Dear Friend:
 
PRI held its annual “California Ideas in Action” conference this week in Sacramento.  Thanks to the support and generosity of supporters like you, it was perhaps our best conference yet.
 
If you couldn’t be there in person, videos of the speeches and panel discussion are now online to watch at home at your leisure.  Click here to watch.
 
A sold-out crowd heard an inspiring keynote speech by Golden Together Founder and CEO and Fox News contributor Steve Hilton on how we can achieve conservative and free market policy victories in California, despite the long political head winds.
 
With a costly, unrealistic and unjust state reparations plan being considered at the State Capitol, PRI’s Dr. Wayne Winegarden gave a preview of our new Spending Watch initiative analyzing key bills and budget measures for their impact on outmigration, unemployment, and the economy.  Your jaws will drop when you learn how much more you’ll have to pay in taxes to fund reparations!
 
Steven Greenhut of PRI’s Free Cities Center moderated a panel discussion on what can actually be done to reduce homelessness in California.  Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho talked about his lawsuit against the City of Sacramento for their failure to enforce anti-homelessness laws that encourage camping on the streets.
 
PRI Senior Fellow Steve Smith moderated a powerful and emotional panel discussion on how we can reform criminal justice policy to put crime victims first again.  Modoc County District Attorney Nina Salarno, whose sister’s murder spawned the grassroots crime victims movement in California when her mother Harriet founded Crime Victims United, discussed the need to reform misguided laws like Prop. 47 so prosecutors can put repeat criminals behind bars where they belong.
 
Lance Izumi, senior director of PRI’s Center for Education, moderated a panel discussion previewing the themes of his upcoming book The Great Classroom Collapse.  Educational researcher, writer, and parent Rebeka Sinclair, who is featured in Lance’s upcoming book, discussed how politicized changes to the state’s reading curriculum are hurting students.
 
As Sacramento continues to find new ways to drive up our energy costs, Todd Myers of the Washington Policy Center closed out the conference by encouraging conservatives to re-engage in the debate over global warming and ineffective government green mandates, sharing the themes of his book Time to Think Small.
 
Your continued support of PRI makes it possible for us to bring free-market ideas where they are needed most – right to the doorstep of our State Capitol. 
 
After watching the videos, we hope you are inspired to join with us in fighting for reforms to restore California as the magical place we all once knew. 
 
If so, we encourage you to consider making a generous financial contribution by clicking here.