Post-it

In a press conference seemingly designed to deescalate a week-long legal standoff, declare victory and profoundly confuse the California press corps, Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Secretary of State Alex Padilla said they would not be taking legal action against the California Republican Party for its makeshift ballot box program.  But the two Democrats insisted […]

Californians are voting on 12 propositions, but not all are funded equally. Just take a look at that fat slab of lilac in the graphic below. No surprise for even the most dimly engaged Californians who have been bombarded with ads for weeks now: Funding for Proposition 22, a measure to exempt gig-economy companies from […]

An extra item may have slipped into your weekly grocery delivery: a campaign ad. It’s a dubious bonus from Instacart, the San Francisco-based tech company that lets customers order groceries by app. “As a valued Instacart customer, we hope you’ll take a moment to learn more about how Prop. 22 supports the best possible shopper […]

When the ballots arrived in Susan Lambert’s mailbox earlier this week, everyone in the house was accounted for. There was one for her, one for her husband, and two for her adult step-sons. And then there was the one for George. Lambert, a playwright, producer and writer who lives in Pasadena, didn’t recognize the name. […]

A few things distinguished tonight’s vice presidential debate from the Trump-on-Biden interruption-fest that the nation suffered through last week: The two were separated by prophylactic plexiglass Tupac was invited for some reason A fly made a surprise appearance on the vice president’s head The back-and-forth was, for the most part, actually a back-and-forth, rather than […]

A reader has asked us a question about a lesser-known provision buried in one of the year’s most controversial ballot measures:  If you haven’t already been blitzed with a dozen ads about it since you woke up today, Prop. 22 is the massively funded measure pushed by the likes of Uber and Lyft. It would […]

It’s not easy to get work done during a pandemic. Even for the fortunate who kept their pre-pandemic jobs, productivity has taken it on the chin in 2020.  The same goes for those in the lawmaking business.  In March, just days after the governor instructed all Californians to shelter in their homes, legislators left Sacramento […]

When debate moderator Chris Wallace asked President Donald Trump last night whether he would urge his supporters “not to engage in any civil unrest” while ballots are being counted and to “not declare victory until the election has been independently certified,” the president responded with a very different appeal to his base. “I’m urging my […]

If you didn’t catch the first presidential debate of 2020 tonight — and if you didn’t, and did virtually anything else with that time, congratulations on a restful evening well-spent — you missed a cameo appearance by California. The Golden State made its entrance around the 75-minute mark.  That was presumably long after everyone but […]

When supporters of a November property tax ballot measure talk about soaking the state’s faceless corporate giants and its wealthiest landlords, they are not talking about people like John Kevranian. The co-owner of Nuts for Candy & Toys in Burlingame, Kevranian and his wife have operated this mainstay of the Bay Area city’s downtown strip […]