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Chris Reed

Chris Reed

Chris Reed is a regular contributor to Cal Watchdog. Reed is an editorial writer for U-T San Diego. Before joining the U-T in July 2005, he was the opinion-page columns editor and wrote the featured weekly Unspin column for The Orange County Register. Reed was on the national board of the Association of Opinion Page Editors from 2003-2005. From 2000 to 2005, Reed made more than 100 appearances as a featured news analyst on Los Angeles-area National Public Radio affiliate KPCC-FM. From 1990 to 1998, Reed was an editor, metro columnist and film critic at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario. Reed has a political science degree from the University of Hawaii (Hilo campus), where he edited the student newspaper, the Vulcan News, his senior year. He is on Twitter: @chrisreed99.

Tom Steyer hiring staff in key early 2020 presidential primary states

Signaling he’s very likely to run for president, Bay Area hedge fund billionaire and progressive activist Tom Steyer has begun searching for key aides to help him as he seeks the 2020 Democratic nomination. A recent Linked-In ad was traced

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State senator wants to give CA homeless a ‘right to shelter’

Democratic lawmakers are already gearing up for brawls with Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom over costly efforts to expand state government with a single-payer health care system and a bold new push for subsidized pre-kindergarten education. Now, another ambitious bill with a

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Response to San Francisco car break-in epidemic faulted

In September, when the FBI released national crime statistics for 2017 that showed San Francisco had the highest rate of property crimes per capita of any of the 20 largest U.S. cities, officials were quick to say the problem was

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Efforts to limit pollution by building housing near transit centers meet stiff resistance

Over the past dozen years, the California environmental lobby has never seemed more powerful in the Legislature and in state government. Under Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, the Golden State has passed bold laws and emerged as the global

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PG&E may have violated its criminal probation from San Bruno disaster

Pacific Gas & Electric – the giant investor-owned utility that serves 16 million Californians – appears to be facing its gravest crisis since its founding in 1905. The initial indications that PG&E’s equipment may have sparked the Camp Fire that killed at

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Political corruption again grabbing headlines in L.A.

After a brief lull in 2017, there’s now another embarrassing chapter in Los Angeles County’s emergence as an epicenter of American political corruption. Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar has been stripped of all his council committee assignments after having

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Gov.-Elect Newsom’s interest in tax reform likely to face bipartisan push-back

Governor-elect Gavin Newsom says he hopes to amend the California tax code to lessen its dependence on income and capital gains taxes paid by the very rich. Yet the last two serious attempts at tax reform were both dead on arrival,

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PG&E may not survive latest wildfire without more state help

How much of wildfire costs not covered by insurance should be paid by California’s giant investor-owner utilities has been a significant issue since at least 2007. That’s when wildfires ravaged northern and eastern San Diego County, killing two people and

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CalSTRS at risk of disaster despite 2014 bailout

Four years after the state Legislature passed a bailout of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System that will nearly double annual direct contributions to the giant pension fund, a newly released internal report raises the prospect that the infusion of

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Second-largest CA firm may be preparing for move to Texas

California could be on the brink of one of its biggest corporate defections yet with the signs that McKesson Corp. – the pharmaceutical giant that is sixth on the Fortune 500 list – is preparing to move its headquarters from San Francisco

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