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This Saturday feature, which is a labor of love for me, is packed with amazing content. It’s very popular. For those of you who subscribe ($70/year, $7/month), this column is a thank-you for your support of my independent work. There are a couple of items above the paywall worth reading/watching. But that is the tip of the iceberg. SO MUCH more under the paywall.
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Happy New Year To Those Who Celebrate (Including Me!)
As a Jew, Rosh Hashanah has always felt like more than just the start of a new year. It is a chance to look back, consider where we fell short, appreciate the blessings we sometimes take for granted, and begin again with a little more purpose. To my Jewish readers, Shanah Tovah U’Metukah — may you and your families have a good and sweet new year. And to everyone who reads, subscribes, shares, and supports what I do here, thank you. I hope the year ahead brings you health, happiness, peace, and plenty of reasons to be grateful.
Reading/Watching/Listening Recommendations!
AS GAVIN NEWSOM’S REIGN NEARS END, HIS ABILITY TO SWAY LEGISLATORS HAS ALSO WANED
Veteran California political columnist Dan Walters argues that Governor Gavin Newsom’s waning days in office are producing something unusual: Democratic legislators increasingly willing to tell him no. Writing in CalMatters [ [link removed] ], Walters points to Newsom’s failed attempts to reshape wildfire liability and help a major donor’s development project as evidence that his once-formidable leverage over the Legislature is disappearing. The lame-duck period, it seems, has arrived earlier than Newsom might have preferred.
CALIFORNIANS OWE $500 BILLION THEY NEVER AGREED TO PAY
David Crane argues that a little-known 1992 ballot measure fundamentally distorted California’s public pension system by giving pension boards fiduciary obligations to employees, but not taxpayers. Writing in The San Francisco Standard [ [link removed] ], Crane traces how overly optimistic investment assumptions shifted hundreds of billions in unfunded liabilities onto taxpayers while employees avoided sharing those costs. His provocative conclusion: Californians have effectively been saddled with more than $500 billion in pension costs they never directly agreed to assume.
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OK, this column is like an iceberg. You can see 10% of it above the waterline. Below the paywall is SO MUCH MORE. I curate a BUNCH of articles, a great chart, a great video, a great long-form story, and much more. And what famous moment in California political history happened on this day in 1968?
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