Investigative reporter Robert Lewis spent four months examining how California handles its hazardous waste – analyzing state and federal databases with millions of shipping records, reviewing regulatory filings and archival documents, obtaining hundreds of pages of environmental inspection reports for waste disposal facilities in Arizona and Utah, and interviewing regulators, environmental advocates, engineers and industry sources. And for his detailed story package Outgunned , Robert filed more than 400 public records requests and obtained never-before-seen documents. Our WhatMatters daily newsletter breaks down complex California issues into an engaging morning read. That includes the recent explanation of legislative staffers’ attempts to unionize . “This is exactly the type of double standard that makes voters across the ideological spectrum absolutely despise politics and politicians,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine University. This tweet from Ryan O’Connell says it all: “Oh thank god there’s a @CalMatters summary. No Paywall. No need to read 253 pages and watch a three-hour legislative presentation.” He was talking about Ben Christopher’s story on how the state has spent nearly $10 billion over three years to halt homelessness. You can also see it in the support from CalMatters members who donate to support our nonprofit news organization. “Holding public officials and the agencies or departments they run accountable in a nonpartisan way is of fundamental importance to the society and democracy,” writes Michael of San Diego.
