California will be exploring new ground as the impending election year builds to its climax in early November. For the first time, big donors to ballot proposition campaigns will not be able to hide behind phony campaign committee names like “Californians for Safe Streets” when they put their money behind causes, many of which can be self-serving. It will be … Read More

Hate crimes are on the rise in California. There are strong hints the increase stems in part from President Trump’s habit of using racial slurs like the Pocahontas tag he likes to apply to Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the travel bans he has imposed on citizens of several Muslim countries. There were also Mr. Trump’s call for a … Read More

Every economic forecast shows California needs more college graduates. About 35 percent more than today’s total by 2030, on pain of losing hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs to other states and countries. The state’s largest producer of college grads has gotten the message: The Cal State system last spring graduated 23 percent of all students who enrolled four years … Read More

“I’ve never seen a CEQA exemption I don’t like.” – Gov. Brown.  Mr. Brown made that observation shortly after starting his second go-‘round as  chief executive in early 2011, reacting wryly to his 1990s experience as mayor of Oakland, where the California Environmental Quality Act often forced him to battle for pet housing and school projects, including a military academy … Read More

There’s nothing politicians and lobbyists in this state hate more than the ballot initiative process to which they all pay hypocritical verbal homage every chance they get. It’s easy to see why they don’t like lawmaking by the public, the essence of initiatives: The process takes important issues out of their hands. It can alter their working conditions in ways … Read More

As disastrous and deadly wildfires raged through once-lovely residential areas in the Wine Country and other Northern California points this fall, there were signs that the aftermath could play out similarly to a scene that began almost 10 years earlier in Southern California. Loud claims were heard this time that negligent maintenance of power lines and poles, together with insufficient … Read More

The California Public Utilities Commission now says it wants closure on its most contentious, most questionable decision of the last few decades.   This comes more than four years after a clandestine meeting between the commission’s then-president Michael Peevey and officials of the Southern California Edison Co. set parameters for “settling” the division of costs for shutting down the San … Read More

They see her as road-kill, the younger California Democrats hovering over longtime Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein just before and just after she announced her bid for election last week to a sixth term.   “She no longer reflects the experiences or core values of Californians…and she isn’t willing to step up and lead on resisting (President) Trump…” went one … Read More