California Voices

Lenny Mendonca: Government officials don't do a good job of engaging the public as we grapple with big, complex challenges. Today, my team at the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development is launching a new podcast called Made in California to change that dynamic.  

A collection of commentaries by Dan Walters over the past week.

Lori Freedman and Rebecca Griffin: We’re facing an unprecedented sweep of abortion bans across the country, a frontal attack that we must fight back. A new Trump administration regulation puts the full force of the government behind individuals and institutions that refuse to provide care in the name of religious beliefs. This unnecessary overreach emboldens people to discriminate and has dangerous implications for people’s health. California is not immune.

Two expedient state budget deals undermine their rational legitimacy.

Darren Kelly: AT&T told 368 technicians throughout California, including me and many of my coworkers in Sacramento, that we need to move to the San Francisco Bay Area or lose our jobs. AT&T knows it wasn’t giving us any real choice at all: the company laid us off, even though it receive a tax windfall when Congress passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

All but five of the 31 bills given the "job killer" epithet by California Chamber of Commerce have already died.

By setting a 36% annual rate cap on such loans, Assembly Bill 539 by Assembly Banking and Finance Committee Chairwoman Monique Limon, a Santa Barbara Democrat, would provide Californians with protections against high-cost loans similar to safeguards now enjoyed by an estimated 232 million Americans. AB 539's fate is in the state Senate's hands.

Elaine M. Howle: California voters took the job of redistricting out of the hands of politicians and gave it to a first-ever citizens commission. The result is a process that ensures fairness and equity in campaigns. And we’re about to take our second walk down that very important road.

L.A. voters rejected a new tax for schools in a test of sentiment for a similar statewide measure.

Assemblymember Sydney Kamlager-Dove and David A. Lehrer, in a point-counter point: Assembly Bills 241, 242 and 243 would mandate that lawyers and judges physicians, nurses, and physicians’ assistants, and virtually all peace officers in California undergo periodic training regarding “implicit bias.”