California lawmakers have pitched dozens of bold, high-profile solutions to California’s affordable housing shortage: billion dollar affordable-housing bonds, revamping the state’s signature environmental protection law, suing NIMBY-inclined cities into permitting more development. But for all the big-picture housing legislation that has actually become law over the past few years, the...
‘Federal Government Really Jacked Us’: How Trump’s Tax Cuts Are Working out for Californians
For communications professor Jason Jarvis and his wife, Jun, California just got more expensive. The Inglewood couple, who last year paid $16,000 in state and local taxes, were only able to deduct $10,000 of it from their federal taxes this year. The federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—signed last year...
Charter-Mageddon: Lawmakers Advance a Raft of Union-Backed Charter School Curbs
As charter school advocates rallied en masse and California’s teachers’ unions flexed their political muscle, a cluster of bills that would dramatically curb the growth of charters in the state cleared the Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday. The votes were the first in what figures to be a lengthy, high-stakes...
Factions Take Shape as California Advances Nationally Watched Police Shooting Bill
Even as a landmark California bill meant to prevent police shootings passed its first committee Tuesday, the fault lines among Democrats began to emerge, suggesting the measure will likely change as it moves through the Legislature. How much, though, was not yet clear. After emotional, standing-room-only testimony from Californians whose...
California’s Worsening Wildfires, Explained
If it seems that wildfires are burning nearly all the time these days, that there’s no longer a definable fire season in California, you’re right. Fourteen of the 20 most destructive fires in state history have occurred since 2007, and California has 78 more annual “fire days” now than it had...
Beyond the Tampon Tax: How Far Will California Go to End 'Menstrual Inequity'?
Annie Wang remembers the panic she felt being a freshman in a 500-person chemistry class at UC Davis when her period arrived and she didn’t have a tampon or pad. There was nowhere nearby to go, and leaving to find something meant missing the class. So she tried to focus...
Kamala Harris Backs Idea to Unionize Child Care Workers
Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris was just about to take the stage Monday night at Sacramento’s Sheraton Grand Hotel ballroom when she spotted and ran over to a group of women sporting yellow t-shirts sitting on the right side of the auditorium. They were California child-care workers hoping to win collective...
Private Colleges Wary as Cal Legislator Calls for Crackdown on Legacy Admits
The nationwide scandal involving bribery in college admissions has also illuminated all the legal ways wealthy families can game the system. Now the debate over how to respond has hit the California Legislature, and struck a nerve not just with the state's public higher education system but also with private...
The #RealCollege Guru Offers Three Ways to Fix California’s Student Financial Aid
If the plight of hungry and homeless college students has lately caught the national media’s attention, it’s in no small part due to the efforts of Temple University professor Sara Goldrick-Rab. Goldrick-Rab, who describes herself as a “scholar activist,” has been trying to get policymakers to address the cost of college for...
Fewer California Youths Are Getting Arrested, but Consequences Are More Serious
It’s hard to believe how fast crime by youths has plunged. In 2007, 237,000 Californians under age 18 were arrested for criminal offenses. In 2017, just 56,000, a decline of 76 percent over the decade. Yet within that sunny trend, a troubling one has emerged: In 2007, just 43 percent of arrested...