Political columnist George Skelton has seen a lot since he started covering state politics in 1974. A lot has changed in CA from Ronald Reagan being Governor to the passage […]

Californians have historically placed a high value on higher education. California’s universities have generally been viewed as among the best in the world. However, as the cost of providing higher […]

The CA Environmental Quality Act is generally recognized as the strongest state environmental law in the nation. Signed by then Gov. Reagan in 1970, CEQA initially applied only to public […]

What will CA be like in 2025 — and how to we begin now to plan for a better future? What kind of population growth will CA experience — who […]

Progressives like FDR thought some government regulation –protecting workers and the environment, promoting fairness in business transactions or achieving other social goals– was necessary to control the excesses of businesses. […]

State Sen. Joe Simitian once compared California’s byzantine school financing system to the “Winchester Mystery House” — with rooms added willy-nilly to solve one problem or another. In 1978, voters […]

The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, commonly referred to as AB 32, established the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emission statewide to 1990 levels by 2010. In order to […]

Raising and spending money in politics became considerably easier under the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling that gave corporation and unions unfettered access to the political process. The Supreme […]

When first coming into office in 2010, Governor Brown faced budget shortfalls upwards of $20 billion. In just three years, the state “…has reached a point where its underlying expenditures […]

Gov. Brown started of 2012 by saying “I am going directly to the voters because I don’t want to get bogged down in partisan gridlock.” He did, and voters passed […]