“We have to revisit the numbers we’re reporting and what they mean,” Commander Dominic Choi told Southern California Public Radio. “We’re not caseworkers, so we can’t follow up.” In other words, they don’t know what those contacts mean. Police aren’t allowed to say anything given confidentiality requirements. And they are law-enforcement officers – not social workers – so it’s unreasonable for them to act like caseworkers even when they engage in something that resembles casework.

Supporters of the plan say it could provide needed aid to homeless people, but opponents argue that social workers rather than police are best able to offer needed assistance.

Basically, the officers go to the homeless encampments a few days before city workers come by to demolish the structures, clean up the mess and shoo people away. The officers give them warning and referrals to receive help with food, medical care or housing. The LAPD says that more than 3,500 of the homeless accepted some referral. But the news report says that it’s “unclear” how many of them then received services. And homeless advocates note that accepting referral isn’t a big deal. Who isn’t going to accept the information from a police officer?

The LAPD wants the public to believe that this is about helping the homeless. But Choi, who heads the effort for the agency, told the radio network that the main mission of the program is to protect city workers and enforce health regulations. That’s a reasonable point. But too often police give fines and citations to homeless people. Given homeless people’s lack of resources and myriad problems, that might not be the most helpful approach, given that the referrals may seem like an afterthought.

Then there was the case last year where Los Angeles police officers shot to death a homeless man on Skid Row. Even though the DA and police commission found the shooting to be justified, it’s not unusual for homeless people to distrust police visits. Given the rampant mental illness and drug-abuse problems among the homeless population, if the city increases police interactions this could realistically lead to more deadly encounters.

“We have to do something,” Choi was quoted as saying. Indeed. But the main question is whether that something should come from the police department or from social workers.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown’s annual budgets have become familiar affairs. During his last two terms in office, Brown routinely offered a budget plan that broke spending records, but also was designed to limit the creation of new programs while girding against the possibility of another recession. The governor’s budget release from last Thursday was true to form.

Brown’s 2018-2019 budget plan would spend a record $132 billion in the general fund – which is 4 percent higher than last year and 44 percent higher than the first budget he released in his modern gubernatorial terms (2011-2012). The total budget – including spending from bonds and special funds – tops $190 billion. As columnist Dan Walters points out, Brown’s first-ever budget from the 1970s spent only $11.5 billion in the general fund. 

But Brown touted his infamous chart showing that balanced budgets often have been followed by deficits.  “California has faced 10 recessions since World War II and we must prepare for the eleventh. Yes, we have had some very good years and program spending has steadily increased. Let’s not blow it now,” he said in his budget statement.

The governor also warned about the ramifications of the recent federal tax plan, signed by President Trump, which increases the tax bite on high-income Californians by limiting their ability to write off state and local taxes. Unless the state Legislature passes a workaround (such as a proposed plan that allows Californians to designate their state tax payments as a “charitable contribution”), the new rules are expected to reduce revenues in high-tax states.

There are other steps that followed in a more fiscally conservative manner. Following the recent increase in the gas tax and vehicle-license fees, the new budget showed a healthy surplus. Instead of spending it on new programs, Brown has earmarked $5 billion to the state’s rainy day fund. That’s $3.5 billion more this year than he is obligated to set aside in case of a coming downturn. It brings the total fund to $13.5 billion.

These efforts drew praise from across the political spectrum for their prudency. As the San Francisco Chronicle opined, Brown’s “proposed budget, drenched in a $7 billion surplus, spends money sparingly, dumps dollars into a record rainy-day fund, and dodges big-ticket programs favored by his would-be successors.” Democratic legislators and statewide elected officials likewise praised the governor for spending more without breaking the bank.

He even earned the faint praise of some Republicans legislators, who fear that the next Democratic governor will be far more eager to spend beyond Californians’ means. “As usual, the governor gave a good speech this morning,” said Sen. Jeff Stone, R-Temecula. “But as has been the case far too often, the initial budget is the floor and I’m sure the Democrat leadership in Sacramento will now begin the spending spree we all know is coming.” Other Republicans argued that the surplus proved that the gas-tax hike was unnecessary – and urged the governor to return the surplus to taxpayers.

There are a number of other noteworthy spending proposals. For instance, the governor plans to quickly start spending $4.6 billion in road improvements, which some observers believe could blunt the momentum of a proposed statewide initiative, which is now in the signature-gathering stage, that would repeal the unpopular tax. The governor also proposes spending nearly 3 percent more on California State University and the University of California systems – a proposal that drew criticism as being insufficient from some education officials. Total K-12 spending would be up by 2.5 percent.

Of particular note, the governor proposes the creation of a new fully online state community college to serve the “2.5 million Californians in the prime working ages between 25 and 34 who have only a high school diploma or some college but no degree.” Brown says these Californians – mostly Latino and women – are most vulnerable to recession and to automation in the workplace. The proposed cost to get started is approximately $100 million and then $20 million a year.

Social services spending remained stable. The budget boosts health care spending but contains some uncertainty, pending a coming decision from Congress regarding whether it will continue to split the costs of the Children’s Health Insurance Program with the states. The governor continues to boost funding for programs to combat climate change. He continues to pay down the so-called “Wall of Debt,” which hit $35 billion in 2011 and is down to $6 billion in this budget year.

One big fiscal issue, that doesn’t directly affect the current, proposed budget, involves the state’s growing payments to cover its unfunded pension liabilities. “When the next recession comes around, the governor will have the option of considering pension cutbacks for the first time in a long time,” the governor said at a press conference. They will, he said, be on the “chopping block.”

Brown was referring to a series of cases that the California Supreme Court has agreed to review this year involving something known as the “California Rule.” That refers to a series of decisions dating to 1955, which forbid government from cutting pension benefits for current employees even going forward (i.e., you accrue the promised benefit through today, but start earning a lower amount starting tomorrow).

Unions have challenged some changes in the governor’s 2013 pension-reform law. Brown’s legal team submitted a brief to the court that defends not only the reform law, but which seems to back broader changes to the rule. Clearly, the governor expects the court to side with him, which would not only give the state more latitude in reining in spending, but local governments, too.

That’s a longer-term picture, but in the short term the budget proposal is pure Jerry Brown. He wants to spend more on government programs, but wants to be certain that the state isn’t committing itself to huge new spending obligations if the economy goes soft.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Under current law, the possession of small amounts of marijuana (less than one ounce) is punishable only by a fine, whereas those who grow or sell marijuana can face stiff criminal penalties, according to an analysis from the California Secretary of State. In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, which legalized medical uses of marijuana for people of all ages who receive a doctor’s recommendation.

Beginning in 2003, the state legalized nonprofit groups known as collectives that are allowed to grow and sell marijuana to their members. Under recently passed laws, those collectives will be phased out and replaced with state-licensed medical-marijuana businesses. Meanwhile, local governments often strictly regulate or ban medical-marijuana businesses. And the federal government still considers marijuana a “Section I” drug, which means that federal enforcement agencies still claim the right to crack down on any sales. Indeed, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reportedly been eyeing a crackdown on states that allow recreational sales.

Against that backdrop, California’s Prop. 64 legalizes the use of marijuana, for any reason, for adults only, creates a complex state system for regulating nonmedical marijuana businesses, imposes a wide array of taxes on marijuana and changes the penalties for marijuana crimes, notes that Secretary of State analysis. Specifically, adults may possess around an ounce of pot, smoke it in their own home or private business, give some of it away and may grow up to six plants in their own residence.

Six state agencies – including a relatively new Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation – will regulate different aspects of the marijuana pipeline (sales, testing, transportation, growing). The industry will be required to pay a state tax on growing marijuana and a state retail excise tax plus any local sales taxes. Localities are free to tax, regulate and even ban recreational marijuana sales. Because of federal restrictions, marijuana businesses may not have bank accounts – an unresolved issue as the state steps up its tax-collection requirements.

The arguments over the measure’s plusses and minuses are largely over, but it will take a while before everyone is clear on what’s allowed and what isn’t in any particular jurisdiction. There’s broad agreement on some basics: No smoking marijuana in public, adults only, and it’s OK to possess small amounts of weed. But it will take some time for Californians serving prison sentences for marijuana-related offenses to petition the court to have those convictions tossed out.

And it will take some time for cities and the state cannabis agency to approve the first round of stores that sell recreational products. Chalk it up to bureaucratic morass, perhaps. “Los Angeles and San Francisco are among many municipalities that won’t have their licenses ready by the time marijuana sales become legal on New Year’s Day,” according to Fortune. The magazine notes that the state has issued 69 licenses for medical marijuana clinics, which must receive new state approvals under the new law. But it only has issued 44 licenses for nonmedical stores. Per the article, Sacramento, San Diego and Berkeley have approved licenses for stores in their cities, but consumers in San Francisco and Los Angeles and other cities will have no place to legally shop for weed as of the new year.

And National Public Radio reports that the local pot scene will vary greatly. The League of California Cities told the news service that “communities are all over the map when it comes to dealing with recreational marijuana. Some allow cultivation but not retail. Others will allow delivery but no storefronts.” It will take time for all of that to play out.

There’s still a debate over the process of legally growing marijuana for recreational users. Small growers for the medical-marijuana market are worried that Proposition 64 will allow big, corporate farms to take over the emerging recreational market. In fact, many pro-pot activists had actually opposed the legalization initiative out of concern over what it would mean for small businesses and fears that the new regulatory system would be too heavy-handed.

There are other gray areas. A CNBC article explores what it will mean for Californians who attempt to catch a flight across the state. “That is a conundrum for the state’s airports, which are locally owned and operated but are subject to federal law, under which marijuana is an illegal substance. Areas beyond security checkpoints are under federal control,” it reported. A Los Angeles airline security official is quoted saying that this will be a gray area.

Furthermore, the state still is trying to figure out how to combat driving under the influence. As the “Pathways Report” from the state’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy acknowledged, marijuana stays in a user’s system for several weeks. That’s long after the high has gone away. Police agencies need to determine if someone is driving stoned without slapping fines on a driver who may have smoked a joint a week ago. Of course, that’s an issue whether or not marijuana is legalized.

Of course, marijuana use has long been a gray area in California. Even many supporters of Prop. 215, the medical-marijuana law, admit that the ensuing medical marketplace has been fraught with gray areas and enforcement questions. It took nearly two decades after its passage before the Legislature passed a thorough set of medical-marijuana regulations. And they did so largely because of the coming recreational market. Officials viewed the new medical marijuana rules as the foundation for regulating recreational-marijuana sales.

Many observers fear that if state and local governments don’t quickly get pot shops licensed that the black market will continue to flourish, which would defeat the main reason for legalizing the drug in the first place. Supporters of the legalization initiative had argued that in the current black market there’s no one regulating the product’s safety, or overseeing environmental aspects of large-scale marijuana grows or assuring that weed isn’t sold to minors.

The bottom line is pot smokers shouldn’t expect marijuana to be available at many legal stores on January 1 – and it will take many months before the state government, police agencies and localities are working from the same page. The voters may have spoken clearly, but it’s not as easy for government bureaucracies to get their act together.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

The influential California Association of Realtors is launching a signature drive for a November 2018 ballot measure that would greatly expand the ability of Californians who are at least 55 years old and disabled people to maintain their low-tax assessments even if they move to other counties or purchase more expensive new homes.

Prop. 13 requires counties to tax properties at 1 percent of their value (plus bonds and other special assessments), which is established at the time of sale. The owners maintain that assessment even if values increase, as they typically do in California. The proposition limits tax hikes to no more than 2 percent a year. Prop. 13 passed overwhelmingly because many people – especially seniors – were being taxed out of their homes as assessments soared during a real-estate boom.

Under current rules, people 55 and older may keep their low assessments if they move within the same county or within one of 11 counties that accept these transfers. They may do so only once in a lifetime. It enables retired people, for instance, to downsize from a big family house to a condominium without paying a stiff tax penalty.

For example, if one purchased a home in 2008 for $350,000 and that home is now worth $750,000, they may continue paying taxes at the lower assessed value even after they sell the home and purchase a smaller one. The valuation goes with them. But the newly purchased property must have a market value the same or lower than the house that has been sold.

The Realtors’ proposal would, for seniors and the disabled, tie the assessed value of any newly purchased home to the assessed value of the old home. They would be free to take that assessment with them to any of the state’s 58 counties. They could carry it with them as many times as they choose. The reduced assessments would apply even for people who purchase home with market values above the ones that they sold.

As the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office explains, if the new and prior homes have the same market values (based on sales and purchase prices), the new tax valuation would be the same as the old one. A fairly complex formula would determine the tax rate for purchases that were either higher or lower than the sales price of the prior home.

The initiative addresses a problem faced by many empty-nesters. They are living in large homes where they raised their families and would like to downsize – but to do so would mean a huge tax hit given that their new tax rate would be tied to the purchase price of the new property. In the preponderance of situations, the new purchase price for even a smaller house would be far higher than the price that the seniors paid for the homes where they currently live.

The Orange County Register reports that, if passed, the initiative could spur an additional 40,000 home sales a year. Supporters say that could ease up tight housing markets, but foes argue that the Realtors have an interest in spurring more home sales. County governments – backed by LAO projections – say that it eventually will cost them as much as much as $1 billion a year.

“By further reducing the increase in property taxes that typically accompanies home purchases by older homeowners, the measure would reduce property tax revenues for local governments,” according to that LAO analysis. “Additional property taxes created by an increase in home sales would partially offset those losses, but on net property taxes would decrease.”

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which defends the legacy of Prop. 13, disputes the idea of large tax losses, given that younger couples would move in to the homes that older people sell, and they would pay property taxes based on the new market value. In other words, an older couple will sell a house and keep their lower tax rate.

“We believe upward portability makes a lot of sense especially as property values across California continue to rebound,” said HJTA president Jon Coupal in a statement. The statement says he believes the measure would “help California alleviate its current housing crisis by removing a financial barrier that keeps many older homeowners from selling their homes, and many millennials from entering the housing market.”

The Realtors’ association had submitted three different potential measures, including one that would expand portability for people of all ages. But the final measure applies only to seniors and disabled persons. As the saying goes, the best defense is a good offense. Supporters of Prop. 13 have learned that the best way to protect it might be by trying to expand it.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

The latest comes in a special investigation report published last week by the State Personnel Board, an agency charged with enforcing California’s civil-service-related statutes. The report, prompted by anonymous complaints about the BOE’s hiring practices, found that the agency “has a large number of employees who have personal relationships with other BOE employees and work in the same department or division.”

The findings could lead to the dismissal of three state employees. It also poses deep challenges for the agency and its successors. Approximately 90 percent of the BOE’s 4,767 employees will continue doing their existing jobs under the auspices of a new Department of Tax and Fee Administration, which handles tax collections, and a new Office of Administrative Hearings, which will adjudicate tax disputes between businesses and the state.

The State Personnel Board’s survey found that 835 of these employees – comprising 17.5 percent of the former BOE’s work force – have “personal relationships” with other staff members. The board defined such relationships as “associations with individuals by blood, adoption, marriage, registered domestic partnerships or cohabitation.” The survey, the personnel board cautioned, did not capture the entire workforce, so that percentage could be higher or lower.

The numbers don’t tell the entire story, however. The report detailed several specific examples that were investigated as part of the audit, and which provide details about how such questionable hiring takes place.

In one investigated case, auditors looked at allegations that a tax consultant expert in BOE member George Runner’s office “used his position of influence to encourage the hiring of his son.” The son later voluntarily resigned the position. The report argued that “employees acted in bad faith by not intending to observe the spirit and intent of civil service laws” because the hire apparently “was the result of preselection.”

In another investigated case, the personnel audit found that the daughter of an assemblyman was allowed to submit an application for a public-information officer position even though her application was submitted after the deadline had passed. It stated that Board of Equalization Member Jerome Horton and his chief of staff had pushed for the daughter’s hiring even though “she received the lowest rating for the interview by both interview panel members.”

The Sacramento Bee identified the assemblyman as Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove. The audit argued that the appointment was not made in good faith and called for “corrective action.” Horton told the newspaper that he was simply trying to assure that the assemblyman’s daughter was treated fairly – and didn’t learn of the hire until after the fact.

In a third case, the audit argued that the “voluntary demotion of an employee” from an information-officer position in the Sacramento office to an office technician in the New York office was improper. The report states that “the evidence overwhelmingly supports a finding” that the person’s transfer “violated civil service merit principles and the law.” That case involved BOE Member Diane Harkey and her office. The report called for the employee’s dismissal.

In yet another instance, the report found that a job applicant, whose spouse also worked for BOE, was hired for a position even though he had “not waited the requisite six months between exams.” The audit called for his appointment to be voided.

The report pointed to the significance of these specific incidents. Officials “observed that the culture of BOE was one in which board members and their staff and executives were perceived as having significant influence and power over civil service personal matters” and that “favoritism or perceived favoritism toward employees having personal relationships with other employees had a dispiriting and stressful impact on overall employee morale.”

The State Personnel Board report also found that the BOE engaged in a hiring rush right before the governor’s pension-reform law went into effect, as the Bee explained. The “findings identified deficiencies in 23 of the 27 recruitment packages reviewed” and deemed those 23 appointments to be “unlawful” for a variety of reasons, according to the report.

The new California Department of Tax and Fee Administration prohibits nepotism, which it describes as “favoritism by those with power or influence to appoint, employ, promote, advance or advocate for relatives or persons with whom they have personal relationship.” It states that this situation “is antithetical to merit-based personnel system.”

The rules are clear. And the report offers several specific correctives. The big question now is how the state will handle the broader matter – that such a large number of employees in its tax bureaus have “personal relationships” with other employees.

In his November 13 letter to the State Personnel Board, the tax agency’s director Nick Maduros largely concurred with the report’s findings, but said the agency is working on developing a “more complete and accurate picture of the extent of employee personal relationships moving forward.” He will work with the state human resources agency, CalHR, “to develop a corrective action plan” for relationships that run afoul of the new anti-nepotism policy.

In the meantime, the personnel board’s executive officer, Suzanne Ambrose, told the Bee that she expects more anonymous tips from other state agencies. This could be just the tip of a broad state-governmental scandal that goes much deeper than the dealings of a now-gutted tax agency.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, announced this week that all harassment investigations in his chamber will be handled by an outside legal firm. De Leon also announced that he was moving out of a house he shared with Sen. Tony Mendoza, the Artesia Democrat who is the latest legislator accused of inappropriate behavior.

California’s state government has been dealing with a sexual harassment scandal after 140 influential women who have worked in and around the Capitol published an open letter in mid-October stating that they have “endured, or witnessed or worked with women who have experienced some form of dehumanizing behavior by men with power in our workplaces.”

Signed by six sitting legislators, the letter decried such behavior “in a state that postures itself as a leader in justice and equality.” The California Legislative Women’s Caucus was even more pointed, as its statement alleged “a lack of accountability and remorse” and a “pervasive culture of sexual harassment within California politics.” The statement claimed that “the Legislature’s own zero-tolerance policies are not enforced.”

A couple of prominent legislators have been caught up in the scandal. First, longtime Capitol staffer Elise Flynn Gyore said that she was treated like “prey” and then groped by Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, D-Pacoima, in 2009, when he was a staffer. The Assembly Rules Committee investigated and disciplined Bocanegra, but didn’t release the details to a group of 11 women who sought such information when he was running for office with widespread party backing.

Bocanegra recently has apologized for the incident, but the details raise questions about an institution that some people say values secrecy over accountability. It’s also led to criticism of Sen. Nancy Skinner, a Berkeley Democrat known for her strong stance for women’s rights, who chaired the Assembly Rules Committee at the time of the incident. KPIX-TV in the Bay Area contacted one of the women who signed the letter asking for the file on the harassment complaint, but she said that “Nancy Skinner never responded to their request.”

Now Mendoza is in the spotlight. Southern California Public Radio reported that Mendoza “fired three employees after they reported his alleged inappropriate behavior toward a young female colleague, according to an attorney representing one of the staffers.”

Mendoza denies the allegations and apologized if he “ever communicated or miscommunicated anything that made an employee feel uncomfortable.” He also says the firings were based on work performance. The Sacramento Bee broke the news this week about allegations from a second intern. She claims that Mendoza took her to his hotel suite at the California Democratic Party convention and acted inappropriately toward her. Mendoza’s spokesperson told the Bee that that the woman’s recounting of what took place was “completely false.”

And the Senate president has received criticism, with some “wondering how de Leon – who chairs the Senate committee that investigates allegations of sexual harassment – could have been unaware of the reports and investigation into his roommate,” reported the San Jose Mercury News. De Leon denies knowing anything about the reports.

The scandal comes against the backdrop of Alabama’s Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, who is facing sexual misconduct allegations – a nationally publicized story that’s being depicted by Moore and some of his supporters as a “witch hunt.” And, of course, sexual harassment allegations have been roiling the entertainment industry.

For California political observers, the big questions are whether the Capitol has fostered an insular environment that promotes, or at least tolerates, sexual misbehavior – and whether de Leon’s new rules have a chance of fixing that situation.

Specifically, the new approach will remove the Senate Rules Committee from dealing with harassment allegations. “Instead, an independent outside legal team will investigate any and all allegations and make findings and recommendations to resolve and, where appropriate, discipline,” according to the committee’s statement this week. “The Senate’s Rules Committee and Senate Democratic Women’s Caucus will work jointly and expeditiously to retain a highly qualified team of counsel and investigators to fulfill this obligation.”

The committee stated that the process “will be designed to protect the privacy of victims and whistleblowers, transparency for the public, and adequate due process for all parties involved.” The “general findings will be made public” even if some names and details will be withheld based on the discretion of “victims and whistleblowers.” This will apply to all current complaints. The committee has also asked the women’s caucus to make recommendations for reform and has retained a human-resources consulting firm to review its policies.

Yet some critics believe that by bringing in an outside legal firm that this could establish attorney-client privilege and shield key facts from the public. But others believe the rules will help Capitol staffers, who are at-will hires who can be fired for any reason, to feel more comfortable lodging a complaint. “The short-range plan is to pull this out of the current system where people really don’t feel their complaints will be handled appropriately,” Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, told Capital Public Radio. She is on the rules committee.

Even if the new process succeeds in dealing more forthrightly with particular harassment claims, it might just be the first step in dealing with broader problems within the Capitol.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

This often comes in the form of divestment, by which the funds are encouraged – or even required – to sell their assets in industries that are viewed negatively by the people who push these efforts. These efforts tend to work against the goals of the funds’ professional investment staff, which are charged with getting high investment returns to fund pensions for the systems’ retirees. Both funds have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize their return on taxpayer dollars.

Yet estimates from a consulting firm suggest that CalPERS has lost approximately $8 billion in returns because of previous efforts to divest from coal-related and tobacco industries. That’s become a particularly contentious issue as funding levels have fallen to 68 percent for CalPERS and 64 percent for CalSTRS. That means they have only around two-thirds of the assets needed to make good on all the current and future pension promises made to government retirees.

Despite the troubling numbers, there’s a new push for divestment from some politicians. Following the October massacre in Las Vegas, by which a gunman murdered 59 people at a country music concert, state Treasurer John Chiang has called for the teachers’ fund to sell its assets in weapons firms and sporting-goods companies that sell any guns that are illegal in California.

“Neither taxpayer funds nor the pension contributions of any of the teachers we represent, including the three California teachers slain in Las Vegas should be invested in the purveyors of military-style assault weapons,” said Chiang, a 2018 candidate for governor and member of both pension boards. Chiang also told the Sacramento Bee that he plans on making a similar request to the CalPERS board.

The newspaper also noted that both funds “this year have faced calls to divest from companies that do business with the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline,” which would transport oil underground from North Dakota oilfields to Illinois. It has prompted protests from a variety of environmental and Native American activists.

Critics of these proposals say they are largely symbolic and would do little to influence gun sales or the pipelines. Divestment from these relatively small industries wouldn’t have much impact on the massive funds’ financial returns, either.

On Oct. 30, 12 members of California’s Democratic congressional delegation sent a letter to CalPERS chief executive officer Marcie Frost urging the pension fund to divest from a fund that has acquired a hotel owned by Donald Trump’s organization. This move is more directly political than many divestment efforts, which tend to focus on the social implications of investing in the pipeline, weapons manufacturers, coal-related industries and tobacco companies.

Divestment advocates sometimes argue that these controversial products may be poor long-term investments. For instance, the Public Divestiture of Thermal Coal Companies Act of 2015 and similar efforts by the state insurance commissioner were based in part on the notion that these coal-related companies may face diminishing values as the world shifts away from carbon-based fuels – a point rebutted by those who note that the current price of the stocks already reflects that risk.

But the Trump-related divestment call, led by U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu of Torrance, is designed to target the president. The members of Congress expressed their disappointment that CalPERS “has not divested its interest” in that fund “nor has taken any actions to ensure that its fees are not being transferred to President Trump,” according to their letter. They criticized CalPERS for taking a “wait-and-see” approach toward the matter.

These members of Congress claim that this CalPERS investment could be in violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states that “no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” This would be an unusual interpretation of an arcane clause.

Meanwhile, the pension funds have been expanding other divestment and socially motivated investment efforts. Last December, the CalPERS investment staff “recommended that the board remove its 16-year ban on tobacco investments in light of an increasing demand to improve investment returns and pay benefits,” according to a Reuters report. But instead of removing the ban, the board “voted to remain divested and to expand the ban to externally managed portfolios and affiliated funds.”

And last year CalPERS adopted a five year Environmental, Social and Governance plan that focuses on socially responsible investing. The fund has long used its financial clout to push companies it invests in to promote, for instance, board diversity and other social goals.

Whatever their chances for approval, the latest efforts are not out of the ordinary. But they will rekindle the long-running debate between political and financial goals, and whether the former imperils the latter given both funds’ large unfunded liabilities.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

The main policy is known as realignment. Pushed through by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2011, the two new laws allow “non-violent, non-serious and non-sex offenders to serve their sentence in county jails instead of state prisons,” according to an explanation from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The department says that no state prisoners had their time reduced and that the laws did not provide any early releases.

The second policy is Proposition 47, a statewide initiative that passed 60 percent to 40 percent in November 2014. As Ballotpedia explains, the initiative “classified ‘non-serious, nonviolent crimes’ as misdemeanors instead of felonies unless the defendant has prior convictions for murder, rape, certain sex offenses or certain gun crimes.” It also permitted resentencing “for those currently serving a prison sentence for any of the offenses that the initiative reduces to misdemeanors.” That measure did therefore lead to early releases.

The state passed a variety of other sentencing-reform measures beginning in 2010. For instance, California had long taken a tough-on-crime approach, including passage of the nation’s toughest “three strikes and you’re out” laws in 1994, in the midst of frighteningly high crime rates. But even that signature crime-fighting law was revised, as voters passed, 70 percent to 30 percent, a 2012 statewide initiative that required a life sentence only if the third strike were serious or violent.

The new laws reduced prison overcrowding, although they didn’t actually reduce the amount of tax dollars spent on the prison system. The big question: What have they done to crime rates? A spike in some crimes over that period has led to a vociferous debate, with Republicans and some moderate Democrats fanning fears of a crime wave. One Republican gubernatorial candidate, Abel Maldonado, ran for governor in 2014 on an anti-crime platform, but didn’t gain traction.

Currently, Democratic Assemblyman Jim Cooper, a former sheriff’s captain from Elk Grove, is leading efforts qualify a ballot measure for the 2018 general election that would roll back much of Proposition 47. It also would roll back the loosened parole requirements in Proposition 57, which passed on the 2016 statewide ballot, and expand the list of crimes that requires collection of the perpetrator’s DNA, according to an Associated Press report.

Such pushback is due in large part to fears of growing crime rates. “Since the passage of Proposition 47 by voters in 2014 and the signing of AB109 in 2011, violent crime has been on the rise in California, up 12 percent in 2015 statewide according to the FBI,” according to a statement in March by Sen. Jeff Stone, R-Riverside County. Politifact double-checked his claim and found a one-year violent crime increase (from 2014 to 2015) of 8.4 percent.

That’s certainly enough to spark concern, but it’s hard to assess crime data based on short periods of time – and even harder to trace crime increases or decreases to any particular policy cause. New research from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice looked at the entire 2010-2016 period of criminal-justice policy reform and found some mixed results. Overall, however, the group explains that the state’s crime rate was “stable” over that time.

“Urban crime rates in California declined precipitously through the 1990s and 2000s,” wrote author Mike Males. “Since 2010, crime in California has stabilized, hovering near historically low levels.” Males compared the first six months of 2016 (the latest reporting period) with the first six months of 2010 and found that “total crime rates experienced no net change, while property crime declined by 1 percent and violent crime increased by 3 percent.”

National crime data show a small overall uptick nationwide, which might suggest that something other than California-only realignment and sentencing reform policies were at work here. Crime data often is affected more by local factors, and indeed the study finds that “crime rates at the local level have varied considerably.” For instance, crime rates shot up 18 percent in Downey, but dropped an astounding 29 percent in Santa Clara.

Regarding the big cities, the report found increased violent crime rates in Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Jose – but lower violent crime rates in Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco. Likewise, some big cities (Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Diego) faced rising property crimes, but others (Fresno, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose) saw falling rates of property crime from 2010 to 2016.

The report found “no visible change” due to realignment and called for “more data” before “drawing conclusions about Prop. 47’s effect on crime.” Other studies from last year echo these conclusions. These numbers, based on the newest FBI statistics, suggest that current concerns about a justice-reform-driven crime wave are overblown.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

But the housing package – a spate of measures that increase funding for subsidized housing programs and reduce regulations for building certain high-density projects – is unlikely to halt debate about housing policy as home prices remain high.

For instance, median home prices in the Bay Area topped $740,000 last month and topped $700,000 in Orange County – breaking records and raising concerns about a new housing “bubble.” Statewide, median housing prices have topped $469,000, which is driving down homeownership rates and keeping the state’s cost-of-living-based poverty rates above 20 percent.

Virtually everyone, left and right, agrees that the state is facing a crisis. Candidates for the 2018 gubernatorial election, which is starting to heat up, are likely to make housing a core component of their campaigns. So far, Republican candidates John Cox, a San Diego-area businessman, and Assemblyman Travis Allen, a Huntington Beach conservative, have largely called for reducing housing regulations, but have not offered detailed plans.

Democrat John Chiang, currently the state treasurer, has touted his efforts to promote affordable housing programs. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has focused on bringing back government-directed redevelopment-style low-income housing programs. The partisan approaches are not surprising – and not particularly detailed, at least not yet.

The big surprise so far is that Democratic candidate Gavin Newsom, the current lieutenant governor and leader in the major public-opinion polls, has released a fairly thorough housing blueprint. It suggests that housing will be a top priority in his high-profile campaign – and his proposals embrace the main concepts touted by Democrats and Republicans alike.

“Simply put, we’re experiencing a housing affordability crisis, driven by a simple economic argument,” Newsom argued in a new post on the Medium web site. “California is leading the national recovery but it’s producing far more jobs than homes.” Here’s where the plan makes headlines: He’s calling for the development of 3.5 million new housing units by 2025, which would mean a near quadrupling of the state’s annual housing production.

That’s not an unreasonable number. In the last dozen years, “California has only produced 308 housing units for every 1,000 new residents,” he explained. Given continued population growth, “it’s obvious we’re not on pace to meet that demand.”

Typical of a Democratic official, Newsom called for more funding for affordable housing, including support for the $4 billion housing bond that is going on the November 2018 ballot. It was part of the Legislature’s housing package. Newsom also called for increasing the state’s funding of affordable-housing tax credits from $85 million to $500 million.

Taking a similar line as Chiang and Villaraigosa, Newsom called for replacing local housing programs that had previously been funded through the state’s controversial redevelopment agencies, which were shut down by Gov. Jerry Brown during the 2011 budget act, as a means to help the state plug its then-gaping budget hole. The agencies had siphoned around 13 percent of the state’s general fund budget to subsidize economic-development projects including housing.

But the real news is Newsom’s focus on “regulatory reform and creating new financial incentives for local jurisdictions that produce housing while penalizing those that fall flat.” Under the old redevelopment system, cities did indeed subsidize low-income housing. But the tax-increment financing scheme, by which cities were incentivized to permit tax-generating retail complexes, led to the overall underdevelopment of housing projects, according to various state analyses.

Those problems still exist. “Cities have a perverse incentive not to build housing because retail generates more lucrative sales tax revenue,” Newsom wrote. “The bigger the box, the better, because cities can then use the sales tax for core public services.” He doesn’t offer many details, but Newsom wants to revamp the tax system to “financially reward cities that produce housing and punish those that fail.” He’s reviving the old debate about the “fiscalization of land use,” but there’s little doubt that local incentives have a major impact on housing permits.

Echoing Gov. Brown, Newsom notes that solving the problem will take more than “throwing money” at it. He calls for “implementing regulatory reform and creating new financial incentives for local jurisdictions” – issues that will bolster conservatives who want to see more market-based housing.

Indeed, California builders have argued that they are more than capable of meeting the needs – if only government regulations and local land-use controls were loosened enough to enable them to build more. His plan will annoy conservatives, though, as he also calls for stronger tenant protections as the state streamlines the permitting process.

Most significantly, the Newsom plan – with its myriad details and mixture of elements from right, center and left – is sure to focus the early campaign on this significant issue. An energized housing debate should warm the hearts of all Californians who are concerned that housing prices are soaring beyond the reach of most California families.

Steven Greenhut is a Sacramento-based writer. Write to him at stevengreenhut@gmail.com.

That’s an interesting turn of events given that Brown signed into law most of the main Democratic priorities from the session. He approved a bill that turns California into a “sanctuary state” that limits the ability of local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration priorities. He approved a transportation tax and new spending on affordable housing programs. He agreed to a gender-neutral category for California driver’s licenses.

In addition, Brown signed a law that places more limits on the open carry of firearms and mandated that small businesses now provide 12 weeks of unpaid family leave to their workers. There’s much commentary about this having been one of the most liberal sessions in memory, which isn’t a surprise given the diminished power of the California GOP.

So what would conservatives – including ones outside of California – be happy about?

The main cause for celebration on the right came from Brown’s veto of Senate Bill 169. That legislation was passed in response to federal Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ decision to roll back Obama administration sexual-assault guidelines for campuses. Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, pointed specifically to the Trump administration in authoring the bill:

“The Trump administration continues to perpetuate a war on women,” Jackson wrote in a statement. “It is now more important than ever that Governor Brown sign SB169 into law and that other states follow. All students deserve an education in an environment that is safe and free from sexual harassment and sexual violence.”

The issue involves the Title IX federal amendments from 1972 that require schools and universities that receive federal aid to assure an environment that’s free of sexual discrimination and harassment. The Obama administration in 2011 sent a letter to schools, colleges and universities urging stepped up efforts to battle sexual assaults on campus.

But conservatives, such as David French of National Review, argued that the Obama-era guidelines were “mandating that (schools) satisfy the lowest burden of proof in sexual-harassment and sexual-assault adjudications, defining sexual harassment far too broadly, and failing to adequately protect fundamental due-process rights.” The new administration rolled back the rules and – to the surprise of many – Brown agreed with Trump and DeVos.

Brown issued an unusually long veto statement, in which he noted that “sexual harassment and sexual violence are serious and complicated matters for colleges to resolve. On the one side are complainants who come forward to seek justice and protection; on the other side stand accused students, who, guilty or not, must be treated fairly and with the presumption of innocence until the facts speak otherwise.”

The governor added that “thoughtful legal minds have increasingly questioned whether federal and state actions to prevent and redress sexual harassment and assault – well-intentioned as they are – have also unintentionally resulted in some colleges’ failure to uphold due process for accused students.” Brown also argued that the state should avoid new rules until it has “ascertained the full impact of what we recently enacted.”

In another veto that received praise on the right, Brown rejected Assembly Bill 1513, a union-backed measure that would have required private-sector workers in the privately funded home-care industry to provide private information to unions.

Workers who provide help in the homes of sick, elderly and disabled people already pass background checks. But this legislation would require the placement of “a copy of a registered home care aide’s name, mailing address, cellular telephone number and email address on file with the department to be made available, upon request, to a labor organization.”

Labor unions pitched the measure as a way to improve the licensure and regulation of these aides, but opponents saw it as a means to help unions contract these workers as part of their organizing efforts. Brown agreed with the opponents, and expressed concern about “releasing the personal information of these home care aides, who joined the registry without knowing that their information would be disclosed as prescribed by this bill.”

“Conservatives find themselves in the unexpected position of cheering some of California Governor Jerry Brown’s recent vetoes,” wrote Jim Geraghty in National Review. Geraghty also pointed to Brown’s veto of a bill that would require presidential candidates to release their tax returns to qualify for the California ballot and another one that would have required large companies to provide detailed data about male and female salary disparities.

Brown, by the way, vetoed a bill that would have imposed a late-night driving curfew on those under 21. Currently, the curfew applies only to those under 18. The governor made the fundamentally conservative argument that 18-year-olds “are eligible to enlist in the military, vote in national, state and local elections, enter into contracts and buy their own car.” So it would be unfair to limit their driving privileges.

As the 79-year-old Democratic governor finishes his final gubernatorial term, he still has a way of defying critics and keeping people on the left and right guessing.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.