California
California
How Can We Actually Reduce Homelessness in California? – 2024 PRI Sacramento Conference
From PRI’s recent Sacramento policy conference, we present a panel discussion featuring elected officials, innovators, and policy researchers discussing creative approaches to addressing California’s homeless problem. Speakers include Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, who is suing the city of Sacramento over its failure to enforce homeless laws on the ...
Blog
Read latest on SF's growing defecation problem
Scatology 101
It’s hard not to love Larry Baer, the CEO of the San Francisco Giants. He is the team’s public face and cheerleader in chief – a proud San Franciscan with diplomas from Lowell High School and Cal Berkeley that attest to his deep Bay Area roots. And no one ...
California
Reforming Criminal Justice Policy to Put Victims First – 2024 PRI Sacramento Conference
With reform legislation being debated to address rising incidents of retail and auto theft and a ballot measure in circulation to repeal the most sweeping provisions of Prop. 47, we present a panel discussion on California’s growing crime problem from PRI’s recent Sacramento conference. Speakers include retired Brigadier Gen. Bob ...
Blog
Read latest on California's budget crisis
Governor Newsom’s Budget Crisis Is Déjà vu All Over Again
When we last updated you on efforts by Gov. Newsom and legislative Democrats to close the state’s $73 billion budget deficit, Senate Democrats had proposed a $17.1 billion plan to “shrink the shortfall” – of which, just 19.3 percent were actual cuts. Just before the Legislature’s summer recess on March ...
Blog
Read latest on corruption in local government
Corruption, crime, and cover-ups
The March 27 sentencing of Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison for his role in a multi-billion-dollar fraud scheme brings closure to years of high living off the backs of his investors in his online crypto trading platform FTX. Fraudsters like Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, Bernie Madoff, Jeff ...
Blog
CAPITAL IDEAS: Hey, Californians, How Do You Like the Governor’s EV Mandate Now?
A poll taken in the fall of 2022 found that 55% of registered California voters favored the state’s zero-emission vehicle mandate, which outlaws the sale of new fossil fuel-burning cars and light trucks beginning in 2035. Only 39% opposed it. While electric vehicles are being shunned in other states, EV ...
Blog
Read about latest anti-business mandate from Sacramento
In California, You Can Self-Checkout Any Time You Want – For Now
Self-checkout seems to have reached a peak. Some retailers are pulling back on the systems, apparently due to intentional and unintentional thefts, and there are signs that customers have grown weary of scanning their own purchases and waiting in long, slow lines while a single attendant tries to manage the ...
California
Mike Gatto – Noir By Necessity
Our guest this week is former Assemblymember Mike Gatto, who during his tenure, chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee. Mike Gatto was an up-and-coming lawmaker when his father was brutally murdered. To try and solve the mystery of his father’s murder, Mike journeys through the world of crime investigations, modern law ...
Blog
Read latest on efforts to reform or repeal Prop. 47
Proposed Reforms Aim to Ensure Crime Doesn’t Pay on Retail Theft
California is in its tenth year of a noble but failed idea – Prop 47. Despite the well-meaning and overwhelming number of voters who supported Prop 47 when it was passed in 2014 and who have twice resisted ballot initiatives to amend it, Prop 47 has not lived up ...
Blog
Can state lawmakers legislate happiness?
Time to Legislate our Happiness?
Because the Legislature has been so ‘successful’ creating a ‘thriving place’ for Californians to live, why not give them the opportunity to legislate our happiness as well. Thus, another committee has been created named the Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes to, according to Assemblymember Rendon, “consider possible ...
How Can We Actually Reduce Homelessness in California? – 2024 PRI Sacramento Conference
From PRI’s recent Sacramento policy conference, we present a panel discussion featuring elected officials, innovators, and policy researchers discussing creative approaches to addressing California’s homeless problem. Speakers include Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, who is suing the city of Sacramento over its failure to enforce homeless laws on the ...
Read latest on SF's growing defecation problem
Scatology 101
It’s hard not to love Larry Baer, the CEO of the San Francisco Giants. He is the team’s public face and cheerleader in chief – a proud San Franciscan with diplomas from Lowell High School and Cal Berkeley that attest to his deep Bay Area roots. And no one ...
Reforming Criminal Justice Policy to Put Victims First – 2024 PRI Sacramento Conference
With reform legislation being debated to address rising incidents of retail and auto theft and a ballot measure in circulation to repeal the most sweeping provisions of Prop. 47, we present a panel discussion on California’s growing crime problem from PRI’s recent Sacramento conference. Speakers include retired Brigadier Gen. Bob ...
Read latest on California's budget crisis
Governor Newsom’s Budget Crisis Is Déjà vu All Over Again
When we last updated you on efforts by Gov. Newsom and legislative Democrats to close the state’s $73 billion budget deficit, Senate Democrats had proposed a $17.1 billion plan to “shrink the shortfall” – of which, just 19.3 percent were actual cuts. Just before the Legislature’s summer recess on March ...
Read latest on corruption in local government
Corruption, crime, and cover-ups
The March 27 sentencing of Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison for his role in a multi-billion-dollar fraud scheme brings closure to years of high living off the backs of his investors in his online crypto trading platform FTX. Fraudsters like Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, Bernie Madoff, Jeff ...
CAPITAL IDEAS: Hey, Californians, How Do You Like the Governor’s EV Mandate Now?
A poll taken in the fall of 2022 found that 55% of registered California voters favored the state’s zero-emission vehicle mandate, which outlaws the sale of new fossil fuel-burning cars and light trucks beginning in 2035. Only 39% opposed it. While electric vehicles are being shunned in other states, EV ...
Read about latest anti-business mandate from Sacramento
In California, You Can Self-Checkout Any Time You Want – For Now
Self-checkout seems to have reached a peak. Some retailers are pulling back on the systems, apparently due to intentional and unintentional thefts, and there are signs that customers have grown weary of scanning their own purchases and waiting in long, slow lines while a single attendant tries to manage the ...
Mike Gatto – Noir By Necessity
Our guest this week is former Assemblymember Mike Gatto, who during his tenure, chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee. Mike Gatto was an up-and-coming lawmaker when his father was brutally murdered. To try and solve the mystery of his father’s murder, Mike journeys through the world of crime investigations, modern law ...
Read latest on efforts to reform or repeal Prop. 47
Proposed Reforms Aim to Ensure Crime Doesn’t Pay on Retail Theft
California is in its tenth year of a noble but failed idea – Prop 47. Despite the well-meaning and overwhelming number of voters who supported Prop 47 when it was passed in 2014 and who have twice resisted ballot initiatives to amend it, Prop 47 has not lived up ...
Can state lawmakers legislate happiness?
Time to Legislate our Happiness?
Because the Legislature has been so ‘successful’ creating a ‘thriving place’ for Californians to live, why not give them the opportunity to legislate our happiness as well. Thus, another committee has been created named the Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes to, according to Assemblymember Rendon, “consider possible ...
