Artist's conception of the bullet train crossing an overpass in Anaheim. (Illustration: California High Speed Rail Authority)It’s a tale of two stations. Bakersfield, California’s ninth-largest city in terms of population with more than 380,000 residents, is trying to decide where to put a bullet-train station. This battle has lasted for years.
California supporters of Bernie Sanders attend a rally. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)CA120: Sanders has been stronger in states like California with “open” primaries — those that allow non-Democrats voters to cast a ballot. California Democrats allow voters not registered with any other political party to vote in their primary. But the question is this: In what numbers will these non-partisans vote? Can Sanders surf this wave of support to a victory in California? The answer, according to our data, is probably not.
Lake Tahoe at sunset. (Photo: Dorothy Mills-GreggDeep in Gov. Brown’s 2016-17 budget was a big surprise for Lake Tahoe – the lake was cut out of its expected share of a $475 million environmental pie.
A powerplant at sunset. (Photo: David Crockett)Last week’s executive order on climate change from Gov. Jerry Brown offers a valuable opportunity to reflect on what Pacific Coast climate leadership is helping us achieve. As someone whose career has spanned both economic and environmental interests, I have a unique vantage point on why reducing carbon emissions is a win-win for both business and the environment.
ProPublica reviewed more than 450 complaint investigations undertaken by the agency between 2009 and 2014 from roughly 50 Level 14 group homes, the residential facilities for California’s most acutely disturbed children. More than half the investigations produced “inconclusive” findings, meaning that no determination of facts was reached in cases that involved sexual abuse, physical assaults, drug use or inadequate care at the facilities.
Calpensions: Employer and employee groups are urging CalPERS to “undertake all efforts” to avoid the “Cadillac Tax,” a 40 percent tax on high-cost health plans imposed in 2018 by President Obama’s health care law, a CalPERS staff report said this month. But it’s far from clear that one of those efforts will be Gov. Brown’s proposal to give state workers the option of a low-cost plan with a high deductible, even though the administration mentions the looming penalty tax as a reason for offering the plan.
State Senate Leader Kevin de León on Feb. 1, 2014, at the Golden Dragon Parade in Los Angeles(Photo: Betto Rodrigues, via Shutterstock)GRIZZLY BEAR PROJECT: After some hard feelings and bruised egos, De León accepted his defeat and ran for the Senate seat that he never really wanted. But in the Senate, de León has matured and grown as a legislator. Early on, he helped ease roadblocks between the Senate and the governor’s office. In the meantime, he reconstructed and expanded his personal relationships, and was elected by his colleagues last year as the new leader of the state Senate.
U.S. Senate election, 2012In little more than a decade, mail-in or “absentee” voting for statewide elections quadrupled, from 4.4 percent in 1978 to 18.4 percent in 1990, reflecting in part legal changes making it easier to vote absentee. Since the 1990s, mail-in ballots have increased exponentially. In the 2008 primary, 58 percent of the voters cast mail-in ballots, the first time in a California statewide election that mail-in ballots represented more than half the vote. In primaries since then, mail-in voting has risen steadily to a remarkable 65 percent in 2012. In the November 2012 general election, mail-in ballots accounted for about 51 percent. (Above: 2012 U.S. Senate election map/Kurykh, Wikimedia))
A political committee has been formed to block a referendum challenging a proposed tribal casino north of Madera planned by the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians.
California’s landmark Environmental Quality Act — the brainchild of Republican lawmakers trying to woo a then-new voting bloc of “environmentalists” — turns 43 this year.
Critics, led by developers and business interests, say CEQA’s requirements are too cumbersome. It subjects all commercial and residential projects – regardless of environmental merit — to costly delays,