The Trump administration is certainly no stranger to environmental policy rollbacks, but the recent September 19th decision to revoke California’s auto emissions regulation waiver amounts to a politically-hypocritical decision. This environmentally-regressive decree arrives as the most recent executive decision in a line of drastically altering or outright cancelling countless Obama and Clinton-era regulations, from policies […]
Tag: Governor Jerry Brown
California Leads Corporations To Equality
It has been almost a hundred years since women were given the right to vote, yet women are still struggling to bridge the gap in the professional arena. California comes in third in the United States for gender pay parity, trailing behind Florida and New York as the two states closest to reaching gender parity […]
Peaks and Valleys: The Resilient Nature of Silicon Valley
California dreaming is now looking more like California leaving, as recent data reveals an exodus of Californians is slowing the state’s rate of growth. IRS data revealed that between 2007 and 2016, 1.2 million more residents departed from the state than entered. This problem is particularly accentuated in the Bay Area. A survey taken in […]
California’s Drought: Reviewing the Past, Critiquing the Present, and Preparing for the Future
Written November 21, 2016. As Governor Jerry Brown trekked on a dry, brown meadow nearly 7,000 feet above sea level, something was wrong. The date, April 1st, 2015, seemed appropriate: it was almost like a joke gone wrong; where there had once been a copious amount of snow covering the ground, there was not one […]
Pollution, Plastic, and Profit: California’s Conflicting Propositions
In California, a high-profile war for the future of plastic bags is underway; however, underneath the surface lies a much more sinister battle between private interests, with both sides having significant financial stakes in the situation. Just over two years ago, California became the first state in the nation to pass legislation (SB 270) banning […]
Don’t Cap Cap and Trade
California’s signature environmental program is in jeopardy, creating a ripple effect that places the state’s entire climate plan at risk Since the passage of the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32), California has implemented a number of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the most ambitious being cap and trade. Heavily influenced by a similar […]
Progress, or Merely Reshuffling?: The Criminal Justice Reform Movement’s Shortcomings
Try getting opposing politicians to agree on an issue, and you probably won’t have much success. Yet, criminal justice reform has become the unifier to bridge the divide. President Barack Obama, at the 2015 N.A.A.C.P. Conference in Philadelphia, outlined criminal justice reform as the last great mission of his administration when he remarked to thunderous applause […]
Criminal Justice Reform: A Rare Area of Bipartisan Consensus
In the past few years, there has been a repudiation of the tough-on-crime era of the 1990s by both sides of the aisle. There is a belief that too many low-level offenders, particularly drug offenders, have been locked up for too long, and the government is literally paying the price for it. In 2010, the […]
California Is Now a Leader in Right-to-Die Movement
If you were terminally ill and had the option to end your life, would you do it? This was one of the many questions Governor Jerry Brown had to consider before he signed ABX2 15, known as the End of Life Option Act, into law on October 5th, making California the most recent state to allow […]
California Equal Pay Bill: Groundbreaking, or Hollow Hope?
Women in California have achieved a momentous victory in the workplace. This summer, the state senate passed Senate Bill 358, a landmark equal pay bill that carries strong measures aimed at closing the long-standing wage gap in employment and increasing wage transparency. The bill supports and upholds pre-existing provisions of the California Labor Code that […]