Inside Government

Reading, Writing, and A Reuben

Katy Grimes: Reading, Writing and a Reuben sandwich is now part of the California public school curriculum, because dinner is served. Better than your own butler or personal chef, public school kids are getting three squares a day at school, but

Pension Reform Mirrors Brown Proposal

CalWatchdog Staff February 22, 2012

FEB. 22, 2012 By KATY GRIMES With the recent pension reform ballot initiative defeated before it ever made it onto the ballot, many in California believed that taxpayers would never get a change to vote on the escalating pension debt

HR 1837 Bill Reignites Water War

CalWatchdog Staff February 22, 2012

FEB. 22, 2012 By WAYNE LUSVARDI California’s historic water social contract been held together by force, fraud and sometimes the consent of the governed. The result has been Northern California giving up water to Central Valley farmers and Southern California

Johnson’s Big Plans May Backfire

CalWatchdog Staff February 20, 2012

Katy Grimes: Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has made no secret of the fact that he’d like a big, beautiful new sports arena in the city. Johnson is also still pushing for a change to the city charter to make the

Assemblyman Defends Maxine Waters

CalWatchdog Staff February 17, 2012

Katy Grimes: I sat through a State Assembly session this morning wondering why I was there. It was obviously a thinly veiled excuse by legislators to capture the $142 per diem payment. There were the usual speeches honoring the recently

Guarded Optimism For CA Military

CalWatchdog Staff February 16, 2012

FEB. 16, 2012 By KATY GRIMES It could have been an episode of “The General, His Wife, The Staff, and the Military,” a movie about the scandal-plagued California National Guard. But instead, after four hours of grueling testimony at times,

OC Unions Right, Businesses Wrong

CalWatchdog Staff February 16, 2012

Steven Greenhut: It’s not every day that I side with the public employee unions. In fact, it’s almost never the case, yet the Orange County Employees Association, community activists and the Occupy types were exactly right recently when they protested

General Opposes Brown’s Nominee

Katy Grimes February 15, 2012

FEB. 15, 2012 California National Guard Brigadier General Charlotte L. Miller has announced that she will voice her opposition to legislators today about Major General David Baldwin’s nomination to the top position of the state National Guard. Miller will testify

More ‘Rights’ For State Employees

CalWatchdog Staff February 14, 2012

Katy Grimes: Since public employees have so few workplace protections and are so under-paid, Democratic Assemblyman Roger Dickinson has authored legislation to give the unionized state workers more protections from workplace discipline, and priority on state government work over private sector workers. It’s

Legislature Advances Dental Socialism

CalWatchdog Staff February 14, 2012

FEB. 14, 2012 By KATY GRIMES As voters are growing increasingly wary of ObamaCare, the President’s nationalized healthcare plan, voters in California are also growing skeptical of legislators’ attempts to increase statewide healthcare. Fully implementing health care for all has drawn