Featured Articles
Top Stories
Public-Employee Unions Maintain a Privileged Status
As a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, teachers and other public employees in 22 states can no longer be compelled to pay “agency fees”—the money that the union claims it costs to represent them—as a condition of employment. A teacher in newly liberated California can now save $1,100 or $1,200 per year in […]
LAUSD Questioned Over Positive Reviews for Teachers at Struggling Schools
A new study raises fresh concerns about the giant Los Angeles Unified School District and whether it shows good faith in its dealings with struggling schools in poor minority communities. The Los Angeles-based Parent Revolution group, which focuses on improving education and increasing educational opportunities for poor minority students, analyzed 44 LAUSD schools with weak test scores last school year. At […]
Bay Area Has Become World’s 19th Largest Economy
The Economic Institute reported this month that the Bay Area would be the 19th-largest economy in the world, if it were a country, after growing at the fifth-fastest rate of any nation since 2014. The Bay Area’s nine counties — including San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Sonoma, San Mateo, Solano and Santa Clara — consistently […]
Stockton to test universal basic income plan
Stockton, California, will soon become the first U.S. city to experiment with a universal basic income program, granting 100 residents $500 a month with no strings attached. The project is being backed by Silicon Valley titan Chris Hughes, whose Economic Security Project gave $1 million toward the effort. The goal, supporters say, is to ensure that […]
California’s Major Government Unions Collect At Least $900 Million Per Year
In the wake of the Janus ruling, it is useful to estimate just how much money California’s government unions collect and spend each year. Because government unions publicly disclose less than what the law requires of public corporations or private sector unions, only estimates are possible. The primary source of information comes from Form 990s that government […]
CPR Blog
America Is Not a Nation of Immigrants
America is a nation of immigrants. It’s a commonplace among the political class. Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), emergent leaders in the open-borders vanguard of the Democratic Party, never tire of saying so. Both object to the Trump Administration’s hard line on border control and have buttressed their calls for an “immigration reform” that would […]
Is Crony Capitalism Alive and Well in California?
If there’s one thing that unites Californians, it’s a disdain for crony capitalism. What is crony capitalism, you ask? We see it all the time. Think local elected officials throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Amazon to try and lure their second global headquarters to their city. PRI’s senior fellow in business and economics Wayne Winegarden […]
Gov. Brown’s May Revise Shows No Need for Gas Tax Increase
The first takeaway from Gov. Jerry Brown’s May Revision of his budget for 2018-19 is that California didn’t need that $5.5 billion yearly gas-tax increase the Legislature passed last year. The proposal shows we have $8 billion in revenues in excess of projections. In one area I persistently agree with Gov. Brown, “Despite strong fiscal health in the short […]
Publisher’s Corner
Jim Lacy on Trump/Kim Summit; G-7 Trade Debate, Australian Broadcasting’s “Weekend Breakfast”
In this video, California Political Review publisher and author Jim Lacy comments on questions about Donald Trump’s highly anticipated summit with Kim Jung Un on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and on the Trump Administration’s trade policies coming out of the recent G-7 meeting in Canada.
Cali-Culture
In Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, only six GOP appointees of twenty-nine seats
As the Trump Administration focuses on its important Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, we are also reminded that of the twenty-nine members of the important U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, only six of the members were appointed by Republican presidents, resulting in the most liberal and highly […]
Trending News
This California mayor is trying to ban neckties from the workplace
California has long been a place where the government has tried to influence the quality of life by enacting a ban on this or a mandatory adoption of that. Now a mayor in Southern California says he wants to ban neckties from the workplace, claiming the fashion accessory restricts blood flow to the brain. R. Rex Parris, mayor […]
California beats its 2020 goals for cutting greenhouse gases
California has beaten its self-imposed goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, achieving a milestone in the state’s fight against climate change. The California Air Resources Board announced Wednesday that total statewide carbon emissions fell to 429 million metric tons in 2016, a drop of 12 million tons from the year before. The decline means California met the […]
What You Need to Know About California’s New Data Privacy Law
Late last month, California passed a sweeping consumer privacy law that might force significant changes on companies that deal in personal data — and especially those operating in the digital space. The law’s passage comes on the heels of a few days of intense negotiation among privacy advocates, technology startups, network providers, Silicon Valley internet companies, and others. Those […]
New Plan Would Stop the Undocumented from Getting Driver’s Licenses
An initiative that would reverse a law that allows immigrants residing in California illegally to obtain driver’s licenses has been cleared to begin gathering signatures for the 2020 ballot. The proposal also seeks to eliminate the current “sanctuary state” law and end automatic voter registration practices in California. Don Rosenberg, the main proponent of the […]
Study: Dozens of millionaires fled California after 2012 tax increase
California lost a very small but statistically significant percentage of high-income residents after voters approved Proposition 30 — the 2012 ballot measure that raised the top state income tax rate to 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation — according to a new working paper from three researchers. The state lost an estimated 138 high-income individuals, or […]
