News

In early January Governor Newsom will present the Legislature with a proposed budget for the next fiscal year. The last budget dealt with a large deficit caused by excessive spending. To address that deficit, Newsom and the Legislature raided the Rainy Day Fund, borrowed money, shifted funds and deferred spending, steps that should be reserved for deficits caused by recessions, not by excessive spending.

Governor Gavin Newsom has called a special session of the Legislature for early December. The announced reason is to prepare California for the consequences of a Trump Administration but the real reason is to raise Newsom’s national profile.

As previous writings have disclosed, our current focus falls into three categories…

For years public school families in California have been poorly treated by elected officials. That’s because they haven’t had political muscle. Fortunately that’s changing.

Presidents have little influence over the quality of most services provided by California’s governments. For example, public school kids in California have long been poorly served regardless of who has sat in the Oval Office and it’s not presidents who drain funds from UC and CSU to overcompensate prison staff.

Whoever wins today’s elections will need to govern. While some elected officials will continue to talk about fighting or resisting, others will be ready to roll up their sleeves and to work across aisles. To succeed, they will need the protection of political philanthropists.

As we reported last month, if you’re an LA voter in search of guidance, we recommend the LA Voter Guide from Thrive LA, which is a fast-growing political philanthropy that we also recommend for your financial support.

We’re always evaluating elected officials and in California no one impresses us more than San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who leads the Yes on 36 campaign to reform Proposition 47.

Last year I wrote about GFC’s most expensive failure, which is our continuing lack of success in reforming the public-employee retirement system, and earlier this week CalMatters columnist Dan Walters wrote about what I consider to be collectively our most shameful failure, which was the prolonged shutdown of California’s public schools during the pandemic.

When GFC launched in 2011, Republicans held enough seats in the California Legislature that occasionally they could exercise some leverage by joining with pragmatic Democrats to bridge some gaps.