Image by zimmytwsIt is shaping up to be a very tough budget year in Sacramento, with the Legislative Analyst’s Office predicting the Golden State could be facing a $68 billion budget shortfall. With that in mind, we posed the following question to our panel of experts and let them expound.
Sailing card for the clipper ship California, depicting scenes from the California gold rush.CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: A new survey from the Public Policy Institute of California finds that many Californians no longer believe the American Dream holds true, or believe that the dream is harder to achieve in California than in other states. We’re joined by Dean Bonner, associate survey director and research fellow at PPIC, to talk about the results of the survey, how they compare to earlier iterations, and about the survey process itself.
Emily and Robbie with UCD's Diana Farmer. Photo courtesy of UCDThe California stem cell agency had a $9 million moment last week that involved a “stem cell fairy godmother,” two English bulldogs named Darla and Spanky, four lambs and a baby from Texas named Robbie. While it took the agency only moments to hand out the $9 million, it took the fairy godmother more than 25 years to make it happen.
First Lady Rosalynn Carter, photo courtesy of APTributes to First Lady Rosalynn Carter invariably cite her lifelong commitment to improving care for people with severe mental illness. As she stumped for her husband during the closing days of the 1976 presidential campaign, she brought that advocacy to the unlikely locale of Bakersfield.
Image by Netfalls Remy MusserConfusion and complexity are features, not bugs, of the bizarre subculture of California cardrooms and their related entities, third-party proposition players (TPPPs), which tie cardrooms together into sprawling networks of interwoven gaming businesses that seem to work in concert with one another. But while the TPPP system is perfectly legal, some question where it is ethical.
Image by CassiohabibIn general, state legislative history is elusive and California, like many other states, is no exception to this rule. For those who need to research the legislative history of a bill that was enacted into law in the State of California, there are a number of options to use.
First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, photo courtesy of Associated PressCalifornia is one of eight states with a salary range transparency law, but critics contend some employers are violating the spirit of the law by posting artificially wide salary ranges. But the private sector isn’t alone – the California Legislature is also guilty of posting extraordinarily wide ranges across numerous positions.
The Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research building at University of California Irvine, a CIRM major facility. Photo courtesy of CIRMCalifornia’s $12 billion stem cell and gene therapy program could be treading water for the next 12 months in the view of at least one of its leaders as it searches for a new president of the 19-year-old enterprise. Past presidential searches have been burdened by a legal, dual executive arrangement that has been described by a former board member as a “dog’s breakfast.”
CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: In the year or so since billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter (now X), the platform has changed: As a tool for reporters, X is a shadow of what Twitter once was. Lara Korte of Politico joined us to talk about the decline of the platform, how it came to be such an essential part of newsgathering and how and where to stay up-to-date on political news in the wake of X’s dysfunction.
Capitol Weekly's Conference on Education. Keynote by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. Photo by Scott Duncan, Capitol WeeklyCAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond made headlines in July when he was kicked out of a Chino Valley School Board meeting for speaking out against policies he said would hurt LGBTQ+ students. He tells us why he went, and about the challenges facing teachers and California schools today.