The Budget Deadline Nears
Well, we now know the plan. It’s a plan to negotiate with Governor Newsom after Monday’s deadline but to make sure lawmakers keep getting paid. Wednesday in a joint statement, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) announced that they would pass the “Legislature’s” joint budget plan on […]
Protests: Anger and Hope
Were the police too rough with demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd? Bill and Sherry zero in on the Los Angeles Police Department for a discussion of this controversial subject. They want to know who was responsible for the LAPD tactics used against the demonstrators and they ask about the roles of Mayor Eric […]
The Pandemic Disrupts One Sports Betting Effort; May Boost Another
A number of California Native American tribes joined in a lawsuit to get more time to gather signatures to qualify a sports betting measure for the California ballot. The lawsuit charges that the state’s stay-at-home order in wake of the coronavirus pandemic interfered with practicing the state’s cherished right of direct democracy. Initiative qualifications have […]
Trump and the California GOP
There are two scenarios under which Donald Trump’s performance in the 2020 election could hurt the California Republican Party. The first is that he loses. The second is that he wins. Even as he got a modest electoral college majority in 2016, he did so poorly here that California alone accounted for Hillary Clinton’s plurality […]
Lack of Transparency in Our State Government
Former Mayor of Chicago and former Chief of Staff to Pres. Obama, Rahm Emanuel, once said “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” By exploiting the chaos presented by the coronavirus crisis, our state legislature is doubling down on that statement. Legislators are pushing a flurry of wrongheaded housing bills that are targeting established […]
Floyd protests challenge politicians
The tsunami of righteous indignation over the suffocation death of a black man, George Floyd, by a Minneapolis policeman, like all crises, creates both opportunity and peril for political figures. It will certainly impact President Donald Trump’s already iffy chances for re-election, given his tone-deaf response to Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests. It’s an […]
Rent Control Issue will Rise in the Aftermath of the Protests
The immediate cause of the demonstrations in Los Angeles and elsewhere following the police killing of George Floyd is well known—brutality by cops inflicting racist treatment on African Americans. But dig deeper into Floyd’s and other killings and you’ll find a more complex story. For Los Angeles, it is a story largely shaped by […]
What is Environmental Racism?
What is “environmental racism”? I haven’t a clue and apparently neither does the senior Newsom Administration official who after suggesting polluters were committing it retracted her assertion. Even before the ink was dry the official removed her accusation from the Twitter blast that contained it. Indeed, Mary Nichols, Chairman of the California Air Resources Board […]
California Continues to Inflict More Costs onto the Energy Used by Residents
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided on May 28th that climate lawsuits filed by San Mateo County and the cities of San Francisco and Oakland asserting a California public nuisance claim against five energy companies arising from the role of fossil fuel products in global warming can proceed in state court. The lawsuits utilize […]
From tragedy to opportunity: We could live better when today’s mayhem ends
For most people in this locked-down, riot-scarred world, the future beckons unpleasantly. There is a growing sense that, economically, the 2020s may look more like the 1930s than some halcyon post-industrial future. “Dark days ahead,” suggests The Week. “This is what the end of the end of history looks like.” Yet, beyond the depressing statistics, […]