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Downbeat Seattle minimum-wage study targeted by UC Berkeley labor center
In 2013, to shore up support for a plan to rapidly increase Seattle’s minimum wage, city leaders agreed to let a team of University of Washington researchers have access to troves of confidential payroll information so they could evaluate whether
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Assembly speaker shelves single-payer health bill
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
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CSU grasps state-students-first message aimed at UC
University of California President Janet Napolitano has been under siege since March 2016, when state Auditor Elaine Howle released a report that showed that the UC system wasn’t honoring the principle that California students come first. Howle documented how, over
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Happy talk belies L.A. Unified’s grim financial picture
The board of the Los Angeles Unified School District passed a $7.5 billion 2017-18 budget this week on a 5-1 vote with Superintendent Michelle King touting the fact that the spending plan doesn’t include teacher layoffs or significant classroom disruptions.
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Is California budget as ‘balanced and progressive’ as Gov. Brown suggests?
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
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High-speed rail agency lacks leader at crucial juncture
Four months after then-California High Speed Rail Authority Chief Executive Jeff Morales told authority board members he was moving on and two months after Morales made his decision public, the agency overseeing the state’s $64 billion bullet train project hasn’t
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State elections chief denies NSA report of California hack
Who will Californians believe: Secretary of State Alex Padilla or the National Security Agency? That’s one way to boil down a flap that’s emerged this week over the sanctity of California’s 2016 elections. Beginning shortly after November’s election, Padilla has
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Only CalPERS internal watchdog on way out
The giant California Public Employees’ Retirement System – with $320 billion-plus in assets, the nation’s largest pension system – is going to lose its only outspoken internal watchdog. J.J. Jelincic – an eight-year incumbent on the CalPERS board who is on leave from
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Criminal justice reformers target punitive traffic tickets
California reformers seeking sweeping changes in the state’s criminal justice system have a new target: burdensome traffic tickets. The leading proponent of the proposal is California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. She is working on a plan to decriminalize
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Is Assembly speaker playing game of chicken over 72-hour rule?
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
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