Posts Tagged: policy

More California voters are becoming critical of the job Barack Obama is doing as President. The latest Field Poll finds that while 51% of California voters approve of the President’s overall performance, a growing proportion (43%) disapprove. This represents an increase of 8 percentage points in the proportion disapproving since July. While the growth in the number of Californians disapproving spans most demographic subgroups, some of the greatest increases have occurred among voter segments who have been among the President’s strongest supporters.

In 2013, the Legislature and the Governor agreed to a restrained state budget for 2013–14, and our forecast of state tax revenue collections has increased since last year. Accordingly, we now find that California’s state budget situation is even more promising than we projected one year ago.

A superior court judge overturned a freeze on retiree health care for Los Angeles city attorneys this month, citing some of the same case law that made public pensions a vested right that can only be cut if offset by a new benefit.

Recent warnings about the dangers of overreliance on petroleum have come from an unlikely cast of characters, including former presidential candidate Ron Paul, business magnate T. Boone Pickensand even a Saudi prince (who warned against his nation’s over dependence on oil exports). If Californians want to disentangle our economy from oil and from the world events that can impact oil prices while cutting our greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020—a goal given the force of law by AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act—we need to consider the surprising connections that drive our state’s dependence on petroleum.

Lowering the vote threshold for passage of local school parcel taxes would likely allow far more to pass. But there is no evidence that it would expand their use beyond the sort of wealthy Bay Area school districts that already have them. These are the key findings of a report released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). The report assesses the potential effect of reducing the vote required to pass these taxes from two-thirds to 55 percent—a proposal the state legislature has been discussing. Although a parcel tax is one of the only local revenue options available to school districts, these taxes are not widespread. Only about 10 percent of districts have passed one, and the money raised amounts to less than 1 percent of total K–12 revenue.

The Affordable Care Act not only drastically changes how health care is delivered but sharply alters the underpinnings of California’s economy. To get a deeper sense of health care reform’s impact on the Golden State, Capitol Weekly talked to Micah Weinberg, PhD, a senior policy advisor at the Bay Area Council and CEO of Healthy Systems Project, a health care consulting firm based in Sacramento.

Under the law, minors are treated differently than adults.

Capitol Alert: FPPC fines Kinney, Areias, Hickox for covert lobbying

“Three well-connected partners in the prominent California Strategies public affairs firm have agreed to pay fines to California’s political watchdog agency for trying to influence state government decisions without registering as lobbyists.”

“Jason Kinney, Rusty Areias and Winston Hickox violated state law when they “crossed over the line which

California’s pioneering Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) requires fuel producers such as oil firms and refiners to gradually reduce the average “carbon intensity” of the state’s transportation fuel mix, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions that increase the risks from climate change. The LCFS will provide credits to make electric vehicles even more affordable. Despite a fierce campaign by the fossil fuel industry to delay it, the clean fuel standard is already helping California transition to clean, non-petroleum transportation fuels, while attracting new investment and creating new jobs.

By Elinor Benami, Jeff Deason and Julia Zuckerman

California policymakers are currently considering how to allocate Proposition 39 funds — an estimated $2.75 billion over five years. Proposition 39, as passed by voters in November, requires that half of the first five years of revenue generated from closing a business tax loophole goes toward