Blog
On Juvenile Justice Policy Debates Driven By Untested Dogma, Not Data or Honest Timelines
Two 2026 bills—Assembly Bill 1902 by Asm. Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz) and the failed “Lorenso’s Law” (AB 2040) by Asm. Alexandra Macedo (R-Tulare)—show how lawmakers are grasping for answers. But the most glaring flaws run deeper. The system’s rigid age cutoff means some offenders—many who are adults by the time ...
Blog
Spending Watch
Spending Watch: Despite the Rhetoric, Newsom’s Revised Budget Confirms That California’s Budget Troubles Are Just Getting Started
Despite the Rhetoric, Newsom’s Revised Budget Confirms That California’s Budget Troubles Are Just Getting Started Wayne Winegarden May 2026 With the release of the May Revise, budget negotiations between the Governor, Assembly, and Senate will now kick into high gear. Tax revenues for the current fiscal year are better than ...
Blog
Finding the missing middle: How to build more starter homes
“Affordable housing” has become a commonly used phrase in California because there is so little of it. Activists demand it and policymakers promise they can produce lots if it through their clever legislating. But their plans usually include housing where they want it (near public transit centers), not necessarily where ...
Blog
Higher pay, fewer trips: What Seattle’s gig law got wrong
According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University analyzing Seattle’s law in a National Bureau of Economic Research study, the average base pay per delivery jumped from about $5.37 to $12.52, but tips fell so much that more than one-third of that gain disappeared, and monthly earnings for highly active drivers were ...
Blog
The Gordon Chang Report–China Has Proliferated Nuclear Weapons. What Should America Do?
READ THE PDF China Has Proliferated Nuclear Weapons. What Should America Do? “The entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapons, and a nuclear button is always on my desk,” Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, boasted in January 2018. “This ...
Blog
What Do These 14 California Counties Have In Common?
“The exodus from California is real, troubling, and has become too large to ignore.” That was the message of “California Migrating,” PRI’s report in 2021 on the mass migration of Californians to other states. The trend has not abated since. From 2020 to 2025, California lost nearly 1.7 million more ...
Blog
California Governor Candidate Becerra’s Price Controls Would Backfire on Families
At a recent California gubernatorial debate, former Attorney General Xavier Becerra was asked which specific cost, gas, groceries, utilities, or childcare, would he lower first as governor. He answered: “…one of the things that I will do immediately is I will freeze utility rates, and I will freeze home insurance ...
Blog
Fact-Checking Katie Porter’s Homeless Claim
Porter made her point in response to Republican candidate Steve Hilton’s suggestion that homelessness could be mitigated primarily through drug abuse treatment. Porter, whose campaign has not responded with a request asking for her source, scolded Hilton. “You would learn in my bankruptcy and consumer protection class that the majority ...
Blog
Beyond trailer parks: Modular housing can boost affordability
The nation enjoys a “very high rate of economic activity,” yet “housing construction hasn’t been high.” Inflation’s a major factor — “land is several times more expensive than it’s been in the past,” and costs for “materials have gone way up.” Paradoxically, “we’ve been losing ground in meeting housing needs ...
Blog
BOOK EXCERPT Urban Policy Beyond the Nation’s Big Metros: Smaller-City Case Studies from California, Washington and Michigan
It’s easy to think that urban policy is solely about big cities and their surrounding suburbs, much in the way that one would naturally believe that farm policy is solely about farm regions. A quick perusal of the statistics suggests that America is indeed an urban nation despite its vast ...
On Juvenile Justice Policy Debates Driven By Untested Dogma, Not Data or Honest Timelines
Two 2026 bills—Assembly Bill 1902 by Asm. Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz) and the failed “Lorenso’s Law” (AB 2040) by Asm. Alexandra Macedo (R-Tulare)—show how lawmakers are grasping for answers. But the most glaring flaws run deeper. The system’s rigid age cutoff means some offenders—many who are adults by the time ...
Spending Watch
Spending Watch: Despite the Rhetoric, Newsom’s Revised Budget Confirms That California’s Budget Troubles Are Just Getting Started
Despite the Rhetoric, Newsom’s Revised Budget Confirms That California’s Budget Troubles Are Just Getting Started Wayne Winegarden May 2026 With the release of the May Revise, budget negotiations between the Governor, Assembly, and Senate will now kick into high gear. Tax revenues for the current fiscal year are better than ...
Finding the missing middle: How to build more starter homes
“Affordable housing” has become a commonly used phrase in California because there is so little of it. Activists demand it and policymakers promise they can produce lots if it through their clever legislating. But their plans usually include housing where they want it (near public transit centers), not necessarily where ...
Higher pay, fewer trips: What Seattle’s gig law got wrong
According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University analyzing Seattle’s law in a National Bureau of Economic Research study, the average base pay per delivery jumped from about $5.37 to $12.52, but tips fell so much that more than one-third of that gain disappeared, and monthly earnings for highly active drivers were ...
The Gordon Chang Report–China Has Proliferated Nuclear Weapons. What Should America Do?
READ THE PDF China Has Proliferated Nuclear Weapons. What Should America Do? “The entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapons, and a nuclear button is always on my desk,” Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, boasted in January 2018. “This ...
What Do These 14 California Counties Have In Common?
“The exodus from California is real, troubling, and has become too large to ignore.” That was the message of “California Migrating,” PRI’s report in 2021 on the mass migration of Californians to other states. The trend has not abated since. From 2020 to 2025, California lost nearly 1.7 million more ...
California Governor Candidate Becerra’s Price Controls Would Backfire on Families
At a recent California gubernatorial debate, former Attorney General Xavier Becerra was asked which specific cost, gas, groceries, utilities, or childcare, would he lower first as governor. He answered: “…one of the things that I will do immediately is I will freeze utility rates, and I will freeze home insurance ...
Fact-Checking Katie Porter’s Homeless Claim
Porter made her point in response to Republican candidate Steve Hilton’s suggestion that homelessness could be mitigated primarily through drug abuse treatment. Porter, whose campaign has not responded with a request asking for her source, scolded Hilton. “You would learn in my bankruptcy and consumer protection class that the majority ...
Beyond trailer parks: Modular housing can boost affordability
The nation enjoys a “very high rate of economic activity,” yet “housing construction hasn’t been high.” Inflation’s a major factor — “land is several times more expensive than it’s been in the past,” and costs for “materials have gone way up.” Paradoxically, “we’ve been losing ground in meeting housing needs ...
BOOK EXCERPT Urban Policy Beyond the Nation’s Big Metros: Smaller-City Case Studies from California, Washington and Michigan
It’s easy to think that urban policy is solely about big cities and their surrounding suburbs, much in the way that one would naturally believe that farm policy is solely about farm regions. A quick perusal of the statistics suggests that America is indeed an urban nation despite its vast ...