Steven Greenhut, Author at CalWatchdog.com

Posts From Steven Greenhut

Steven Greenhut

Steven Greenhut is CalWatchdog’s contributing editor. Greenhut was deputy editor and columnist for The Orange County Register for 11 years. He is author of the new book, “Plunder! How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation.”

San Francisco voters may have chance to overturn vaping ban

SACRAMENTO – The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted in June to make the city the first in the country to impose a total sales ban on flavored tobacco products, as similar ordinances spread across the Bay Area. It’s also

Democrats and Republicans see different solutions to California housing crisis

Steven Greenhut July 26, 2017

SACRAMENTO – Before the recent legislative recess, California Democratic leaders and Gov. Jerry Brown announced their intention to tackle one of the state’s biggest crises: housing affordability. It’s the rare instance where virtually everyone in the Capitol at least is

GOP legislators unlikely to pay price for cap-and-trade vote

Steven Greenhut July 18, 2017

SACRAMENTO – As the California Legislature approached a late-night Monday vote to extend the state’s climate-change-fighting cap-and-trade system, the Capitol buzz focused on Jacqui Irwin of Thousand Oaks. The Democratic assemblywoman was absent because of a long-standing family commitment, thus

CA Legislature seeks data on race, sexual orientation of lobbyists

Steven Greenhut July 17, 2017

SACRAMENTO – A letter late last month from the state Legislature’s six special-interest caucuses asking California lobbying firms to provide legislators with detailed demographic data has sparked debate and controversy within the Capitol and media. The Sacramento Bee reported last week

Teacher-tenure reform shaping up as big education fight this year

Steven Greenhut July 5, 2017

SACRAMENTO – Despite the oft-discussed need for education reform in California, the state Legislature will only consider one major reform bill this year. Even that bill’s passage is uncertain, given opposition from the powerful California Teachers’ Association. The issue involves

Assembly speaker shelves single-payer health bill

Steven Greenhut June 28, 2017

SACRAMENTO – Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, an avowed supporter of single-payer health care, nevertheless announced last week that he was pulling the plug on a Senate-passed measure that would create such a system in California. Rendon, who is holding

Is California budget as ‘balanced and progressive’ as Gov. Brown suggests?

Steven Greenhut June 21, 2017

SACRAMENTO – The California Assembly and Senate have until Thursday to approve the budget deal announced by Gov. Jerry Brown last week, but there’s little uncertainty about the outcome. The general-fund budget is a record-setting $125 billion – something Brown

Is Assembly speaker playing game of chicken over 72-hour rule?

Steven Greenhut June 7, 2017

SACRAMENTO – California voters in November overwhelmingly passed Proposition 54, a constitutional amendment to promote transparency by requiring all bills in their “final form” to be published online for 72 hours before legislators vote on them. It’s designed to stop

Gov. Brown’s pension plan gets mixed reviews from reformers

Steven Greenhut May 30, 2017

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature mostly have avoided tackling the state’s unfunded pension liabilities, even though these taxpayer-backed debts to pay for pension promises to state and local employees have soared by 22 percent in the last

Report: Single-payer health care in California would cost double state budget

Steven Greenhut May 23, 2017

SACRAMENTO – During the California Democratic Party convention in Sacramento last weekend, the spiciest news was outgoing chairman John Burton dropping an f-bomb on a group of activists demanding that the party embrace a single-payer health system. It’s not really