California Progress Report

The most trenchant analysis of this month’s primary election results didn’t come from California’s certified media punditry and its blather about angry voters, but from my friend and former colleague Mark Paul of the New America Foundation, who offered a much more disturbing read.

On the morning after the election, he wrote in his blog, the papers were “full of stories telling us what the voters said on Tuesday. To which I have to ask, what voters?

Joe Mathews, who as far as I know isn't an anti-union ideologue, gets at some of these other factors in his response to my Sunday article: Cruickshank's ...

In assessing the pension deals, California political commentator and friend Joe Mathews argues that the deals don't go far enough, and that what's needed is ...

Joe Mathews has a good take on Whitman's victory, but it really does come down to her money. Same for Fiorina. Both dominated the messaging and TV airwaves ...

When a lawmaker brags about his sexual exploits, taxpayers beware:  it might end up costing us millions of tax dollars.

The trouble began last summer, when then-Assemblymember Mike Duvall (R-Yorba Linda) boasted about his extramarital affairs to a colleague – over a live microphone.  In the outcry that followed, Duvall was forced to resign his Orange County seat – setting the stage for a costly election to replace him.  The total cost of this “special” election?  Nearly $2 million.

As Mark Paul of the New America Foundation pointed out in his wise article in the latest issue of the American Interest, those cuts are part of the ...

California, said Steven Hill of the New America Foundation, used to be known as a place of innovation; it was time get back to an innovative California. ...

This week, UC-Berkeley Professor Jacob Hacker put out a new report called "Healthy Competition", sponsored by the Institute for America's Future. He lays out how a public health insurance option could compete fairly with private insurance, ...

This year, California state and local governments will spend close to $10 million on at least three elections we do not need. That makes no sense amidst California’s and our nation’s brutal recession.

Election reform expert Steven Hill of the New America Foundation points out another flaw in the open primary system, stating “In a very liberal district, say an urban area like Los Angeles, the top two candidates in November likely would be two ...