California

We are told that in California politics and government, 2012 is shaping up as a very big year. That there will be — says Gov. Jerry Brown as he channels the philosopher Thomas Hobbes — "a war of all against all." That parties and interest groups are headed to the ballot with initiatives to gore one another's oxen. That we are about to decide the big questions of taxes and budgets and schools and maybe pensions.

Nonsense.

The CFPB is the law of the land. The agency was created last year when the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was passed by Congress and signed by the president. This is how laws are made. It says so in the Constitution. A minority of senators can't decide on their own to nullify the law. And tellingly, few are raising the objection that Richard Cordray is unqualified for the post. In fact, he has received glowing and bipartisan support, especially from those he worked when he served as attorney general for Ohio.

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
The two items in this headline would seem to have nothing to do with each other.

But they do.

The logic of the ban on gays in the military – which is to say the illogic of that ban – is the same illogic that has shaped the California budget process.

Before the lifting of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy – before the establishment of that policy – the U.S. military had an outright ban on gays serving in the military. So naturally, there were no gays in the military, right?

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
The media consensus is that Herman Cain’s goose is cooked. The reason? New accusations that he’s a sexual harasser.

This of course makes no sense. Because they have a name in politics for sexual harassers.

Winners.

Here’s a test try to think of a sexually harassing politician who lost because of his behavior (or her) behavior. It’s hard, isn’t?

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
The current pension reform debate – with proposals from the governor and now from a team of Republicans via ballot initiative – is drawing considerable media attention.

It’s hard to understand why.

The debate has almost nothing to do with the broader public.

The pension changes being talked about won’t change all that much or save much money for other public programs. And the plans being offered don’t respond to the real problem in matters of retirement savings.

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
The high-speed rail debate may begin and end with the price tag: $98.5 billion. But there’s another fundamental problem with the plan. It doesn’t fit California or Californians.

And to say it doesn’t fit the state is to say this also: the high-speed rail plan treats California as if it’s one state.

It isn’t. California is a country-sized place made up of regions that have the size and character of states.

Providing yet another reason for its 9 percent approval rating, Congress is attempting to write the nation’s next farm bill in secrecy—sneaking it into law as part of the deficit reduction package to be produced by the “supercommittee.”

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
Who needs Halloween for a good fright when so many California ballot initiatives are posted on the Secretary of State’s website?

(originally published at Zocalo Public Square)

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)

The most-talked-about name in California governance hadn’t granted an interview. But a tipster in a small local hospital in California’s interior called, with directions to a little-known private wing.

The name on the hospital room door said, “Serrano Priest.” I opened it. “Mr. Priest?” I asked.

“Ah, hell. You found me,” came the reply from the mangled body that lay on the hospital. “I register under that name when I don’t want calls. It’s me – Realignment.”

He reluctantly agreed to an interview.