Randy Shaw: The big mystery is why Housing California and the many health and human services groups are not demanding bigger cuts in California’s massive prison industrial complex.
AB 144 Will Ban the “Open Carry” of Unloaded Handguns
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Assemblymember Anthony Portantino (AD44) joins police chiefs and rank and file police officers in calling on California to ban the open display of firearms. Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) has introduced legislation to outlaw the “open carry” of unloaded handguns in California
Why Won’t Cities Fight Real State Budget Cuts?
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Paul Hogarth: While some may see Jerry Brown’s proposal as a “power grab” by the state that tells local governments how to spend their money, the truth is that it can prevent some devastating budget cuts that have been afflicting localities for years.
California’s Humpty-Dumpty Law
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Gautam Dutta: Although SB 6 is sitting on a wall, its Humpty-Dumpty election rules do not have to fall. In fact, the Legislature could have fixed SB 6′s defects last year – and it still has one last chance to do so before the courts decide SB 6′s fate.
Jerry Brown’s Karma
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Tom Hayden: It’s possible that Brown will take to blaming Washington’s priorities for California’s ills, but not any time soon. For now, he wants Californians to see themselves in the mirror.
Governor Jerry Brown Will Aggressively Push Change
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Randy Shaw: Brown’s history shows that he likes to shake things up soon after taking office, and he now has the perfect opportunity. The public desperately wants a solution to California’s longstanding budget crisis, and Brown’s political capital is as high as it will ever be following an election where Democrats won every statewide race and maintained all their Congressional seats.
Election Results California November 2010
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The following is a partial list of election results for the November 2, 1010 election. This status of California candidates and initiatives was captured and reported by the Los Angeles Times with 93% of the precincts counted. The office that was too close to call, with 93% counted, was the California Attorney General race.
Three Overlooked Propositions
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Paul Hogarth: California voters are already filling out their absentee ballots. While they vote to pass Prop 19 and “no” on Prop 23, it’s important for them to also vote “yes” on Prop 24 and 25 – but most importantly, “no” on Prop 26. If we don’t get the word out, it could pass.
Rebooting California
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Diane Lefer: Why does it matter? This year, once again, California not only failed to pass a budget by the deadline but delayed it longer than at any other time in our history, causing chaos and hardship for vendors, employees, and municipalities while harming our credit with rating agencies and raising the interest we pay.
Niello Sponsors a Whine-Fest for Business, As Usual.
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Adam Eran: Niello’s hearing is yet another bit of evidence that, no matter what the facts, the Republican narrative remains constant: We must reduce taxes and regulation, even if lack of effective regulation produced the current less-than-optimum outcome. And although “deficits don’t matter,” no matter how low they are, taxes are too high, especially on the wealthy.
Lame Duck Terminator
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Joseph Palermo: Schwarzenegger’s hackneyed “State of the State” address was pathetic and unconvincing. If it weren’t for his acting chops and his ability to emote on cue, he couldn’t get away with the simplistic platitudes that roll off his tongue. Then again, if he couldn’t act he wouldn’t be governor either.
The Living Wage, Affordable Housing, Subsidies, Public Works, and the Myth of Job Creation
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Ron Kaye: Antonio Villaraigosa once held the promise of being the leader who could bring us to this promised land. Maybe he still can but not as long as keeps on looking to enrich his friends and allies at the expense of others, not as long as keeps looking for his next job, not as long as travels the world rather than attending to his duties, not as long as he keeps thinking the people are fools who will fall for hollow promises.
What Should Really Matter in the Maldonado Confirmation
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Republican Senator Abel Maldonado is an Olympia Snowe character. He is a so-called “moderate” who is willing to cut a deal on the budget, while the rest of his party would rather see the state fall off a cliff than raise any taxes whatsoever. But the deals that Maldonado has extorted in past years for his one vote are enough to leave a sour taste in anyone’s mouth.
California: Killing the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs
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Governor Arnold Scwharzenegger and the Republicans in the Legislature who control California’s finances have apparently concluded that it is not even worth trying to compete with India and China anymore. California’s “leaders,” by abandoning the CSU, are throwing in the towel.
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Iraq
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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger praised U.S. soldiers for helping Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki build and nurture Iraq’s public institutions, which are central to the American war effort. But at the same time Schwarzenegger is systematically (even gleefully) dismantling similar public institutions in California.
Who Wants to Be Governor of the Failed State of California?
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If the miserable status quo continues and the Republicans succeed in their long-term project of turning California into a failed state the time might not be far off when the labor unions of this state are going to have no choice but to call for some kind of General Strike.
Arnold: Aid for Rape Victims Costs Too Much
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Despite Shriver’s political agenda, and amid a raft of budget cuts affecting women and children – including $16 million from domestic violence programs and $50 million from Healthy Families – the rape kit veto underscored the message that women in California count for less in the Schwarzenegger regime.
Community Compromise Sown By Revenge
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So when the community went with Ridley-Thomas, Parks went to the feds and the newspapers. The L.A. Times, always willing to get in the middle of a good community fight, took it and ran with it.
As Ye Judge, So Shall Ye Be Judged
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I knew from experience that Sen. Poochiaign’s votes had consistantly indicated animosity to civil rights statutes regarding gender, disability and sexual orientation.
Meg Whitman’s “Vision Thing”
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Next year, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s circus will leave Sacramento. The cigar tents will be packed up and his menagerie of lobbyists and hangers-on will follow him out of town. And like a departing circus it will leave in its wake a barren field strewn with garbage and elephant shit. Whoever is the next Republican nominee for governor will have to at least promise to clean up some of this mess. The last thing the state needs is a Margaret Thatcher wannabe.
University California System Funding: Less Can’t Masquerade as More
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UC’s future cannot be left to administrators who don’t understand that disinvesting in post-secondary education is disinvesting in California’s future. If we work together, there may yet be a chance to save the crown jewel of California from the pawnshop.
California’s Prison Agency Takes Step Towards Reform While Assembly Runs Scared
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The Assembly cannot agree on what seems like common sense to the rest of us: people who commit low-level crimes like petty theft and simple drug possession should be punished on the local level, not in prison cells at a cost of nearly $50,000 per person per year.
In California State University System, Students Pay More for Less
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Students are paying more than ever for a CSU education even though they’ll be spending less time with professors, have fewer course offerings, and be crammed into overcrowded classrooms.
Stealing From California’s Young People
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The professors will endure. But the students and their families are the true victims here. They’re getting ripped off. The quality of their education is suffering even while they go into debt.
Taking the Measure of the UC System: Equal Campuses or Three Tiers?
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My account of these alternative criteria does, as readers will see, lend support to a vision of the UC system as characterized by a widespread distribution of excellence, at least where the eight established campuses are concerned
The People’s Budget Fix
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The “Prison Population and Budget Reduction Package” proposed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is like a drunk person walking home from a bar – it knows where it wants to go but oftentimes you find it stumbling off the sidewalk or turning down the wrong street.
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Remaking California: Reclaiming the Public Good
Joseph Palermo: The Constitutional straight-jacket that keeps the state government in gridlock and voters in despair is the same institutional structure that brought the pathetically unqualified body builder into the governorship in the first place.