Thomas D. Elias

Republicans have been talking big this fall, saying they expect to improve greatly on their current 15 seats in California’s delegation of 53 members on the House of Representatives. Don’t bet on it, despite the fact the GOP managed...

Alex Maese is an example of how mistaken critics can be when they claim, as they have for decades, that Californians are not smart enough for direct democracy via ballot propositions. Maese was convicted in 1997 of possessing a fragment of a cotton ball containing 0.029 grams of heroin, then sentenced to life in prison. No court at the time saw evidence of how he was using that...

The unproven, unprovable but persistent myth that undocumented immigrants are a vast financial burden on the American taxpayer is now extending to the unlikely field of organ transplants. The latest furor began when...

Suddenly this fall, a potential threat has emerged to the vote-counting reliability Californians have enjoyed for the last six years. This comes from a new law just signed without hoopla by Gov. Brown, who listed it among 30 signings and five vetoes in a routine press release. The possible threat: This measure will allow the California secretary of state to...

No state agency over the years has so disregarded the interests of both ordinary citizens and business owners as the state Public Utilities Commission. Not only has it failed to adequately supervise safety of things like natural gas pipelines, its decisions consistently have taken the side of large utilities over their customers.

Anyone who says there was no effect from political rule changes California used for the first time last year just has not been watching. These included “top two” primary elections, slightly revised term limits and use of election districts drawn by non-partisan non-politicians. Those changes had enormous impact this year on some of the most important issues taken up by state legislators – making it obvious similar changes could be useful at...

It’s secession season again in California. For the seventh time in the last 27 years, a movement is afoot to split the state. While most secession attempts have sought to divide California on a north-south basis, with the divide roughly at the top of the Tehachapi Mountains between Los Angeles and Bakersfield, the latest effort – like the two most recent ones – involves far more creative and interesting borders. The previous pair sought...

The Tea Party, most conservative element of today’s Republican Party, takes its name from a historic incident. But it appears to be ignoring history, the recent political history of California. For months, the Tea Party has campaigned against

As the lines begin to blur between American citizens living in California and immigrants who are here legally, it’s fair to begin asking what’s the difference? What rights and privileges should be reserved strictly for citizens? These questions are highlighted by two bills that swept easily through the state Legislature, one already signed without much fanfare by Gov. Brown, the other awaiting his signature at this writing.

Think back to last fall’s election, when many analysts – especially Republicans – were amazed that President Obama won the popular vote by almost 4 percent over Republican Mitt Romney, a 51-47 percent margin fully 3 percent higher than the final average of nine major polls, from Gallup to Public Policy Polling. Even the most accurate of those surveys – the ABC/Washington Post poll and Pew Research – understated the Obama margin by...