Artificial intelligence has quickly become one of the most-watched fields in the world over the past few years. Many hail the technology as the future of innovation, while others watch wearily as AI becomes more and more advanced. Recently, the California Legislature passed a regulatory policy aimed at promoting AI safety, which, on its face, […]
Tag: Gavin Newsom
Newsom’s Early Path to Presidency
Gov. Gavin Newsom has been making headlines recently as he is seemingly in the early stages of a 2028 bid for president of the United States. As a California politician for over 30 years, he began his career with San Francisco’s Parking and Traffic Commission before then running, and winning, the race for mayor of […]
Is Los Angeles the Future of Redistricting?
Do two wrongs make a right? That’s the question California voters must answer following Governor Gavin Newsom’s announcement of the Election Rigging Response Act. If passed by voters in a special election this November, the Act would redraw the state congressional district map and add five Democratic congressional districts in California. The Act aims to […]
16 Questions With “Queen Maker” Laphonza Butler
In light of Laphonza Butler’s recent appointment to the United States Senate, BPR is republishing Lindsey Anstead’s interview with her conducted in the Spring of 2022. This piece highlights her background as an organizer, her values, and her vision for the future of American politics. Since her ascension to the role of President in the […]
California’s Support for Tesla is a One-Way Street
A Puzzling Return Elon Musk’s decision to open a new Tesla global engineering headquarters in Palo Alto at the former site of Hewlett Packard in February 2023 may have raised some eyebrows. After all, just 16 months before, the controversial tech billionaire moved the headquarters of the California-founded company to Austin, Texas. That move came […]
Education Is Not The Great Equalizer
We have all been fed a lie: “Education is the great equalizer.” That line dominates the public discourse on K-12 public education. However, it’s certainly not true in the Bay Area nor in California. Piedmont High School and Oakland High School are less than 3 miles apart. Yet the academic performance of their students couldn’t […]
Paradise Lost: Agriculture, Water, and the Future of the Golden State
When the first forty-niners began to trickle into California in search of gold, the Central Valley was a fertile expanse of grasslands and marshes home to thousands of deer, tule elk, and grizzly bears — an American Serengeti. Within a century, the region radically transformed into a cornucopia of industrial agriculture to feed the state’s […]
How to Make Recall Elections Fair
Welp. That was over quickly. Within an hour of the polls closing at 8 PM PT on September 14, the recall race was already called for Governor Newsom. Governor Gavin Newsom’s victory was basically the same as his 2018 landslide (both 61.9%). The recall race has been estimated by Sonoma State University Professor David McCuan […]
CA Isn’t Ready to Close Its Last Nuclear Power Plant— But It Can’t Stay Open
On the first of February, 79 top energy experts signed an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom, urging him to halt the decommission of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, California’s very last operational source of nuclear power. The group behind this letter includes dozens of prominent energy executives, professors from Berkeley, MIT, Stanford and more, […]
Who Is California’s New Senator, Alex Padilla?
With Kamala Harris as our new Vice President, California’s constituents were fervently waiting to see who Governor Gavin Newsom would choose to fill Harris’ seat as California’s senator. After much anticipation and speculation, Governor Newsom announced that he was electing California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla for the esteemed position. On January 20, 2021, 47 […]
Kevin Faulconer: An Upset in the Making?
Though the 2020 election was just months ago, candidates are already gearing up for the 2022 midterm elections. This is especially true for California, where the top prize in 2022 is the Governor’s Mansion. Accelerating this process is incumbent Governor Newsom’s looming recall, a movement that has gained steam as California attempts to navigate its […]
SB50’s Failure: Lack of Leadership Amidst Regional Divide
Why Can’t California Build? It is no secret that California has a monumental and expanding housing crisis on its hands. In fact, for Californians experiencing it, it has become glaring and inescapable in daily life. And yet, on Thursday, January 30th, landmark housing bill SB-50 failed to pass in the California State Legislature. This marks […]
The Death Knell for the Death Penalty: Gavin Newsom’s Execution Moratorium
In March, California governor Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on executions, effectively ending any chance of execution for the 737 California prisoners still on death row. While it is obvious that this move is important for the future of the death penalty in California, the significance of Newsom’s declaration lies in its potential ramifications for […]
Avoiding Traffic at All Costs: Is The Bullet Train Worth It?
Imagine this — you arrive in Los Angeles from San Francisco in a mere three-hour train ride to hang out on the beach with your friends. No painful six-hour drive or delayed flights, but rather, a trip that gets you to your destination as painless and quick as possible. The thought of having a train […]
This One’s For the Boys (and their Sexual Transgressions)
A woman known by the public as Grace went out with Aziz Ansari last September on what is now the most controversial date of the 21st century. Ansari repeatedly pushed sex on her and failed to recognize, or chose to ignore, her attempts to express her discomfort. She ended up walking out. No, he did […]
Turning the Golden State Green: California’s Reputation as an Environmental Savior
In the wake of an environmentally-hostile federal administration, California has all but been crowned the sustainable savior of the United States, largely due to its long history of climate change policy and strong rhetoric of the state’s leaders at present. The state has been set up as something of a resistance leader, meant to guide […]
Proposition 63 – Gun Control in the Golden State
After years of watching mass shootings happen in nearly every other state within the relative safety of their own, Californians were shocked last year when gunners opened fire on the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, killing 14 people in minutes and remaining on the loose for hours afterward, resulting in what is now the […]
Kamala Harris: A Bid For Boxer’s Seat
On Thursday, January 8, 2015, California Senator Barbara Boxer announced she will be retiring following the end of her term, leaving the first open California Senate seat since 1992, The Year of the Woman. Boxer’s leave has nothing to do with her age, she informed viewers of that she is leaving the Senate to return […]