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Confusion on CA housing market brings flurry of legislation
Debate over California’s housing situation ratcheted up amid conflicting data and a flurry of new legislation designed to mitigate high prices and low supply. Analysts have separated into two camps around Golden State real estate, one more bullish than the
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Once scandal-plagued, L.A. County now unusually quiet
A CalWatchdog survey last August of all the different corruption scandals in recent years at local agencies in south and central Los Angeles County suggested that the area amounted to the New Jersey of Golden State politics. The survey, which
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Transparency initiative shaped nature of road-tax debate
It’s no secret that the state’s legislative leadership is less than thrilled about an open-government initiative that California voters passed in the November election, and are doing what they can to undermine its clear intent. Yet, it’s a testament
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Silicon Valley faces slowdown
Market watchers have keyed in to a series of statistics suggesting breakneck growth in Silicon Valley has begun to slow down. “Tech companies in San Francisco and San Mateo counties lost 700 jobs from January to February and tech employment
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Board of Equalization faces heavy criticism for mismanaged funds
Created to make California’s tax system work better, the Board of Equalization has found itself under a cloud of radical criticism, plunging it into a moment of extraordinary crisis. “At a chaotic budget hearing for an agency that collects a
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Brown gets new gas tax through
At the end of a tumultuous road, a wheeling and dealing Gov. Jerry Brown secured passage of a high-stakes new gas tax raising over $50 billion in ten years. “The California Legislature passed Senate Bill 1 on Thursday night, raising
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Trump’s sister anticipated immigration headache roiling California sheriffs
An immigration-enforcement headache anticipated by President Trump’s sister — federal appellate court Judge Maryanne Trump Barry — is roiling law enforcement authorities in California. They say federal court rulings impede their ability to cooperate with demands from Attorney General Jeff Sessions
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How to fund infrastructure fixes: Tax hikes or rearranging spending priorities?
Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislators are pitching a transportation-tax proposal they depict as the only means to fix California’s crumbling roads, freeways and bridges. One would be hard pressed to find any policy maker in California who doesn’t bemoan
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Thousands of California inmates could go free
Nearly 10,000 inmates could leave California prisons within four years, another consequence of the state’s long struggle with the judicial system over the way it incarcerates convicts. “As the state prison population comes close to exceeding a court-mandated limit, the
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Proposed gas tax hike includes protection against fund diversions
Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders continued their push Friday for quick approval of higher vehicle taxes and fees to pay for a 10-year, $52 billion plan to upgrade California’s roads and highways with the release of legislative language
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