Posts From James Poulos
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CA Senate jumps into UC tuition fracas
Maybe kids and their parents won’t have to pay higher University of California tuition. Last month, Gov. Jerry Brown tried to reverse UC President Janet Napolitano’s 25 percent tuition hike over five years. But she outmaneuvered him at a Board of Regents
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Gov. Brown, CalPERS face off in 2015
A piece of this year’s politics moving into 2015 is Gov. Jerry Brown’s tiff with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. In particular, Brown remains steamed over CalPERS’ use of temporary pay to pad pensions. In a letter to CalPERS, he said
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Covered CA struggles through second enrollment
Covered California’s huge enrollment numbers boosted the national health care program, the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, during its first year. But the Covered CA health care exchange, the center of the system, has been sneezing through its crucial second open-enrollment period, which
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Realignment worsens woes for CA county jails
Pushed by the courts to thin out California’s state prisons, Gov. Jerry Brown has imposed a cascade of burdens on the county jails required to receive waves of inmates. The latest of these has caused extra heartburn for county sheriffs —
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CA deals Indian casino chaos
Despite generating huge revenues, California’s Indian casino industry has been dealt some questionable hands. Political interests have begun to swirl like a roulette ball around fresh efforts to legalize internet gambling statewide. But voters have been confronted by unpopular plans to expand brick-and-mortar
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CalPERS numbers attract fresh scrutiny
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System looks to see 2015 as another controversial year, especially around four budding controversies. First, attention has focused in recent weeks around the way CalPERS pays its board members and executives. An investigation by the Sacramento Bee
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Dems double down on CA for comeback
Under the still powerful influence of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have turned to the party’s strength in California to see them through the next election cycle and beyond. Despite low popularity ratings nationwide and
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Under fire, Feinstein’s water bill collapses
It has been an uncharacteristically bad week for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. First, her quiet effort to engineer a substantial drought relief bill for California washed out to sea. After working all year with Republicans for a compromise, this week Feinstein encountered
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CA GOP eyes special state Senate election
Aside from preventing Democrats from again nabbing two-thirds supermajorities in the California Legislature, the Nov. 4 national GOP electoral wave did little to change the political dynamic here. With two years to go before the 2016 elections, Golden State Republicans have gained
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Pension crisis divides CA Dems on UC tuition hikes
A 14-7 vote Thursday by the full University of California Board of Regents made it official: Golden State Democrats are deeply divided on tuition increases, thanks to the intractable politics of underfunded pensions. On one side are Democrats who favored the increases, including UC President Janet Napolitano,
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