian should. Next is 21 Prop 21 is the one measure I struggle to read objectively, because I know too much about the person behind it. That’s Michael Weinstein, of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. He’s spent years waging weird […]
Prosecutorial Institutionalism
George Gascón has publicly stated that he will refuse to enforce key parts of California’s Penal Code that are mandated by both constitutional and statutory authority. He recently promised certain fringe groups, including one that advocates for the abolishment of prisons, that he would not enforce gang crimes and enhancements, California’s Three Strikes law, or […]