Joe Mathews

Amid all the national debate over immigration, at least one firm consensus has emerged: Newcomers to the United States should learn English because it remains the lingua franca of our civic life. All three remaining presidential contenders say that the ability to speak English should be a requirement of U.S. citizenship. And last year, the immigrant governor of California told a convention of Latino journalists that immigrants should watch only English-language TV so they can understand the language and news… more

One afternoon early in his second year as governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger flew home from Sacramento to Los Angeles with a vexing political problem. He needed to cut $2 billion from the budget he was putting together, and any of his best options for doing it could get him into trouble.

If he raised taxes, he'd anger his fellow Republicans. Break a promise to increase education funding and he'd alienate the top Democratic interest group, the California Teachers Assn. Option 3: Cut… more

KPBS Radio in San Diego | Political Writer Joe Mathews Considers the Body Politic

What's this hand basket we're in and where is it going? That's what people are asking in America today as the war in Iraq wears on and the economy goes down the tubes. But where's that audacity of hope?

I guess we an always be a little bit hopeful in an election year, provided voters actually vote and politicians take some chances. Joe Mathews covered politics… more

Education cuts and reform campaigns can be the drinking and driving of California politics. Each carries certain risks when pursued separately. Combined, they can be deadly.

This is a truth that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has found hard to accept. Three years ago, just as he launched his breakneck drive to win voter approval of budget and political reforms, he decided to withhold part of a mandated increase in education funding from his 2005-06 budget proposal. The delay in Proposition 98 funding… more

Joe Mathews, a fourth-generation Californian, writes about his home state and its politics, media, labor, and real estate. He is the author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy (PublicAffairs, 2006), an account of Governor Schwarzenegger’s first term and his use of ballot measures as… more