Irvine Fellows Program

“The message was always 'Come to Southern California and grow,' and everyone wanted to be a part of that,” said Joe Mathews, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a Pasadena native who has attended dozens of parades. ...

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
The two items in this headline would seem to have nothing to do with each other.

But they do.

The logic of the ban on gays in the military – which is to say the illogic of that ban – is the same illogic that has shaped the California budget process.

Before the lifting of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy – before the establishment of that policy – the U.S. military had an outright ban on gays serving in the military. So naturally, there were no gays in the military, right?

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
The media consensus is that Herman Cain’s goose is cooked. The reason? New accusations that he’s a sexual harasser.

This of course makes no sense. Because they have a name in politics for sexual harassers.

Winners.

Here’s a test try to think of a sexually harassing politician who lost because of his behavior (or her) behavior. It’s hard, isn’t?

To Garofalo and other referendum-loving legislators, I'd recommend a sobering 2010 book: "California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It." Authors Joe Mathews and Mark Paul make a strong case that there's such a thing as ...

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
Who needs Halloween for a good fright when so many California ballot initiatives are posted on the Secretary of State’s website?

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)

The most-talked-about name in California governance hadn’t granted an interview. But a tipster in a small local hospital in California’s interior called, with directions to a little-known private wing.

The name on the hospital room door said, “Serrano Priest.” I opened it. “Mr. Priest?” I asked.

“Ah, hell. You found me,” came the reply from the mangled body that lay on the hospital. “I register under that name when I don’t want calls. It’s me – Realignment.”

He reluctantly agreed to an interview.

(originally published at Zocalo Public Square)
Richard Price, chief of the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District, was having lunch at a deli when he heard an emergency vehicle approach the restaurant. The emergency crew parked in the deli’s lot, and went to a business next door where there had been a report of a heart attack.

... Joe Matthews, Irvine Senior Fellow and associate editor of Zocalo Public Square: Panel on Nov. 1 at Fresno Art Museum will answer the question -- is California too big? ...

Original article

... It was written by a pair of journalists and nonpartisan think-tank scholars, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul, and they explain, among other things, why Arnold Schwarze­neg­ger’s experience as governor was going to be unlike any other experience in his career: he was never going to win. ...

Original article

Journalist Joe Mathews, who analyzed the initiative process in his book “California Crackup,” said Johnson would be pleased with his handiwork. Mathews, though, said the initiative system also has complicated California government, in part because it ...