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New Tax Proposals Hurt the Middle-Class
No one disputes that California has a big budget surplus. According to the Office of the Legislative Analyst, California has budget reserves in excess of $18 billion. Our budget reserves exceed the entire state budget of eighteen other states. One would think that the funds available for discretionary spending would chill any appetite for higher […]
L.A. Teachers Strike To Preserve Their Ruinous Monopoly
Last week, 31,000 Los Angeles Unified School District teachers represented by the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) union went on strike for the first time in 30 years. Substitute teachers and administrators make up a skeleton crew that is keeping schools open, and about one-third of the 640,000 district students are attending class. The […]
Are Water Rights Sufficient to Protect Water Users?
“The judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the Constitution,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes in Elimra, New York in 1907. That quote exemplifies the reason that five irrigation districts on tributaries to the San Joaquin River as well as the city of San Francisco filed lawsuits […]
Civil Rights Attorneys Sue over Greenhouse Gas Regulations that Affect Housing
In what may signal the beginning of the end of alarmism over climate change, a group of civil rights activists is suing the California Air Resources Board. The issue is CARB’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by effectively limiting new housing construction. The lawsuit says this is driving up the cost of housing, worsening […]
Are LAUSD Teachers Underpaid, or Does it Cost Too Much to Live in California?
In California, public sector unions pretty much run the state government. Government unions collect and spend over $800 million per year in California. There is no special interest in California both willing and able to mount a sustained challenge to public sector union power. They simply have too much money, too many people on their payroll, too […]
CPR Blog
Could You Pass the Citizenship Test?
Quickly now – name one of the authors of The Federalist Papers, and don’t you dare go to Google. Do you know the pseudonym used by the authors to hide their true identities? Do you know why the Federalist Papers were written? If you have difficulty with any of the above be thankful that you’re not […]
Is Anything Off-Limits for California’s Police Unions?
A few weeks ago the Costa Mesa Police Association (read: Police Union) and their former law firm agreed to pay $607,000 to settle a lawsuit after their scheme against two Costa Mesa city councilmen came to light. As I wrote in my book, this settlement represents a small but important victory in the broader philosophical war between California’s […]
Towards a Grand Bargain on California Water Policy
When it comes to water policy in California, perhaps the people are more savvy than the special interests. Because the people, or more precisely, the voters, by huge majorities, have approved nine water bonds in the past 25 years, totaling $27.1 billion. It is likely they’re going to approve another one this November for another […]
Publisher’s Corner
Thank you CPR readers, for another great year!
The editors and writers at California Political Review join me in thanking you, our readers, for making this another successful year of our service to you. In 2018, California Political Review saw record participation since creation of this on-line presence in 2011. In 2018, we enjoyed over 1,600,000 “Page views” from readers like you, and […]
Cali-Culture
The West Coast Jazz Revival
Every 50 years or so, California makes a claim for jazz preeminence — and then loses its way. Will it work out better this time? Don’t believe anyone who tells you that jazz originated on the West Coast. It’s just the word for jazz that started out in California. But it could have been so much more. […]
Trending News
California Sen. Kamala Harris announces 2020 presidential bid
In 2008, Barack Obama, a freshman Democratic senator, became the first African-American man elected president of the United States. A decade later, another first-term Democrat from the Senate is making a bid for the White House, this time to become the first African-American woman to lead the nation. Sen. Kamala Harris of California announced Monday on ABC’s […]
Why Gov. Newsom Wants to Pay for the Health Care of Illegal Immigrants
California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, wants it understood that he’s not declaring war on Big Pharma, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Yes, he wants to give Medi-Cal more power to negotiate drug prices and, yes, he wants to make those prices significantly lower. But Newsom was surprisingly candid when we spoke Wednesday about his […]
Will Gavin Newsom’s Drug Pricing Plan Save You Money?
Gov. Gavin Newson wants to deliver lower drug prices by harnessing the full weight of the state against the pharmaceutical industry, but it’s unclear whether his team can get a better deal without giving up something Californians want. In his first act as governor, Newsom issued an executive order creating the largest single purchaser of prescription drugs […]
PG&E to file for bankruptcy following devastating California wildfires
California’s largest power company intends to file for bankruptcy as it faces tens of billions of dollars in potential liability after massive wildfires devastated parts of the state over the past two years, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Pacific Gas and Electric said Monday that declaring insolvency is “ultimately the only viable […]
L.A. Teachers Proceeding With Monday Strike Plan
Without any new proposals from Los Angeles Unified School District officials coming over the weekend, the union representing 34,000 district educators is moving forward with a strike set for Monday morning, Jan. 14. Calling the offer on Friday by district officials unacceptable, Alex Caputo-Pearl, United Teachers Los Angeles president, said the union was engaged in […]
