Political Stories Top stories Dan Walters: California’s unfunded pension debts may be larger than acknowledged — The “unfunded liabilities” of state and local pension funds are California’s biggest unresolved political issue – at least in financial terms. Walters column in Sacramento Bee In California politics, Bay Area ‘controls everything’ — The Bay Area has emerged as a force in […]
Political Stories Top stories How California defines a ‘disadvantaged community’ to get state money — Yet exactly how to identify California’s most vulnerable areas remains a subject of disagreement, four years after a 2012 bill for the first time directed that some cap-and-trade money pay for projects in those places or somehow benefit them. During the […]
Top stories Brown signs major climate bill: ‘This is big, and I hope it sends a message across the country’ — Gov. Jerry Brown, holding California out as a beacon for the nation on efforts to reduce climate change, signed into law on Wednesday a sweeping expansion of California’s greenhouse gas emission standards, requiring the […]
Political Stories – Top stories Political Paradox: Proposition 59 asks Californians to condemn a big-money system long used here — Six years after Citizens United—the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that says corporations and unions have a 1st Amendment right to unlimited campaign spending—presidential candidates across the spectrum have condemned the campaign finance system it shaped. “Corrupt,” says […]
Political Stories Top stories Stymied in Legislature, school bond backers go their own way – Home builders, school construction companies and others, bypassing the Capitol, spent millions to gather signatures to qualify a $9 billion school bond for the ballot. Eleventh-hour Capitol negotiations to craft a smaller substitute bond in June went nowhere, securing Proposition […]
Political Stories Top stories Nine weeks before election, here are the 12 California congressional races we’re watching — Thirty of California’s 49 House incumbents secured more than 60% of the vote in the June primary. All were Democrats, except for Republican Reps. Tom McClintock of Elk Grove, Ed Royce of Fullerton, and Devin Nunes of […]
Political Stories Top stories George Skelton: The Legislature helped poor people and farmworkers but skipped the middle class — The California Legislature capped its two-year session by passing a load of liberal bills to help poor people, including farmworkers. That’s good, but what about middle-class folks? They were snubbed again. Ignoring the declining middle class […]
Political Stories Top stories Sacramento Bee: Some pressing ballot issues that aren’t about the White House — Hijacked by a poser, the nation has gawked at Trump’s antics like Sunday drivers passing a big-rig explosion. That’s normal; it’s instinctive to notice unusual behavior. But this ballot also asks serious policy questions that Californians don’t want […]
Political Stories Top stories California’s new climate change laws almost didn’t happen this year. Here’s how lawmakers pulled it off — For Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, global warming conjured images of stricken polar bears floating away on melting ice sheets, a problem with little relevance to a politician from California’s bone-dry Inland Empire. But while attending […]
Political Stories Top stories Jerry Brown’s donors offered ‘small dinners’ with governor while he weighs legislation — While Gov. Jerry Brown prepares to act on hundreds of bills sent to him by the Legislature in its end-of-session rush, the California Democratic Party has offered prospective donors to Brown’s political causes access to a series of […]
