“At issue were five state laws that established layoff procedures based on seniority, laid out dismissal procedures and awarded teachers permanent status, known as tenure, after two years on the job,” as EdSource recalled.

Although teachers unions hailed the reversal, an appeal was all but certain, keeping California’s beleaguered education system in uncertain waters for possibly years to come.

The court rejected Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu’s holding that California’s teacher job protections “deprive poor and minority students of a quality education or violate their civil rights,” as the New York Times reported, “reversing a landmark lower court decision that had overturned the state’s teacher tenure rules.”

“In reversing the trial court’s decision, a panel of three appeals judges wrote that if ineffective teachers are in place, the statutes themselves were not to blame because it was school and district administrators who ‘determine where teachers within a district are assigned to teach.’ The laws themselves, the judges wrote, do not instruct districts in where to place teachers.”

Justice Roger Boren, writing for the court, concluded that the Vergara plaintiffs “ultimately failed to show that the statutes themselves make any certain group of students more likely to be taught by ineffective teachers than any other group of students,” as Southern California Public Radio observed. “Administrators — not the statutes — ultimately determine where teachers within a district are assigned to teach,” he went on. “It is clear that the challenged statutes here, by only their text, do not inevitably cause poor and minority students to receive an unequal, deficient education.”

Uncertain futures

The ruling immediately threw into question the fate of pending litigation around the country. “Parties on both sides viewed the Vergara decision as a bellwether for the nation,” the Los Angeles Times noted. “Similar litigation was filed soon after in New York; and on Thursday, just before the release of the appellate decision in California, another lawsuit was filed in Minnesota.”

“The case was being closely watched across the country by those who argue that allowing administrators to more easily fire bad teachers would improve schools and student performance. Right now, there are a series of job protections that can be invoked before school districts can remove a tenured teacher.”

Battle lines harden

Teachers unions and their supporters rushed to applaud the ruling, which spared them a politically dangerous humiliation; as the Sacramento Bee recalled, until Vergara, they had “easily batted back legislative challenges from groups seeking to overhaul the public education system by eliminating tenure and adding test scores to teacher evaluations.” As the Los Angeles Times noted, “union critics turned to the courts because teachers — ranking among the state’s most powerful interest groups — have been able to block substantial revisions to laws that protect them.”

“From the start, many Vergara supporters saw victory as a long shot but reasoned that the effort at least would keep teacher unions and their allies on the defensive — and call attention to parts of the system they wanted to change.”

But officials in the state GOP also spoke out fast, showing little concern that their political momentum had truly been blunted. Assembly Republican leader Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley, expressed hope that the case rose quickly to the state Supreme Court. “Although I disagree with the court ruling, I know the fight to better our children’s education doesn’t end here,” he said in a statement. “Our children have a civil right to a quality education, and it is disappointing to see that the appeals court doesn’t agree.”

“Although this ruling is a disappointing win for the failing status quo in California, I am committed to continuing the fight to provide every child — regardless of background or zipcode — with a top-quality education that will set them up for success in the classroom, in the workplace, and in life,” said Education Committee vice-chair Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Riverbank, in a statement.

Many high-profile California Republicans have shown a strong inclination to leave the state altogether to pursue their political fortunes in the wake of a major defeat. As the San Francisco Chronicle noted, recent departures have taken their toll on the party’s ability to field prominent candidates across the range of statewide offices, with former Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore relocating to Texas, onetime gubernatorial hopeful Neel Kashkari shifting gears to run the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, and current presidential candidate Carly Fiorina moving her home base to Virginia.

In a painful indication of how limited GOP ambitions can be on the west coast, all three have won praise and a higher profile outside the Golden State than within it. MayKao Hang, the incoming chairwoman of the Minneapolis Fed’s board of directors, underscored the impression that California is often little more than a proving ground for political talent to the right of center, calling Kashkari “an influential leader whose combined experience in the public and private sectors makes him the ideal candidate to head the Minneapolis Fed,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Meanwhile, some who stay behind have left the bounds of party orthodoxy entirely. Perhaps the state GOP’s most famous resident Californian, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has accompanied Gov. Jerry Brown to the United Nations climate talks in Paris, posting an open letter on Facebook that declared, “I don’t give a [expletive] if we agree about climate change.”

The lack of leadership has exacerbated the party’s recent tendency toward disunity. In an effort to soften the language of its stance on unlawful immigration, the state GOP changed its platform to indicate that members “hold diverse views” on “what to do with the millions of people who are currently here illegally” — phraseology that has been criticized as fodder for Democrats without marking out a principled position.

Business trouble

At the same time, the state GOP has been unable to effectively pivot away from social issues that divide it and toward economic issues that have traditionally reaped reliable dividends. Recent trends suggest that big business has come to view Republican candidates as risks not worth taking where electable corporate-friendly Democrats are to be found.

Cathleen Galgiani

“At a time when GOP power in Sacramento has been on the wane, many business interests — which have traditionally skewed Republican and wield considerable clout in the party — are throwing their weight behind centrist Democrats,” the Times reported separately, such as state Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton, whom GOP favorite Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto, wants to defeat. “A year from election day, groups such as the California Assn. of Realtors and Chevron have told the candidates and other political players that they’re for Galgiani,” the Times added, “a show of support from entities that routinely spend big to back their choices.” The state GOP has refused to support Olsen, preferring to sit the race out entirely.

Outside energy

In a strange irony, presidential politics has offered California Republicans a glimmer of hope for better organization, inspiration and leadership. While they have often been looked upon by barnstorming candidates as little more than a source of campaign cash, the unusually fluid and uncertain presidential primary season has led some White House hopefuls to pursue the kind of ground game in California that can be the lifeblood of state and local parties.

“If the nominee is not obvious by the June 7 primary, which is unlikely, Republican candidates would need to compete in San Francisco, Berkeley and Democrat-dominated downtown Sacramento, as well as in Reps. Tom McClintock, Doug LaMalfa and Dana Rohrabacher’s red districts,” the Sacramento Bee noted. Ron Nehring, the former nominee for lieutenant governor, has found a fresh mission in-state as Ted Cruz’s California campaign chairman. “We are preparing for California to matter,” he told the Bee.

It has made adversaries of the state’s two highest-profile personifications of its two biggest political power blocs — Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, hometown hero for the Bay Area’s monied elite of self-styled progressives, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, still the darling of Southland Latinos who have long nursed a grudge against the San Francisco-Sacramento corridor’s outsized influence on statewide politics.

Already, Newsom “has announced that he will take on the gun lobby with an initiative to, among other things, outlaw possession of large ammunition magazines and require background checks on any ammunition. He’s also said he will back the legalizing of marijuana for general use, not just for medicinal purposes,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “Villaraigosa’s unofficial campaign is almost the polar opposite of Newsom’s,” the paper added. “The San Francisco mayor’s gun-and-pot measures will probably be most popular among liberals along California’s coast; Villaraigosa is spending his election run-up treading up and down the state’s more conservative interior.”

Strategy and scrutiny

Remarkably, however, Newsom and Villaraigosa have yet to clear the field of other candidates, several of whom have as strong a case — if not stronger — to run as Brown’s rightful heir. In a recent Field poll reported by the San Jose Mercury News, respondents spread their support over enough possible contenders to leave Newsom and Villaraigosa almost tied. “The survey found that more than four in 10 likely voters say they’d back Villaraigosa, 62, and Newsom, 48, and a slightly smaller share say they’d endorse [current Los Angeles Mayor Eric] Garcetti, 44,” noted the Mercury News. “It also shows that almost three in 10 voters say they’d support Democrats Tom Steyer, a billionaire environmentalist, and John Chiang, the state treasurer.”

With Brown termed out, little surprise has accompanied the attention surrounding his party’s scramble for a new generation of statewide leadership. Adding a twist, Republicans have remained remarkably uncompetitive at the gubernatorial level. “The prospect for any Republican gubernatorial candidate is dim in this heavily Democratic state,” the Sacramento Bee observed. Visalia Republican Serenity Holden, who participated in the Field poll, told the Bee “I’m really kind of screwed.”

But the plight of Holden’s fellow Republicans has heightened the stakes for the race’s contending Democrats and their party. The prospect of a Democrat-on-Democrat showdown would likely bring long-running tensions between the more corporatist and more ideological wings of the party.

Republicans in retreat

Perhaps with that dynamic in mind, the state GOP has gone out of its way to keep its powder dry in 2016. Party officials have even warned would-be candidates not to expect support if they jump into races where more moderate Democrats are likely to square off against hopefuls farther to their left. “Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto, said party officials told her that if she runs against Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton, she’ll be getting no help from them,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “Neither state GOP chairman Jim Brulte nor Senate Republican leader Jean Fuller of Bakersfield would comment on the unusual decision to lay off a competitive race, especially one that could involve a legislative leader.”

The party has established a precedent for this kind of unusual move. After Republican candidates were withdrawn from this year’s special state Senate election, pro-business Democrat and former Brown advisor Steve Glazer triumphed over a big labor effort to push another candidate into office. In a recent interview with the Pleasanton Weekly, Glazer reaffirmed his centrist bona fides. “Certainly on public safety matters, I’m more conservative. On fiscal issues, I’m more conservative. On social issues, I’m very progressive. So you can’t just put a broad label on it,” he said, calling himself “the most conservative Democrat in the [state] Senate.”

But the California GOP’s primary season psych-outs may not scale upward to the gubernatorial level. Although Newsom has come much closer than Villaraigosa to embodying the kind of Democrat state Republicans might begrudgingly pull the lever for, Newsom’s use of a base-pleasing agenda to advance his potent personal ambition has made him a far more threatening candidate to the GOP’s long-term fortunes than either L.A.’s former mayor or its current one.

Two new startups — a third leader is based out of New York — have set up shop in San Francisco. The cofounders of Boosted Boards, thirty-something mechanical engineers from Stanford, won “backing from incubator program Y Combinator and startup accelerator StartX, as Inc. reported. ZBoard, founded by “two first-time entrepreneurs in their late 20s,” found backing through Highway1, a so-called hardware incubator. “The ZBoard is the result of a senior project at USC that grew into a 2012 Kickstarter campaign that launched the product,” as the LA Weekly observed.

New era, new law

Both companies were launched in 2012. But not until this year has California law adjusted to accommodate their innovations. Signing a bill this month advanced by Assembly Republican Leader Kristin Olsen, R-Riverbank, “allows the use of motorized wheeled devices, aimed at electric skateboards but which could be extended to other new contraptions, anywhere bicycles are allowed to go,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2016, reverses a 1977 ban intended to keep noisy, stinky, gas-powered skateboards off the streets.” The bill was passed as AB604 by an overwhelming 32-1 vote in the Senate, CBS News noted.

Although some strictures remain, the new rules allowed broad new freedoms of movement. Riders 14 and older will be able “to ride electric skateboards in California bike lanes, bike paths, sidewalks, trails and roads where the speed limit is 35 miles per hour or less,” as the Weekly reported. The boards typically reach peak cruising speed of around 20 miles per hour.

Boosting an industry

Olsen took an early lead in promoting the change, sensing an opportunity for Sacramento Republicans to notch a legislative victory on a popular, forward-facing issue. “It’s a great, viable transportation option for those short commutes,” she told the Sacramento Bee in March, demonstrating her own skills on an electric board. “It just doesn’t make any sense to allow an industry to build in California, but not to grow roots here,” she said.

“She also promoted the job-creating possibilities of companies that make the electrically-motorized skateboards, introducing the founders of ZBoard, a start-up that manufactures its boards in Riverbank, to share their story.”

In recent years, California’s roadways have fallen into what analysts often agree is terrible shape. “Our streets and highways are in horrible condition and need at least $296 billion during the next five years for already ignored construction and repair projects,” the OC Weekly complained, noting that “a reported 87 percent of road pavement is rated as ‘at risk’ or ‘poor'” according to current estimates.

Republican relevance

“To the chagrin of Republicans,” the Weekly continued, “the Democrat-controlled Legislature has proposed an upcoming $168 billion budget with a measly $2 billion for roads when experts say the state should be spending at least $8 billion annually.”

But to the delight of Republicans, that gap — and California’s budgeting rules — has granted them a fresh round of political relevance.

The Golden State GOP cultivated a very public interest in California’s roads. In addition to providing the party with a coveted way to connect with voters, the stance has supplied Republicans with an unaccustomed degree of political muscle in Sacramento. To grease the wheels for the state budget, Gov. Jerry Brown hived off the state’s nearly $60 billion in road troubles for a special legislative session. But “additional revenue is impossible without support from Republicans because it requires a two-thirds vote in the Legislature,” as the Los Angeles Times noted.

A rush of plans

Although Assembly Republicans have offered billions more than those in the state Senate, both proposals adopted several similar paths to get there. On the chopping block, the Times reported, was cap-and-trade revenue, “recently expanded to include transportation fuel. In addition, they want to tap existing fees on truck drivers, which were redirected to the general fund during the state’s budget crises.”

“Republicans in the Assembly also want to eliminate 3,500 jobs at Caltrans, the state transportation agency, that legislative analysts identified as unnecessary. Thousands more vacant positions across state government would be cut as well, and all of the savings would be put toward roads.”

According to U-T San Diego’s Steven Greenhut, Assembly Republicans would pull $1 billion directly from cap-and-trade monies, estimating that an additional $1 billion in infrastructure spending could be saved from the better fuel efficiency that could result from better roads.

The Assembly GOP would also strip the California Transportation Commission from the Executive Branch, according to Capital Public Radio. Earlier, Assembly Republican Leader Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto, had telegraphed her caucus’s plan, urging that high-speed rail money be reallocated to correct the state’s problems with existing infrastructure.

Dueling agendas

The party hasn’t remained fully united on the issue of revenue neutrality. For some, the special session hasn’t turned out to be quite the boon the party imagined. “Many Republicans argue that the governor and Democratic leaders put together a balanced budget that doesn’t raise taxes – and then offloaded this big missing piece to a special session as a way to build support for tax increases,” as Greenhut recounted.

The behavior of some in the party gave ammunition to Republican critics. “Senate Republican leader Bob Huff of San Dimas expressed interest in a proposal from Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, that includes a new annual $100 fee to owners of electric cars, making up for the fact that they don’t pay any gas tax,” as the Times noted.

Along with a host of co-authors, Huff has also introduced legislation that would constitutionally require transportation taxes to be allocated toward transportation expenses. Nevertheless, his willingness to raise additional revenues raised the ire of influential state conservatives.