Will the school bond’s failure serve as a wake-up call to pass a Proposition 13 reform initiative in November?
Six years after Jerry Brown reformed school funding, low-income districts still struggle to draw experienced teachers.
Gavin Newsom now leads the state with the nation’s biggest economy and largest population — and one riven by economic inequality. What will be his most important challenges?
Co-Published by Fast Company
How much influence has a former Jerry Brown staffer-turned-lobbyist had over the governor?
California is one of the richest states in the nation but spends about the same on its students as states like Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana and South Carolina, where the cost of living is far less than in California.
Co-published by Newsweek
So far, Gavin Newsom has only affirmed his support for a ban on hydrofracturing, although activists are hopeful he will be more aggressive on environmental issues than Jerry Brown.
Most experts don’t believe that the governor-elect’s target of creating 3.5 million new units by 2025 is achievable. Still, they are energized by his bold plans.
Co-published by Newsweek
There’s something hinky about the governor’s climate leadership, an inconsistency that environmentalists warn will threaten his legacy.
Flex Learning Options for Workers (FLOW), a new online addition to the 115-school community college system, is set to launch in fall, 2019.
Among other things, the ballot measure could endanger the bullet train, one of Governor Jerry Brown’s favorite projects, by giving Republicans a say over how cap-and-trade money is spent.
Climate-change activists hoping to hear the governor propose a new climate initiative during his State of the State speech Thursday were disappointed.
The political journey between good intentions and the statute book was twisted even by Sacramento standards in 2017. But there was more — much more.
California succeeded in lowering greenhouse gas emissions last year. But a new study finds the state’s ambitious cap-and-trade program may have had nothing to do with it.
Co-published by The American Prospect
The consensus among policy experts remains: Something should be done about California’s money-bail system, which most affects the poor. But the bail-bond industry — and politics — continues to be an obstacle.
Co-published by International Business Times
Immigrant rights groups say arguments against SB 54 prove their point—that the state must limit ICE’s reach because it routinely wreaks havoc in communities by sweeping up residents with U.S. citizen children and other long-standing ties to the United States who haven’t committed crimes.
Some environmental activists worry that proposals floated by Governor Jerry Brown and legislative leaders to extend cap-and-trade, the state’s primary tool in its climate fight, will bar local air districts from regulating carbon dioxide emissions at state-regulated facilities.
Today California legislators returned to their jobs in Sacramento, facing a new year and, for Democrats, a distressing new reality: their first session under the incoming presidency of Donald J. Trump.
Bill Raden reports how Big Oil is trying to scuttle California’s program to reduce greenhouse gases.
The placards stacked outside the Ronald Reagan State Building said it all: “We Did It!” The hundreds of low-income workers who had just carried those signs had come to downtown Los Angeles Monday morning to celebrate “it” – the passage of a $15 an hour state minimum wage. The mood was jubilant, almost delirious, in anticipation of Governor Jerry Brown’s arrival to sign the measure, known as Senate Bill 3.
To be clear: The new wage law does not mean fast-food workers, janitors, in-home caregivers or others are about to jump from earning $10 an hour to $15. Come January 1, 2017, people earning the current minimum wage will move to a $10.50 hourly wage. The following January, it will go up to $11, not reaching $15 until 2022 (2023 for workers employed in companies with 25 or fewer workers). But along the way, workers who previously had to get sick on their own time will be given three paid days off – a big boost for their health and the well-being of both the people they work with and serve.
» Read more about: Sweet 15: Governor Signs $15 an Hour Minimum Wage Bill »
Barring an unexpected reversal of fortune, California is on track to become the first state to officially raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour. News first emerged on March 26 of an agreement with Governor Jerry Brown and leading Democratic legislators to raise the wage from its current $10 hourly mark to $10.50 beginning January 1, 2017, followed by continuous upticks that will result in the wage leveling off at $15 an hour by 2022. (Businesses employing fewer than 26 workers would get an extra year to institute the increases.)
After that the minimum can rise – but not fall – according to inflation. The agreement includes a provision giving workers three days of paid sick leave annually; it also permits California governors to freeze the wage in times of extreme economic downturn.
The movement toward a $15 wage has not followed a straight line,
» Read more about: Historic Minimum Wage Raise on California’s Horizon »