Led by medical insurers, opponents of two November ballot initiatives aimed at regulating insurance rates, raising the limits on pain-and-suffering awards and requiring doctors to be drug tested have raised nearly $92 million from their largest donors, according to figures compiled by the state’s political watchdog.
A male patient uses a walker frame. Photo: Bikeriderlondon, via ShutterstockIt’s on the ballot but off the public’s radar, and months before Election Day the campaign cash already is piling up — $44 million and counting — for what is certain to be a massive TV blitz in the fall between doctors, lawyers and insurers.
State Capitol, Sacramento. (Photo: Franco Folini)State lawmakers and voters agreed on one thing: transparency in government. Local government, that is. State government remains exempt. Did voters know that when they approved Proposition 42 on June 3?
Election 2014: Gov. Brown on Wednesday signed into law new disclosure rules for nonprofits, a move prompted by the 11th-hour flood of stealth cash that roiled the November 2012 elections. The bill takes effect in July – after this year’s primary elections but in time for the general election.
Earlier this year Governor Brown, referring to how California voters had supported his Proposition 30, said, “We just got a nice tax, I think we ought to take a deep breath and show how we are spending it in a wise way before we start looking for more money.” Virtually every Californian would agree with the
For a while, at least, it appeared that state government was pitching a perfect game.
Proposition 39, a ballot initiative to change corporate state income tax policy by closing a $1 billion loophole approved years before during the Schwarzenegger administration, won 61 percent of the vote, despite the dim odds confronting any measure that
Gov. Brown said his plan to take $500 million from California’s cap-and-trade auction funds — money that was intended to directly further efforts to fight greenhouse gas emissions — is a “reasonable accommodation” aided in part by voters’ approval last year of a measure to raise corporate taxes.
“We had Proposition 39 funding for
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
A record $16 billion in income tax revenue will flow into state coffers during April, according to predictions in Gov. Jerry Brown’s January budget plan.
About $5 billion of that $16 billion comes from higher taxes approved by voters in November through Proposition 30 — $4.5 billion in taxes owed for 2012 and $500
For Republicans nurtured on a diet of tax cuts, a nightmare is coming to pass: The most immediate impact of Democratic supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature is to put Proposition 13 on a hit list.
But not directly.
There is no single plan — yet — to toss out or rewrite