California has a recidivism problem. Two-thirds of people incarcerated in the state will return to prison within three years, either through new offenses or parole violations, according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation data. In Norway, by contrast, recidivism is down from 60%-70% in the 1980s to about...
State Bans Farmers, Cities From Pumping River Water in San Joaquin Valley, Bay Area
In sweeping water curtailments stretching from Fresno to the Oregon state line, cities and growers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed have been ordered to stop pumping from rivers and streams. The cutbacks, announced today by the State Water Resources Control Board, will affect about 4,500 water rights...
Assembly Speaker Rendon Fends off Rivas to Keep His Crown
After a weekend of lobbying, jockeying, and speculating, then a flurry of parliamentary maneuvers and a six-hour closed-door caucus meeting on Tuesday, California Assembly Democrats finally came to a decision about who ought to serve as speaker. The answer: The current speaker, Anthony Rendon. The announcement came not with...
Will Robert Rivas of Salinas Force Out Anthony Rendon as Assembly Speaker?
Et tu, Rivas? Late Friday, just as legislators — and everyone else in the state — were preparing to check out for the long holiday weekend, an earthquake rocked the California political world: Assemblymember Robert Rivas, a Salinas Democrat, announced that he had “secured enough votes” to become the...
Incentives Build More Affordable Homes Than Inclusionary Zoning: Opinion
California lacks an estimated 1.2 million units of housing affordable for those with lower incomes. One important approach to meeting this need is to induce developers to include affordable units in market-rate multifamily housing developments. Policies concerned with this outcome are commonly called “inclusionary zoning.” Such policies take two...
CA Budget Must Include Funding to Boost Homeownership: Opinion
There are growing calls to promote equity for those working Californians who, as a result of this state and nation’s history of discrimination, have higher levels of economic and housing insecurity and limited, if any, intergenerational wealth. California Realtors, Habitat for Humanity, and the California Building Industry Association —...
With Roe in Limbo, California Vows to Protect Abortion Rights
“California will not sit back. We are going to fight like hell.” That was Gov. Gavin Newsom’s initial response to Politico’s explosive Monday night publication of a draft U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion that suggests justices are poised to strike down Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that guaranteed the federal constitutional right to...
Californians Should Look to California for Their Oil
In the nearly two months since Russia invaded Ukraine, the images of wartime devastation continue to haunt us. Vladimir Putin’s war crimes have disrupted the world’s economy, driving up energy costs and affecting every Californian. To bring relief from high gas prices and reduce California’s reliance on foreign oil,...
Get the Facts Ahead of June Primary With Nonpartisan California Voter Guide
We get it, California voters. You’ve been busy lately. Just two years ago, you and 17.7 million of your civically-minded neighbors helped decide who ought to become the next president, who should sit in the Legislature and congressional delegation and how the state should handle issues such as property taxes,...
Will Sacramento Mass Shooting Influence Attorney General’s Race?
A suspect in connection with the shooting deaths of six people in downtown Sacramento was released from prison less than halfway through his 10-year sentence because of credits earned behind bars, handing Assembly Republicans an opportunity to decry the state’s recent wave of criminal justice reforms. “The violence we...