Gender Identity Versus Recorded Gender in Public Schools

Public school students would be allowed to participate in sex-segregated school activities based on their gender identity rather than the gender listed on their records, under legislation pending in the Assembly.

Following the logic, that means a male pupil, whose gender identity is female, could then, potentially, play on the woman’s field hockey team. Read more »

1.06.2012

A Rare Moment of Self-Awareness?

“Never have so many gathered for so little.”

— Gov. Jerry Brown, welcoming reporters to a Dec. 27, 2011 press availability

(It’s a riff, of course, on Winston Churchill’s line about the heroics of Royal Air Force pilots during the Battle of Britain in 1940.)

1.05.2012

Brown Hurriedly Unveils His New Budget Plan — Five Days Sooner Than Planned

Cuts – mainly in aid to the state’s poor – and a like amount of temporary tax increases would close a projected $9.2 billion budget hole under Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget plan released January 5.

The Democratic governor moved up the spending blueprint’s unveiling from January 10 after it was inadvertently posted on his Department of Finance’s website earlier in the day. Read more »

1.04.2012

December Revenue Collections — Did They Hit the Mark?

State budget writers last June predicted California would take in more than $5.7 billion in income tax receipts and $1.4 billion in corporate taxes during the month of December.

That prediction came in a state budget enacted June 30, which the Brown administration and the Legislative Analyst say is already $2.2 billion to $3.7 billion short of revenue estimates, respectively. Read more »

1.03.2012

It’s This Kind of Love the Capitol Missed the Most

The lonely hiatus is finally over.

At last, the grand and glorious day has arrived – the Legislature returns to the Capitol.

It’s been an excruciatingly long four months.

The doldrums of no committee hearings, no press conferences and no windy but pointless floor speeches are finally at an end.

Finally, dull inactivity replaced with tedious overactivity. Read more »

1.03.2012

Lest You Missed This on Leno, JibJab’s “2011, Buh-Bye!”

1.02.2012

Happy Belated Birthday Governor Gage!

Christmas Day 1852 is the birthdate of California’s 20th governor, Henry Tifft Gage, whose one term at the turn of the 20th Century was overshadowed by a bubonic plague outbreak in San Francisco that the Los Angeles Republican spent most of his tenure denying.

The political issues during his term straddled the two centuries, highlighting the state’s metamorphosis into a global power. Read more »