Tag "Bill Lockyer"
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CA initiative reform: Lawmakers ignore the elephant in the room
The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on initiative reforms that take effect today. After more than a century in California’s political spotlight, the state’s initiative process will be getting a major revise next year. Even more surprising, both Democrats and
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CA Democrats mismanage campaign war-chests
California Democrats converge on the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend for the party’s annual state convention. Although Democrats face two scandals involving members of the state Senate, the party is well positioned for the 2014 campaign cycle. The party
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The dog that didn’t bark: More evidence top Dems want bullet train gone
The California establishment fights dirty when it comes to direct challenges to its priorities and the people it wants to protect the most. The CTA blocking efforts to make it easier to remove classroom sexual predators and instead passing legislation
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Is John Chiang a CTA-spiting kamikaze? Or a slick posturer?
California politics tend only to surprise with the extremes to which unions will go in flexing their power. Protect classroom sexual predators? No problem. Openly subvert direct democracy? Sure. Argue that only union nurses should be allowed to administer life-saving
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Early warning on big 2014 story: CA trial lawyers’ power play
In an unusually tart warts-and-all Sac Bee profile of Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, reporter Chris Cadelago gives early notice on what will be a huge story in state politics next year: “A 2014 initiative advanced by Jones, a Sacramento Democrat,
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Now Bill Lockyer thinks tax cuts create jobs
When opponents of Proposition 30 said it would kill jobs, Treasurer Bill Lockyer backed it anyway: “I worry a little bit about fairness, although when you look at the income distributions in the last 20 years and see that essentially
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Bullet train dead in water — yet state to proceed with eminent domain
Eminent domain is one of the greatest government assaults on individual rights that one sees on a regular basis in the United States. Even in its purer form, in which land is seized for projects with broad general public benefit,
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AG Kamala Harris’ blatant-but-legal corruption
California Attorney General Kamala Harris isn’t exactly alone in abusing her powers as the state’s top law-enforcement official when it comes to ballot measures. When they had the post, Gov. Jerry Brown and Treasurer Bill Lockyer reveled in using the
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Friday hearing: Will judge ‘have the [guts]’ to shut down bullet train?
On Aug. 16, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny handed down a landmark ruling against the $68 billion California bullet-train project. Kenny held that the state High-Speed Rail Authority’s plan to begin construction in the Central Valley in coming months
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State bullet-train contracts appear to violate federal grant conditions
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny’s Aug. 16 ruling concluded that the California High-Speed Rail Authority would break state law if it proceeded with construction of a small first portion of the state’s bullet-train project without having full funding in
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