If the UCLA and USC professors whose studies early this year concluded that allowing illegal immigrants to stay in America would provide a huge boost to the economy thought their findings might end one of this country’s longest-running policy and moral debates, they were sadly mistaken.

Don’t expect any of them to admit it, but it turns out they were wrong – all those politicians who whined for many years that high taxes and lousy business conditions were pushing Californians to leave for other states.

Once again, the self-destructive cry is heard from some parts of California, just has it is been every 10 years when the Census is about to begin: “Don’t count illegal immigrants.”

Something remarkable is happening in California politics, but the leaders of the two major parties don’t seem to get it.

No one in California politics gives 33-year-old Republican Damon Dunn much chance of unseating Democratic Secretary of State Debra Bowen this fall.

The closer it gets, the worse California’s pending sale of state buildings looks, at least for the long-term interests of taxpayers.

At long last, there are signs Californians might become a little inventive in the face of financial crisis.

Whether or not Congress eventually approves the greenhouse-gas reduction agreements reached late last year in Copenhagen, California soon will have a cap-and-trade system in place.

The bleating from the left has been loud and long over last month’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that will allow political advocacy advertising by corporations – even foreign-owned ones – right up until Election Day.

Every time Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger confronts a budget shortfall, he seeks the same way out, always looking for short-term solutions that create long-term problems.