California in Focus

California Gov. Gavin Newsom promised “no new taxes” in his 2024-2025 budget as he announced the state’s shortfall is $7 billion worse than was expected in January, and proposed $15.2 billion in budget cuts against an up to $80 billion deficit. Newsom’s cuts include reducing water storage and reducing the state’s prison population by 4,600 inmates. In January, Newsom announced he was expecting a $...

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced California is a “national model” for homelessness while announcing the availability of new funding for mental health and substance abuse treatment. California’s homeless population was 181,399 in January of 2023, and is the largest in the nation. Using similar, recent state programs as cost-approximation, Prop. 1 could very well meet the governor’s claims...

 Amid a 4.5 million home housing shortage, California’s Little Hoover Commission, a non-partisan, state-funded body, unveiled major changes to the state’s landmark California Environmental Quality Act designed to improve housing construction times and costs. LHC  found  CEQA is heavily used for “non-environmental goals” and recommended, among other acts, exempting infill housing from CEQA review a...

California Governor Gavin Newsom took to the top of Golden Gate Bridge to share the claim that California had hit an "unprecedented" tourism spending record. The facts? After inflation, tourism is down 14% from 2019. The false claim was shared by trusted news organizations such as CBS and the San Francisco Chronicle. In his press release with Visit California CEO Caroline Beteta, Newsom claimed to...

Police cleared the encampment of pro-Palestine protestors at UCLA before dawn on Thursday, arresting hundreds for failing to disperse after the school declared the encampment an unlawful assembly. Protestors held on to hastily erected barricades against the police, who tore away at their defenses item by item until officers could break through. California Highway Patrol and Los Angeles Police Depa...

 California Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a “major clean energy victory” with a tenfold increase in battery capacity as the state’s energy costs rose to the highest in the contiguous  United States , or double the national average. Only Hawaii, the island state in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, has more expensive energy. Newsom announced the state has 10,379 megawatts of  battery storage  dur...

With the City of Los Angeles facing a $476 million deficit due to overspending and lower than anticipated tax revenues, Mayor Karen Bass has proposed increasing police spending while cutting millions from her signature “Inside Safe” homelessness programs. According to an earlier analysis of Inside Safe by The Center Square, the program costs approximately $17,000 per homeless individual each month...

California seized over one million fentanyl pills just last week, more than was seized in all of February, highlighting how much smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants has shifted to California since Texas strengthened its border. In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom increased the California National Guard’s San Diego border region presence from 40 to 60 soldiers for narcotics operati...

The California State Assembly voted unanimously to let individuals arrested by police be delivered or referred to a public health or social services organization instead of facing custody and arraignment. Under the arresting officer’s discretion, when “no further proceedings are desired,” AB 2215 would allow the “release an arrested person from custody without bringing the person before a magistra...

The California Supreme Court is soon hearing a case that could determine the future of California solar energy. Under new solar metering rules, owners of solar panels on homes and buildings are paid for the value of the energy they produce, which is less than the earlier standard of the net difference in energy produced and consumed; abundant solar energy generated during the day is of lower grid...

California’s $20 per hour fast food minimum wage effectively creates a new statewide minimum wage, businesses say, and could lead small businesses to shut down as they struggle with rising costs and competing with large, corporate fast-food franchises for workers. Small businesses are “still clawing back from the pandemic. A lot of folks are barely breaking even, not to mention all the costs that...

According to an audit, California is not sufficiently tracking homelessness program costs and outcomes. The state has not evaluated program’ success in addressing homelessness, and only two of the five of the state homelessness programs assessed are likely to be cost effective. The other three could not be assessed due to lack of data. The audit was called for by Assemblyman Josh Hoover, R-Folsom,...

California housing permitting collapsed 45% from 135,565 homes in 2022 to just 74,720 in 2023, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s data at time of the story’s publication. Housing experts say rising interest rates are largely to blame for the phenomenon as rising construction costs and interest payments make fewer projects pencil out for developers. With t...

California Gavin Newsom unveiled his new water plan and projects that forecasted delivery of state aqueduct water allocations will reach only 30% of requested water. Water experts warn that drought-level allocations despite above-average rain and snow for the last two years will lead to more groundwater pumping, delaying recharging of the state’s depleted aquifers, underground reservoirs of last r...

In response to a lawsuit by a parent activist group who placed a ballot measure to change statewide educational policies for transgender minors, California Attorney General Rob Bonta backed his office’s naming of the controversial initiative. Parent activist group Protect Kids California is currently collecting signatures for what it calls the Protect Kids of California Act of 2024, which would re...

A new California bill ostensibly designed to punish “hateful messaging” could threaten constitutionally protected free speech. AB 3024, proposed by Assembly member Chris Ward, D-San Diego, as a bill to “curb hate littering,” would expand the state’s definition of “intimidation by threat of violence” in the state's civil code to include “distribution of hateful materials on the private property of...

California signed a new agreement with Big Three automobile manufacturer Stellantis to advance the state’s zero-emission goals even if the EPA or a future president takes away the state’s unique environmental regulatory authority. Under the agreement, Stellantis will reduce emissions by 10 to 12 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to the emissions produced by 2.3 million ve...

California voters narrowly passed a $12.7 billion bond for building more mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities and homeless housing. With only 108,000 ballots left to count, the measure leads by 50.2% to 49.8%, or a 29,000 vote lead, suggesting a nearly guaranteed passage for Proposition 1. The measure goes hand in hand with other legislation the governor passed, SB 43, to change...

California Democrats proposed a mere $2.1 billion budget cut against a $73 billion deficit for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. Combined with a $12.2 billion deployment from the state’s rainy day fund, Democrats expect to reduce the shortfall anywhere from $8.6 billion to $23.6 billion, based on their use of a $53 billion deficit figure, not the $73 billion deficit reported by the state-run, non-partisa...

A federal district court struck down California’s law limiting gun purchases to one every 30 days, citing unconstitutionality. The district court judge placed a 30 day stay on the ruling to give the state a chance to appeal. U.S. District Court Judge William Hayes based his ruling on  NYSRPA v. Bruen , a U.S. Supreme Court case that created a new standard for Second Amendment decisions. Under  Bru...

 California lawmakers proposed expanding the state’s zero-down, no payment home “loan” program to illegal immigrants. Due to lack of housing production relative to population and demand, California currently ranks 49th in housing units per resident, resulting in high home prices.  “Assembly Bill 1840 is an insult to California citizens who are being left behind and priced out of homeownership,” sa...

California lawmakers are pushing for new exemptions to the state’s fast food minimum wage as controversy erupted over the state’s reported exemption for Panera Bread. California Gov. Gavin Newsom approved an exemption to the state’s $20 per hour minimum wage for fast-food employees to national fast-food chains with bakeries that sell bread as a standalone item, a narrow category that includes Pane...

California Governor Gavin Newsom granted an exemption to the state’s $20 per hour minimum wage for fast-food employees to national fast-food chains with bakeries, a category that only includes Panera. Billionaire Greg Flynn, the largest franchise owner in the United States, is the second-largest Panera operator in the world and a classmate and major donor of the governor’s, leading Bloomberg to re...

The California National Guard seized a record 62,224 pounds of fentanyl in California and the state's ports of entry – enough of the potent synthetic opioid to kill the entire world population "nearly twice over." Since 2021, fentanyl seizures supported by CalGuard have increased by 1066%, according to the governor's office. The street value of the fentanyl seized was estimated at $649 million. Jo...

 According to state analysts, California budget deficit grew $15 billion to a $73 billion for the 2024-2025 fiscal year due to declining tax revenues. The non-partisan, state-funded Legislative Analyst’s Office, which announced the new deficit figures, identified approximately $15.6 billion in one-time or temporary spending through the 2025-2026 fiscal year that could be used to offset the the sta...