Absent constructive and reasonable suggestions, this heels-dug-in approach to government gives the appearance that these groups would prefer the “wild west” environment currently in place to the structure provided by AB 48.
Gavin Newsom’s Impressive Town Hall in Sacramento
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Mayor Newsom is the most exciting thing to happen to California politics in years. He has started his campaign early, enlisted the help of an army of energetic young people who represent the future of the state, and promises to lift California out of the morass the deadening hands of the Republicans have submerged us in.
McClintock’s Neocon “Morality” Tortures the Truth
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Oddly, McClintock yearns for the golden era when California was a more highly taxed state and could afford “the finest highway system in the world and the finest public school system in the country. California offered … FREE university education.”
Could a Constitutional Convention Break California’s Impasse?
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The state is ungovernable for many reasons. Republicans know that California is getting younger and browner (and therefore more liberal), so they bitterly cling to the two-thirds budget rule – starving the state into oblivion.
Wanted: Persistent Progressive Propositions
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Right-wingers at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association understand that elections are transitory – and a long-term approach requires going back to the voters over and over again.
For a Man May Smile and Smile and Still Be a Villain
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“Why do they keep sending me budgets I won’t sign?”, the Governor asked, after saying no, once again, to any proposal but his own, cuts-only solution. And, since he had all the guns, no one in the Legislature asked in return, “Why does he keep refusing our budgets?”
A Political Strategy to Get Rid of California’s Two-Thirds Rule
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the campaign to repeal two-thirds has to be about the status quo, and whether California can afford to continue its budgets the way it’s been done. Talk about public health clinics shutting down, more teachers getting laid off, and more unemployed people.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Knife Play
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Now we have a Republican governor in California who sees the state’s current budget catastrophe as nothing but a big joke. Why else would Arnold Schwarzenegger post a tasteless Twitter video where he wields a two-foot-long folding knife boasting about his budget-cutting prowess?
The Republicans Win Big in California!
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When Arnold Schwarzenegger calls an agreement “a really great, great accomplishment” you know average Californians are in for a fleecing.
California Democratic Party Engages Grassroots Under John Burton
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With the state legislature on the brink of caving to Republicans on the budget (even though only 36% of voters want a “cuts-only” solution), California politics has been unbelievably depressing. But a trip down to Burlingame this weekend gave me hope for the state’s future.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Compassionless Conservatism
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Schwarzenegger doesn’t get the human costs of his actions. He seems to enjoy the attention he’s getting as well as playing on right-wing “populist” anger. He’s satisfying his Tea Bagger constituency by beating up on Californians who happen to be poor or work in the public sector.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Tea Bagging California
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Just as many of the neo-cons seemingly cross their fingers hoping for a mass-casualty terrorist attack on U.S. soil because they see it as political gold for them, they’re also cheerleading for the economy to remain stagnant
Arnold’s Bathtub
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There is NO WAY Pat Brown would allow the type of cuts Arnold is trying to force onto Californians.
Thousands Speak Out Against California’s Costly and Broken Death Penalty
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If the Governor converts all death sentences to permanent imprisonment, he could then use that $1 billion check to actually make California safer by keeping more police on the streets and more crime labs open.
Experts Wrong: Newsom Clear Beneficiary of Villaraigosa Non-Entry
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According to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier & Ross, nearly all of the political experts they consulted felt that California Attorney General Jerry Brown would gain more than Gavin Newsom from the non-entry of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaragosa in the 2010 Democratic race for Governor. Not to be too blunt, but this analysis is [...]
No Villaraigosa for Governor: LA Needs a Full-Time Mayor
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It’s been a while since I’ve been on the same page at the same time with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. As one of the few black stakeholders who backed his losing bid in 2001, and returned to support him in 2005, only to have to bash him for engaging in token reciprocity with the [...]
California’s Death Throes: A View From Sacramento
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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Republican colleagues are using the trauma of the economic collapse and the record state budget deficit to implement policies they’ve been advocating for years. “This budget ought to be solved in one chunk, at one time,” the governor says, “and let’s do it quickly.” As usual, the working poor [...]
Interpreting the Failure of Prop 1A
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Immediately after the election, the Governor announced that the “voters had spoken” and that the defeat of Prop 1A “clearly” meant that Californians stood adamantly against any new taxes or fees. He must have been reading the leaves in the bottom of his tea cup in order to come to a favored conclusion, however, because [...]
Why Do We Tolerate a Massive Prison System That Produces 70% Recidivism Rates?
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In Part 1 of this two-part Q&A, UC Berkeley Law Professor Jonathan Simon talked about criminal sentencing and parole as practiced today in California. He concludes here by discussing the social and fiscal impacts of our approach to crime and punishment, the current opportunity for prison reform, and some ideas for meaningful change. Q. California’s [...]
Why Parole Does Not Work in California
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California’s criminal justice system was thrust into the national spotlight recently after the shooting deaths of four Oakland police officers by a recently released state prisoner. In this two-part Q&A, the NewsCenter speaks with UC Berkeley Law Professor Jonathan Simon about a system he has studied since the 1980s. The associate dean of the campus’s [...]
California Needs a New Constitution
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In his most recent piece in the New York Times Paul Krugman asks: “Who would have thought that America’s largest state, a state whose economy is larger than that of all but a few nations, could so easily become a banana republic?” Here in Sacramento I’ve watched the disaster unfold before my eyes like a [...]
Budget Baloney
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The shrill attacks on government spending — “it’s always wasteful! it *never* invests!” — have already begun. The anti-tax crowd has begun its triumphal victory dance, spinning the defeat of proposition 1A’s rather modest extension of taxes as an endorsement of their prejudices. But this is one voter who turned down the convoluted logic of [...]
Decrying California’s Double-Digit Student Fee Hikes
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The California Board of Trustees’ action last week shows an increasing dependency on annual, double-digit student fee hikes to cover for declining state support. It is a dependency that must be broken to maintain access and affordability for students. Student Fees Hiked More Than 100 Percent Student fees have climbed more than 100 percent in [...]
Arnold’s Legacy: Driving the State Towards Bankruptcy
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Governor Schwarzenegger’s May “budget revise” last week – which proposed more mass layoffs, more painful cuts and more reckless borrowing – had all the makings of the end of a Shakespearean tragedy, where the protagonist has run out of options due to troubles of his own making. One could also view it as the definition [...]
Sheila Kuehl: My Take on California’s Propositions
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It seems pretty obvious that, whether the propositions pass or fail, they create a significant, but different, problem for the state. The total monies brought into the current budget by all the propositions together is about 6 billion dollars. However, over $5 billion of that revenue comes from the sale of the lottery. This makes [...]
The Republican Contract on California
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We get to vote, again, on May 19. This time we have a bunch of ballot initiatives that the Republican Party demanded as a condition of reaching a budget “compromise” last winter. The commercial media tell us that most of these measures are failing in polling, but still have a chance at passage. Still have [...]
Marcy Winograd Campaign Kick-Off Speech
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My name is Marcy Winograd and WE are running for Congress. Thank you, all, for joining me today for the historic kick-off of the Winograd for Congress 2010 campaign to unseat Jane Harman in the 36th congressional district. We stand here today just miles from the neighborhoods of West LA and Mar Vista, Playa Vista, [...]
The Consent of the Governed
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“… to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men [and women], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” — Declaration of Independence “Your people, Mr. Jefferson, are a great beast.” So said Alexander Hamilton, the leader of America’s first conservative party, to the author of the Declaration of Independence and the [...]
California’s Budget: How Abel Raised Cain
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While the disciplined Assembly stood by in mid-February, waiting for the Senate to get its game on the field, the Senate speechified on the Floor and slept in the Big White Building. As in the familiar children’s game of musical chairs, the Governor and Senate President pro Temps Darrell Steinberg were simply looking for that [...]
Activists, Reformers Now Control State Democratic Party
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Before the California Democratic Convention ended yesterday, delegates bucked the Party leadership on the May 19th ballot measures – by securing a “no endorsement” on Propositions 1A, 1D and 1E. State legislators and Party operatives pushed “yes” on all six measures, but enough of the grassroots who stayed for the tail end of the session [...]
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