Much is expected of the California voter. In any given election year, we may be asked to dust off our labor lawyer hats, brush up on oil and gas regulations, reacquaint ourselves with decades of tax policy, or analyze infrastructure funding. We may have to weigh the moral pros and cons of capital punishment, marriage equality or pig protection and — over and over again — oversee all things dialysis clinic. This November, […]
Ben Christopher
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New State Laws Aimed to Streamline Home Building Take Effect in 2024
If California wants to build its way out of its long-term housing shortage, plenty of things stand in its way in 2024: high-interest rates, sluggish local approval processes and a persistent shortage of skilled construction workers, among others. But a slew of housing bills from the 2023 legislative session going into effect on Jan. 1 promise to […]
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Carrots, Sticks and Jabs
Beginning April 1, all Californians 50 and older became eligible to get their coveted COVID-19 vaccine — including one politically imperiled 53-year-old governor. Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated this latest benchmark by getting a well-publicized jab himself, thus marking the beginning of the end of what has been a particularly thorny political challenge for the administration: How to […]
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Cash Blitz: A Look at Who’s Spending to Influence Your Vote for California’s Legislature
State law caps the amount donors can give to a legislator’s campaign — but these special interests can spend as much as they like mounting their own campaigns to praise or trash candidates. And the money interest groups are pouring into these “independent expenditure committees” has reached dizzying heights. So far more than $31 million […]
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‘The Biggest Challenge’
How do you hold an election during a global pandemic? Without knowing it, California voters have been practicing for years. Since the 1920s — and before that, with a brief foray during the Civil War — a growing share of the statewide electorate has been voting remotely. Now that the coronavirus pandemic has turned public […]
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Churches, Gun Shops and Irate Brides: Explaining All the Shutdown Lawsuits Against Newsom
Alongside the beach-goers denied, the indignant gun shop owners and the house-bound pastors, Gov. Gavin Newsom now has yet another ticked off challenger to face in court: an extremely disappointed bride-to-be. In the latest filing to challenge the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, Monica Six, an Orange County resident, is suing California’s Democratic governor […]
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How California Got Tough on Guns
The modern American gun debate began on May 2, 1967, when 30 protesting members of the Black Panther Party marched into the California Capitol with loaded handguns, shotguns and rifles. As photos of gun-toting radicals from Oakland hit front pages across the country, many Americans were shocked to see who was embracing the Second Amendment. […]
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John Cox and Gavin Newsom Debate, Disagree on … Pretty Much Everything
The two men competing to be the next governor of California met for their first (and, alas, probably only) one-on-one stand-off today. If you didn’t see it, that’s because the showdown—which was structured more as a spirited conversation than your standard dueling podiums-style debate—was on the radio, hosted by political reporter Scott Shafer, out of […]