Rights and Liberties
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Vergara appeal decision: Nixon goes to China for Jerry Brown?
To an astounding degree, prominent California Democrats have so far avoided substantive comment on Judge Rolf Treu’s landmark — but tentative — June 10 ruling in Los Angeles Superior Court that teacher tenure laws are so harmful to minority students in
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Appeals court backs property rights
Pasadena is known for its famous tree-lined streets. It now also may be known for the trees becoming the key in the first case in California to establish that a city’s urban forestry programs can be subject to “inverse condemnation”
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CA editorial boards cool to anti-Uber power play
The editorial pages of the state’s largest newspapers largely agree about Tom Torlakson’s being undeserving of a second term as state superintendent of public instruction. Given the breadth of ideological views among these papers, that’s pretty rate. Now, rarely enough,
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Groups try to quash cap-and-trade debate
In the war of words over an attempt to stall the extension of AB 32’s cap-and-trade to transportation fuels, liberal groups sent a public letter to Attorney General Kamala Harris asking her to keep an eye out for collusion by
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Is Gov. Brown disinterested in pension reform?
Later today, the governing board of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System is expected to pass rules giving state employees 99 ways to spike their “pensionable pay.” Gov. Jerry Brown only objected to one of the 99 bonuses. This is
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Immigration: Feinstein acts like Chicago Dem, not CA Dem
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein won’t put up with the CIA spying on lawmakers. Her repeated denunciations of the agency this year have been remarkable, considering her decades as a leading figure in the national security establishment. But Feinstein isn’t so
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Prop. 26 shows teeth, kills San Diego hotel tax hike
One of the few recent big triumphs of the small-government, low-tax movement in California came in 2010, when state voters approved Proposition 26. The constitutional amendment cleared up loopholes that allowed governing bodies to pass tax hikes on simple majority
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Video: Impact of Vergara v. California on teachers unions
CalWatchdog contributor James Poulos discusses impact of Vergara v. California on teachers unions and politics in California.
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Behind push against truancy/absenteeism: unions’ money hunt
What is by far the single most important factor in how California government functions? I stand by my theory that I wrote up last year for Cal Watchdog: Like Neo figuring out how life was coded to work in “The
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