What the Chesa Boudin Recall Means for America
Journalist Nancy Rommelmann reports from San Francisco on the ouster of a leading progressive district attorney.
California
Delusion on San Francisco Crime Will Get You Recalled
Prosecutorial reform is one thing. Chesa Boudin’s incompetence is another.
San Francisco Recalls Progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin
Mayor London Breed, who has herself recently pivoted away from criminal justice reforms, will select Boudin's successor.
Bad Candidates Threaten Criminal Justice Reform in California
In Los Angeles and San Francisco, voters face candidates who promised criminal justice reforms but whose records have been disappointing.
The American Rescue Plan Bailed Out Unprofitable Government-Owned Golf Courses
Perhaps the government shouldn't be running golf courses in the first place?
Government Employees Got $872 Million in Bonuses Out of COVID Aid Cash
The federal bailout of state and local governments padded the paychecks of many public employees.
California Considers Mandating Even More Sexual Harassment Training for College Students
The new law would require all state community college students to attend annual sexual harassment training.
California Court Rules That Bees Are Fish
Insects aren't a category protected by the California Endangered Species Act. So state officials classified four bumblebee species as fish to get them listed.
County Where It Took 50 Years To Approve New Subdivision Bans New Airbnbs
Officials in Marin County, California, argue a temporary moratorium on new short-term rentals in western portions of the county is necessary to preserve the area's limited housing stock.
California's Water Bureaucrats Are Making a Bad Drought Worse
Fifty percent of the state's water flows to the Pacific Ocean. Another 40 percent is used for agriculture. But it's average residents who are being forced to cut back.
Gov. Newsom Proposes Eliminating One of California's Many Marijuana Taxes
The cultivation tax has driven up the cost of growing cannabis, fueling illegal operations and the state’s enormous black market.
Inflation Triggers Mandatory Minimum Wage Increases in California
The state’s unemployment rate is well above average, yet there’s a ballot initiative hoping to push the minimum wage to $18 an hour.
Sheriff Agrees To Stop Stealing Cannabis Cash From Armored Cars, Saying His Deputies 'Are Not Highway Robbers'
The settlement came after the Justice Department agreed to return more than $1 million in proceeds from state-licensed marijuana businesses in California.
California Is Forcing Smokers To Buy More Dangerous Products
Banning less harmful tobacco alternatives is not a way to improve public health.
A New Report Explains How California Screwed Up Marijuana Legalization
Heavy regulation, high taxes, and local bans combined to cripple the legal cannabis industry, which accounts for just a third of the state's pot market.
Stop Using Legislation To Virtue Signal
Both Republicans and Democrats are abusing states' police powers to achieve performative political goals. They should stop.
City Council Furious at Cop Who Played Disney Songs To Keep from Being Recorded
There is some confusion over what the response should be, but there is broad agreement that the officer acted inappropriately.
California's New Food Waste Law Is Backfiring
Compliance is proving to be expensive and confusing.
California Cities Are Rethinking Their Marijuana Business Bans
Nearly two dozen towns that had said no to legal weed shops are reconsidering.
He Faces 10 Years to Life for Selling Pot, a Legal Business in Most States
Jonathan Wall, whose federal trial begins on May 2, notes that many people openly engage in similar conduct with impunity.
People Are Fleeing California Cities, Despite Pols' Push for 'Urbanism'
San Francisco lost a whopping 6.7 percent of its population during the COVID-19 pandemic, the second-largest percentage drop after New York.
The Feds Will Return More Than $1 Million in Marijuana Money That California Cops Stole From Armored Cars
Empyreal Logistics agreed to drop its claims against the Justice Department, but it is still suing San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus.
Police Play Disney Songs To Keep Citizen Recordings Off YouTube
A Santa Ana police officer is the latest official to use YouTube's copyright infringement algorithm as a means to evade accountability.
Two California Lawmakers Want To Mandate 32-Hour Workweeks
It’s great when innovations let us work less, but top-down, inflexible government demands are not the way to get there.
SCOTUS Could (and Should) Strike Down California's Animal-Rights Law
Proposition 12 threatens the national food economy.
Conservatives Say They Care About the Constitution. Until They Talk About Criminal Justice.
Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the nation's first Supreme Court justice to have served as a public defender, and the first since Thurgood Marshall to have experience as a defense attorney. That's good.
Does California's Latest Mass Shooting Show the Country's Strictest Gun Laws Are Not Strict Enough?
Maybe it shows that the existing restrictions are not working as advertised.
California's Terrible Price-Gouging Law Puts Markets at Mercy of Ambitious Prosecutors
Higher egg prices are not a crisis in the middle of a pandemic full of supply problems.
No, Palm Springs Isn't Giving a Basic Income to Transgender and Nonbinary Residents
Palm Springs officials aren't off the hook for questionable decisions, but the spending isn't what it looks like.
Fresno Bans Journalists—and Everyone Else—From Filming Cops Clearing Out Homeless Camps
The ACLU of Northern California is suing to overturn the ordinance.
California Can't Mandate Diversity on Corporate Boards
Plus: Prayer on football field faces SCOTUS, Mike Tyson's ear-shaped edibles banned in Colorado, and more...
The Pandemic Is Over. California's Pandemic-Era Eviction Protections Are Getting Extended.
A.B. 2179 would stop some local-level eviction moratoriums from going into effect, while leaving untouched ones that have been in place since the beginning of the pandemic.
He Disarmed a Gun-Wielding Menace in a San Jose Taqueria. Then the Cops Shot Him.
Plus: Russia update, literary censorship, myths about American workers, and more...
Supreme Court Takes Up California's Attempt To Control How Other States' Farmers Treat Pigs
Do California's rules violate the dormant commerce clause?
COVID Revealed America To Be a Nation of Rulers, Not of Laws
Life is returning to "normal" after two years, but that normal includes even fewer limits on executive powers.
Politicians Propose Giving People Cash To Compensate for High Gas Prices, Inflation
From New Jersey to California, state lawmakers are mulling one-off rebates and tax credits to ease the pain of rising prices.
California NIMBYs Are Ruining U.C. Berkeley. Stop Them Before They Kill Again.
A California Supreme Court decision freezing enrollment at the state's flagship university is focusing the public's fury on the normally obscure, but incredibly consequential, California Environmental Quality Act.
Opponents of the Texas Abortion Ban Still Have Ways To Challenge It
Although a Texas Supreme Court ruling ended the main challenge to the law, other cases could ultimately block its enforcement.
California Preschools Faced 'Raid' Over Mask Policies
Plus: Russian tactics in Ukraine getting uglier, DHS does bulk surveillance of money transfers, Biden's overhyped cryptocurrency order, and more...
San Francisco's Efforts to Block Duplexes Could Force It To Allow Skyscrapers Instead
Supervisors have proposed legalizing fourplexes in a way that preserves NIMBYs’ ability to stop new housing. That could trigger the state’s obscure “builder’s remedy.”
Video Shows California Cops Arresting Mom and Grandma for Filming Them
Mariah Herefored says police in Hemet, California, smacked cell phone cameras out of her and her mother's hands and violently arrested them.
Berkeley NIMBYs Are Taking Advantage of California's Flawed Environmental Regulations
Liberal Berkeley officials might be coming around to the view held by conservative business leaders, who have long argued that California's Environmental Quality Act needs an overhaul.
