California politics

Sunshine on the Sunshine

A Controversy Obscures What’s Really Wrong With California’s Landmark Open Meeting Law

Reporters and gadflies worship the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, except for their complaints that it isn’t stringent enough. Ironically, the mother of all state sunshine laws was drafted not by open government crusaders but by lawyers for the California League of Cities, which now routinely tries to fend off efforts to make the law even more onerous for the 5,000 counties, cities and public agencies that must abide by it or face civil and/or criminal penalties.

The Brown Act is in the news this month, via reports that …

by Rick Cole |

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Wake Up, Election Reformers

Why California’s New Primary System Failed to Draw A Crowd

by Steven Hill |

I like to vote late in the day at my local precinct in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset, a middle-class neighborhood. Those few moments before the polls close give me the …

Is It Time We Started Looking For a Dictator?

Contemplating the Future of Democracy in an Age When Authoritarians Are Kicking Our Rears

Why can’t the United States build a rapid transit system like China’s? Is a firmer hand needed to guide the European Union through the financial crisis? Does California’s direct democracy …

The Sacramento Blight Flight

The Demise of California’s Redevelopment Agencies Could End a War Against Ourselves

by Mark Paul |

The city of Sacramento, my adopted hometown, has always been at war with downtown blight. Do I exaggerate? It will not seem so to most Sacramentans, we who have arrived …

Now Aren’t You Sorry You Fired Us?

Term Limits Seemed Like a Great Remedy For the Old Politicians—Until We Got the New Ones

by Stan Statham |

In 1994, I sought a promotion that I didn’t want.

I had been in the legislature for 18 years, representing counties in the far north of California. I loved serving in …

But Who Gets Hemet?

Splitting California in Two Would Be Great, If It Made Any Sense

“Marriage is hard,” proclaimed New America Foundation Irvine Senior Fellow Joe Mathews. Schwarzenegger and Shriver couldn’t make it; Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries survived just 72 days. But California has …


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