Posts Tagged: 2018
News
As the world faces a declining bee population, California almond growers say they are doing their best to promote bee health. Over the last few weeks, bee keepers from all over the U.S. were in the Central Valley releasing bees to pollinate the almond crops. Almond growers use about 75 percent of the commercial beehives in the country to pollinate their crops.
News
There are plenty of things to look at now that California counties have updated their voter files with the 2018 general election vote history. This is our first chance to see what really happened, as opposed to what people thought had happened based on the outcomes.
Opinion
OPINION: The start of the new year also brings a new governor and a new Legislature, which provides opportunity for Californians to set new goals and expectations of our elected leaders in Sacramento. Small business owners, especially, have much at stake in the halls of the state Capitol, with many new opportunities and challenges ahead in 2019.
News
California labor confronted major challenges last year but responded with frenetic organizing and a newfound aggressiveness—momentum unions hope to maintain in 2019. As 2018 opened, California had 2.49 million union members, roughly 15.5 percent of the state’s official working population
Analysis
ANALYSIS: The 2018 election should have been a breeze for California Republicans. But three simultaneous forces, all moving toward Democrats, blew those prospects away. While one might think things can only get better for the GOP, there are some serious short- and mid-term obstacles to their recovery.
News
A Capitol Weekly survey of California’s early vote-by-mail balloting shows Democrats Gavin Newsom and Dianne Feinstein ahead by double-digit margins in their races for governor and U.S. Senate, respectively. Regarding three of California’s most controversial ballot propositions, the most closely divided was Proposition 6, which would repeal the state’s newly imposed fuel tax: 42 percent opposed the repeal, 38 percent favored it.
News
Moves to make voting easier in California have caused yet another divide between Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans say they are worried because the door to voter fraud might swing wide open. Democrats say California needs greater civic participation by groups who have historically shown lackluster voting turnouts, and automatic vote-by-mail and electronic registration will help.
Recent News
Earlier this year, the state established a new system that could fundamentally change the relationship between Californians and their voter registration. In a series of changes—most notably the way that voter sign-ups are done at the Department of Motor Vehicles—California has entered an era of nearly automatic voter registration.
Big Daddy
FEATURE: With Sacramento hunkered down for Jerry Brown’s final bill signing, the political mind drifts to Washington where it is always the Season of the Witch. The politics of the time casts its pall across all three branches, with partisan control over the levers of government hanging in the balance.
Analysis
Nine races in November could determine which party controls the House for the next decade—and the map looks good for Democrats. This fall, Democrats face a bad map in the Senate and are in a tough battle to take back the House. But the party is on offense in nine crucial contests around the country that could determine control of Congress for the next decade.
Bee hives for pollination in an almond orchard in California's Central Valley. (Photo: Richard Thornton, via Shutterstock)
