PRI Perspective
It is hard to justify funneling an ever-growing amount of taxpayer dollars into a school construction process that is dysfunctional, wasteful and, in many cases, broken.

In January, PRI released No Place to Learn: California’s School Facilities Crisis by editorial director Lloyd Billingsley. Among the report’s shocking findings: it takes six years or more to build a school, union wage requirements add on average 10 to 25 percent to the cost of a school, and there are 63 steps and 82 documents required to build a school.

Governor Schwarzenegger says that he wants not only to reform the way government does business, but, in his words, to blow up the boxes. He and other state officials can begin by overhauling the way California builds its public schools. Among the recommendations contained in the PRI study: reforming the Field Act that governs school construction, reforming the financing of school construction, and expanding the practice of developer-built schools.

PRI Impact
• On January 18, PRI released its investigative report on school construction, No Place to Learn: California’s School Facilities Crisis by Lloyd Billingsley.

• On January 19, the Los Angeles Times quoted Lloyd in its article “Schools or Pencils: A Fund Disconnect.”

• Other impact on education policy included Lance Izumi’s meeting with the deputy director of the California Department of Finance to discuss universal pre-school and his meeting with Assemblywoman Bates’s chief of staff to discuss charter schools and value-added testing. Lance was also published in Californiarepublic.org and quoted in the Oakland Tribune.

BUSINESS & ECONOMIC STUDIES KEY ISSUES: INSTITUTE FOR LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT

Policy Briefing
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger used newly granted budget-revision authority on December 18 to make unilateral mid-year spending cuts of $150 million. Included in his reductions was a $2 million cut for the University of California’s Institute for Labor and Employment (ILE), a pro-union advocacy/research group. This decision effectively eliminated the ILE’s remaining fiscal 2003-04 funding.

Since July 2000, this little-known yet influential group, based at UCLA and UC Berkeley, has received $19 million from state taxpayers directly from the state budget. Under the guise of an independent/objective research organization, the ILE has been a driving force behind union legislative victories on paid family leave, changes in overtime rules, and a living-wage law, to name a few. In reality, it put forward the political agenda of unions and its Sacramento allies.

On January 9, the governor eliminated all future taxpayer support for the ILE, striking it from his proposed fiscal 2004-05 budget. Not surprisingly, this prompted a backlash from the ILE’s supporters.

PRI Perspective
California taxpayers should not be forced to bankroll ILE’s union propaganda by indirectly paying this advocacy group through state tax appropriations. As is true with any non-profit research organization, the ILE has the right, in a free society, to promulgate its anti-capitalism views and to fund research that impedes the right of employers and employees to freely negotiate compensation. But unions collect roughly $880 million in dues each year in California. Surely they can spare $4 million to support the ILE on their own and unburden state taxpayers.

PRI Impact
• Nearly five months before the governor’s decision, PRI’s Lawrence McQuillan and Andrew Gloger called for the elimination of taxpayer funding for the ILE in their Orange County Register op-ed “A Tax-Funded Union Lobby” (August 8, 2003). The op-ed was developed as part of PRI’s quarterly California Golden Fleece Awards.

• Since then, McQuillan and Gloger have led the fight to eliminate taxpayer funding and have repeatedly defended the governor’s decision, with op-eds and interviews in the Sacramento Bee, The Nation, and NPR Radio’s “California Report.”

TECHNOLOGY STUDIES KEY ISSUE: PRIVACY

Policy Briefing
The idea of centralizing data to find patterns and links among people is no longer limited to governments or corporations. Individuals are now getting into the game with "social networking" web sites, the hottest thing in Silicon Valley. These sites are aggregating information, provided by individuals themselves, which could prove almost as useful as a Total Information Awareness (TIA) program to government snoops.

PRI Perspective
After public uproar about the possibility of a government-created central database containing loads of information on innocent people, Congress cancelled funding for TIA. Undeterred, law enforcement is now working with the private sector to gather data. With the existence of government, corporate, and now individual-created databases, the answer to the future of privacy is fairly clear – there will be less of it. But as social networking sites like Friendster and Tribe.net show, less privacy is a choice of many, indicating a more relevant question: how data centers affect our liberties.

It's not the exposure of information that matters as much as who is using it and how. Government is different from corporate and personal contacts in that it has a monopoly on force, so it must be carefully monitored or restricted. The way to secure liberty is through limits put on government by a free people who pay attention and continue to be outraged at schemes like the TIA and other plans to monitor Americans.

PRI Impact
• January 7, Sonia Arrison’s column “Is Friendster the New TIA?” ran on TechCentralStation.com.

• In January, Sonia's social networking and privacy column was discussed on Om Malik's blog, Corante, susanmernit's blogspot, and the instapundit blog. The Markle Foundation also linked to this column.

• January 30, Sonia attended a dinner discussion with Chris Israel, Deputy Chief of Staff for the Commerce Department (technology).

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