2015

Earlimart, Tulare County — After a day of picking grapes for $9.25 an hour, Eva Montes waits in line for food aid in the parking lot of the Veterans Memorial building in Earlimart, a community of 8,537 people. “You can’t make enough money for what you spend,” Montes says in Spanish while waiting with other […]

Rich Winefield has seen first hand the pros and cons of the minimum wage increase. As executive director of BANANAS, an Oakland-based nonprofit that connects families with childcare providers, he has seen how Oakland’s minimum wage hike has impacted workers who benefit from a higher wage, while creating new challenges for families facing more expensive […]

LANCASTER, Los Angeles County —  Lydia Flores saves gas money by taking a two-hour train ride to and from her cashier job at a Los Angeles supermarket. She tells her teenage sons about another way the family can save on the cost of eggs. “Eat it slow,” she tells them. “They gotta savor their eggs […]

With wages stagnant, inequality growing, and Washington, D.C., gridlocked, states and cities are taking matters into their own hands by raising the minimum wage.  Before 2012, only five local governments in the United States had their own minimum wage laws; now about 30 do.  At the forefront are 15 California cities and counties, the largest […]

When Gov. Jerry Brown arrives in Paris next week for a major international conference on climate change, he will showcase one of the world’s most sweeping programs to cut greenhouse gas emissions. California has perhaps the most comprehensive cap-and-trade program in the world, setting a limit and a price for pollution from factories, utilities and […]

The California Teachers Association, one of Sacramento’s most powerful interests, is heading into an extraordinary year with decisions on the ballot, in the Capitol and in the courts holding the potential to impact its clout for many years to come. Billions of dollars for schools will likely be at stake on the 2016 ballot as […]

Compared with the partisan gridlock that gripped Sacramento just a few years ago, dynamics in the statehouse can seem almost cuddly these days. There are friendly handshakes after lawmakers cross party lines to vote for each others’ bills. Bipartisan banter is visible on social media, where legislators trade funny stories and post selfies with friends […]

In a hotel ballroom blocks from the state Capitol, nearly three dozen wanna-be legislators gathered recently to learn the ways of Sacramento. They were members of city councils and school boards up and down California, ranchers and attorneys, Republicans and Democrats, moms and dads – all candidates for the Legislature who’d signed up for this […]

Politics is a team sport in Sacramento. After new folks are elected to the Legislature, their Democratic or Republican “teams” typically do everything possible to keep them in the game. The camaraderie is strongest when legislators face tough re-elections – their colleagues walk precincts and their political parties spend big money to buoy the campaigns. […]

Maywood, CA. — A politician who will soon hold one of the most powerful positions in California was walking along the industrial banks of the Los Angeles River last week when an artist smoking a cigarette stopped him to lodge a few complaints. The area has graffiti but no murals, Robert Cortes said. Too few […]