Six years ago, as California strained to emerge from the Great Recession, Gov. Jerry Brown worked a minor political miracle — a rebalancing of the massive state pension systems for public employees. Shuttling between unions and the strapped governments on the hook for public sector benefits and paychecks, Brown scaled...
Storm Brings Record Rainfall, Snow to Southern California
LOS ANGELES — Crews were busy Friday assessing damage and cleaning up after a storm that brought record rainfall to Los Angeles, snowfall to northern elevations, snarled traffic and forced evacuations as debris flows hit areas burned by wildfires. Evacuation orders were either lifted or downgraded Thursday night and Friday...
My Turn: We Must Build Strong Children
Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom has made early childhood development one of his signature issues. We at First 5 Los Angeles and First 5 organizations across California stand ready to help him turn that pledge into reality. The new governor’s goal of prioritizing funding for “cradle-to-career” programs gives me hope that in ...
California First State to Mandate Solar Power for New Homes
LOS ANGELES — California became the first state in the nation to require homes built in 2020 and later be solar powered, following a vote by the Building Standards Commission. The unanimous action on Wednesday finalizes a previous vote by the Energy Commission and fulfills a decade-old goal to make...
Commentary: New Water Deal Isn't a Political Certainty
Water supply is clearly the most important long-term issue affecting California’s future. It’s also the most politically complicated. Incremental changes in California water policy typically take years, if not decades, to work their way through seemingly infinite legal, regulatory and political processes at federal, state and local levels – and...
Residents of California Town Leveled by Fire Can Go Home
PARADISE — Some residents of a Northern California town devastated by a deadly wildfire will be allowed to return home Wednesday, nearly a month after the blaze swept through the parched Sierra Nevada foothills, authorities said. Evacuation orders were being lifted for all neighborhoods in the eastern side of the...
Want To Fix The U.S. Government? Abolish The Senate, says John Dingell
Abolish the Senate and publicly fund elections. Those are two of several suggestions John Dingell provided in his article in The Atlantic on how to fix the U.S. government. Why does it need fixing? Dingell cites the decline in the percentage of Americans who trust the federal government as the...
Deported Nurse Wins Approval to Return to US
SAN FRANCISCO — A nurse who was deported to Mexico has won her improbable fight to return to her four children and job in California after winning a ticket in a visa lottery. Maria Mendoza-Sanchez told the San Francisco Chronicle she learned Friday her visa had been approved by U.S. Citizenship and...
What Happens if PG&E Goes Bankrupt?
Investigators are massing. Lawsuits are mounting. The death toll in Butte County's historic Camp Fire stands at 88, so far. Another year, another megafire, another calamity in which faulty Pacific Gas and Electric equipment is a prime suspect. And once again, Californians face a familiar question: What’s going to happen...
How Much Did Interest Groups Pay per Vote? The Answer, as We Break Down the Midterms With Data.
Ballot propositions are an expensive business in California. In the lead-up to November’s election, advocates spent an eye-popping $409 million for or against 11 ballot measures. Among these were a mix of earnest policy initiatives of broad public interests (say, making daylight saving time permanent) and narrow proposals that sought to...