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Bill to Stop ICE Arrests at State Courts Awaits Governor’s Signature
A bill with the potential to worsen California’s already-frosty relationship with the Trump administration passed the Legislature on a near-party-line vote in late August and was presented to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature last week. Senate Bill 349, by state Sen. Ricardo Lara (pictured), D-Bell Gardens, is a direct response to the U.S. Immigration and Customs […]
Government Boondoggles Threaten CA Property Owners and Taxpayers
One would hope that with the profound foolishness associated with California’s infamous High Speed Rail (HSR) project that our elected leadership would have learned a thing or two. But this is California. Because we do things bigger and better than anyone else, it’s apparent that one massive boondoggle isn’t enough — we need two. Let’s […]
Business Not United on Gas Tax Repeal
While business organizations are largely opposed to Proposition 6, the gas tax repeal measure, opposition to the measure from business is not universal. Yesterday, the influential California Business Roundtable announced its positions on November’s ballot and Proposition 6 was absent. The California Business Roundtable took a neutral position on SB 1, the gas tax increase […]
Silicon Valley’s Political Perils
Last week’s news underscored growing concerns over the politicization of tech companies. With his inimitable style, President Trump claimed on Twitter that Google shows political bias by skewing the news found in online searches. Relatedly, a group of some 100 conservative-leaning Facebook employees formed an online community to escape the strictures of a “political monoculture” and provide […]
Berkeley Officials Reject Plan to Fast-Track New Housing
As CalWatchdog reported July 2, the city of Cupertino’s decision to stop fighting a massive mall makeover project enabled by a far-reaching 2017 state law meant to promote more housing construction could someday be seen as a milestone in state planning. Senate Bill 35 by Sen. Scott Weiner, D-San Francisco, requires cities that have not met their affordable housing […]
CPR Blog
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 […]
Silicon Valley’s Leftists and the Night of the Slap Drones
Some of them, the big ones, will intrude the old fashioned way, beating down the door. Maybe others will look like insects, crawling innocuously across your property to come inside through your drains and A/C ducts. Or they’ll find an open window. Across America, they’ll come by the millions, having manufactured themselves. They’ll be several generations smarter than the […]
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
Jerry Brown Signs Law Legalizing Street Food in California
California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill to make it easier for sidewalk vendors to operate legally in the state. It’s one of dozens of bills Brown announced signing Monday, including measures to help voters ensure their mail ballots are counted and standardize balcony inspections. The new sidewalk vending law will let cities and […]
200,000 California Drivers Set to Lose Clean-Air Carpool Decals
For some California commuters, cutting down on carbon emissions isn’t a sexy enough reason to buy an electric car. But the ability to bypass freeway traffic without having to carpool — that’s another story. So there is grumbling in high-occupancy-vehicle lanes across California these days. On Jan. 1, the owners of as many as 220,000 […]
Why Is Public Employee Disability Claim Data Being Kept Secret?
In the preamble to California’s Ralph M. Brown Act, the state’s 1953 law governing the public’s access to government meetings, the Legislature noted, “The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them.” Likewise, the people “do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know […]
Governor Moonbeam: California to launch its ‘own damn satellite’
He’s mostly shed the “Governor Moonbeam” nickname, but Gov. Jerry Brown pointed California toward the stars as he closed out a global climate change summit here Friday. “We’re going to launch our own satellite — our own damn satellite to figure out where the pollution is and how we’re going to end it,” Brown told […]
California’s poverty rate is still the highest in the nation
Newly released federal estimates show California’s poverty rate remained the highest in the nation, despite a modest fall, and the state’s falling uninsured rate slowed for the first time since before Medicaid expansion. According to the Census Bureau, the share of Californians in poverty fell to 19 percent — a 1.4 percent decrease from last […]
