We’ve all seen children, often very young children, hunched over from heavy book backpacks, shuffling along sidewalks just an hour or two after sunrise on their...
California is the global capital of technological innovation, but state officials are much more adept at devising catchy names for their big “information technology” projects than...
California has poured tens of billions of additional dollars into its public schools this decade on the assumption – or hope – that they would close...
A change in the governor’s office and expanded Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature have emboldened long-frustrated advocates of increasing taxes to expand health, welfare and education...
In the jargon of the Capitol, “trailer bills” are measures that accompany the annual state budget – in theory making the changes of law necessary to...
Ambitious politicians like to dazzle us with what Hollywood screenwriters call “high concept” pitches that reduce complex ideas to a few succinct words. Gavin Newsom is...
Two years ago, in a rare display of support for transparency in government finance, the Legislature and then-Gov. Jerry Brown required local governments and school districts...
Two years ago, the state board that oversees California’s 114 community colleges and its new chancellor, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, launched an ambitious effort to improve student...
For two decades, the California Chamber of Commerce’s annual descriptions of certain legislative bills as “job killers” have framed the Capitol’s sharpest economic conflicts. The chamber,...
Lorena Gonzalez finds herself in an unusual political position this year — and clearly relishes it. Gonzalez, a Democratic assemblywoman from San Diego, is best known...
