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Brown’s State of the State: It’s Morning in California
President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign theme boasted: “It’s Morning in America.” He won 49 states, losing only rival Walter Mondale’s native Minnesota. Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State address this morning kicked off a similar theme in what effectively
Read MoreCTA wins: Brown lobbies to weaken own school-funding reform
Gov. Jerry Brown made a surprise appearance Thursday at a State Board of Education meeting to call for board members — most of whom he appointed — to approve loophole-ridden regulations for the implementation of the sweeping education funding changes
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Governor’s race: Maldonado drops out
Former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado ended his campaign for governor of California on Thursday morning, leaving a conservative state legislator as the only Republican candidate in the race. Maldonado, the state’s most prominent Latino Republican, made the announcement where his
Read MoreBill would strengthen public's right to comment before votes
“The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them,” says California Code Section 54950 of The Ralph M. Brown Act, the state's bedrock open-government law. cure for diabetes But that’s not always the
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San Diego's pension reform model finally inspires copy-cats
In early 2012, when then-San Diego Councilman Carl DeMaio was pushing an innovative, unusual, unprecedented pension reform initiative in California's second-largest city, I wrote about it for City Journal. I thought it was a harbinger of what the future would
Read MoreFresno mayor obstructs initiative process to save water rate hike
Fresno residents could see their water rates double, and in the process, all Californians could see their petition powers diminished, if a state appellate court doesn't act quickly on a lawsuit to stop strong-arm tactics by the city of Fresno. The battle
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Brown: No teachers' pension fix until after November election
Gov. Jerry Brown has a basic problem when it comes to the California State Teachers' Retirement System: the most powerful forces in state politics oppose the standard fix for an underfunded pension system, even if it is now enshrined in
Read MoreBullet train fans learn CA enviros’ clout trumps building, trades unions
A few years ago, I began to think about how California’s state government operated in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a famous 1943 paper about how humans prioritize what’s important in their lives, starting with the basics — the
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Brown still on loony, increasingly lonely bullet-train bandwagon
Cal Watchdog managing editor John Seiler and I were among the pundits who got a telephone budget briefing from Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday afternoon. I was disappointed but unsurprised to hear that the governor is still 1,000 percent on
Read MoreRobert Gates scorns the RINOs who don't get ripped enough
One of the wonderful things about the rise of Ron and Rand Paul and the increasingly libertarian tone of some of the young Republicans elected to Congress is that they are shunning the mindless embrace of military spending that has
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