Pacific Research Institute | California Studies

CAPITAL IDEAS: Don’t Confuse Private Prisons with The Bastille

April 18, 2019

California

Download the PDF They are not as unpopular in California as President Trump is, but private prisons are becoming a preferred target of politicians. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has a large blue-plate special of problems to solve, is at the forefront of a campaign to end the...

CAPITAL IDEAS: California’s Plastic Police Always on The Job

March 25, 2019

California

DOWNLOAD THE PDF It was inevitable. California lawmakers’ assault on choice continues in 2019. The plastic-bag ban already in effect is not enough to satisfy their appetite for micromanaging others’ lives. After successfully outlawing single-use plastic bags in grocery stores and other large retailers, with the help...

CAPITAL IDEAS: CEQA: How To Mend It Since You Can’t End It

February 20, 2019

California

It is no coincidence that California’s housing prices began to diverge from the rest of the country in 1970 – the very year that the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) was enacted. According to California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst, “Between 1970 and 1980, California home prices went...

CAPITAL IDEAS: California’s Recent History of Manipulative Taxation

January 16, 2019

California

Download the PDF The rest of the country wasn’t surprised when California recently considered becoming the first state in the country to tax text messages. It almost seems as if there is a group of unelected bureaucrats that does nothing but cloister itself behind closed doors...