Overregulation
Blog
Is California Coastal Commission finally getting its comeuppance?
California has one of the world’s most spectacular coastlines, which meanders 1,100 miles from Imperial Beach to Crescent City. And, of course, everyone wants to “Save Our Coast” and assure public access to beaches, which is why Californians voted 55% to 45% in 1972 for Proposition 20. It promised to protect ...
Blog
Is There A Limit To The Abuse California Businesses Will Tolerate?
This isn’t the sort of insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, but the type of insanity that doesn’t care what the outcome is. California’s Cartwright Act is the state’s primary antitrust law. It allows both government and private actors to make antitrust claims against businesses. A California Supreme ...
Blog
A public bank in California would be costly, risky and unnecessary
But lawmakers were pushing forward anyway. AB 2243 would have established a taxpayer-funded commission to study the feasibility of a public bank and how it could act “as an additional financial tool to lower borrowing costs, strengthen local lending partnerships and help finance urgent public needs like affordable housing, infrastructure, ...
Blog
California’s ‘Scarcity Mindset’
The late, great comedian Sam Kinison once said that instead of sending food to starving nations, we should send U-Hauls because, he would scream, “there wouldn’t be world hunger if you people would live where the food is! You live in a desert, understand that?! Nothing grows out of here!” ...
Commentary
A $20,000 model trashcan showcases San Francisco’s dysfunction
Three years ago, my East Coast relatives flew to San Francisco for my daughter’s wedding. At the time, national publications were having a field day depicting the city as a pit of decay filled with poop-covered sidewalks and rampant homelessness. My relatives were primed to see an urban landscape beset ...
Blog
BOOK EXCERPT Urban Policy Beyond the Nation’s Big Metros: Smaller-City Case Studies from California, Washington and Michigan
It’s easy to think that urban policy is solely about big cities and their surrounding suburbs, much in the way that one would naturally believe that farm policy is solely about farm regions. A quick perusal of the statistics suggests that America is indeed an urban nation despite its vast ...
Agriculture
What’s in a label?
“Free range,” “cage free,” “organic,” “non-GMO,” “hormone free,” and now “ultra processed” are all food terms that can confuse even the most astute shopper. As consumers move farther from the farm but express deeper concern about where their food comes from and how it is produced, answering those concerns becomes ...
Blog
San Francisco new commission struggles to shut down commissions
San Francisco new commission struggles to shut down commissions Sal Rodriguez | April 10, 2026 San Francisco has too many government commissions. Who could’ve guessed? On January 30, the city’s Commission Streamlining Task Force issued a 134-page report on the 152 boards, commissions and similar bodies operating in the city under ordinance ...
Business & Economics
New PRI Study Finds California Job Growth Lags Nation, High Costs Turn State’s Income Advantage into 35% Deficit
A new study released today by the Pacific Research Institute finds that California’s economic performance has fallen sharply behind the rest of the nation, with job growth since the COVID-19 pandemic at less than half the national rate, while the state’s high cost of living is erasing its income advantage. ...
Blog
California Should Get Out of the Way of the Charter-Cox Merger
Of course, the CPUC regulates public utilities in California. The Commission gains a say in many mergers because of its broad oversight to evaluate potential effects on the price and access to telecommunications services for California residents. In that, the CPUC works with the Federal Trade Commission to align state ...
Is California Coastal Commission finally getting its comeuppance?
California has one of the world’s most spectacular coastlines, which meanders 1,100 miles from Imperial Beach to Crescent City. And, of course, everyone wants to “Save Our Coast” and assure public access to beaches, which is why Californians voted 55% to 45% in 1972 for Proposition 20. It promised to protect ...
Is There A Limit To The Abuse California Businesses Will Tolerate?
This isn’t the sort of insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, but the type of insanity that doesn’t care what the outcome is. California’s Cartwright Act is the state’s primary antitrust law. It allows both government and private actors to make antitrust claims against businesses. A California Supreme ...
A public bank in California would be costly, risky and unnecessary
But lawmakers were pushing forward anyway. AB 2243 would have established a taxpayer-funded commission to study the feasibility of a public bank and how it could act “as an additional financial tool to lower borrowing costs, strengthen local lending partnerships and help finance urgent public needs like affordable housing, infrastructure, ...
California’s ‘Scarcity Mindset’
The late, great comedian Sam Kinison once said that instead of sending food to starving nations, we should send U-Hauls because, he would scream, “there wouldn’t be world hunger if you people would live where the food is! You live in a desert, understand that?! Nothing grows out of here!” ...
A $20,000 model trashcan showcases San Francisco’s dysfunction
Three years ago, my East Coast relatives flew to San Francisco for my daughter’s wedding. At the time, national publications were having a field day depicting the city as a pit of decay filled with poop-covered sidewalks and rampant homelessness. My relatives were primed to see an urban landscape beset ...
BOOK EXCERPT Urban Policy Beyond the Nation’s Big Metros: Smaller-City Case Studies from California, Washington and Michigan
It’s easy to think that urban policy is solely about big cities and their surrounding suburbs, much in the way that one would naturally believe that farm policy is solely about farm regions. A quick perusal of the statistics suggests that America is indeed an urban nation despite its vast ...
What’s in a label?
“Free range,” “cage free,” “organic,” “non-GMO,” “hormone free,” and now “ultra processed” are all food terms that can confuse even the most astute shopper. As consumers move farther from the farm but express deeper concern about where their food comes from and how it is produced, answering those concerns becomes ...
San Francisco new commission struggles to shut down commissions
San Francisco new commission struggles to shut down commissions Sal Rodriguez | April 10, 2026 San Francisco has too many government commissions. Who could’ve guessed? On January 30, the city’s Commission Streamlining Task Force issued a 134-page report on the 152 boards, commissions and similar bodies operating in the city under ordinance ...
New PRI Study Finds California Job Growth Lags Nation, High Costs Turn State’s Income Advantage into 35% Deficit
A new study released today by the Pacific Research Institute finds that California’s economic performance has fallen sharply behind the rest of the nation, with job growth since the COVID-19 pandemic at less than half the national rate, while the state’s high cost of living is erasing its income advantage. ...
California Should Get Out of the Way of the Charter-Cox Merger
Of course, the CPUC regulates public utilities in California. The Commission gains a say in many mergers because of its broad oversight to evaluate potential effects on the price and access to telecommunications services for California residents. In that, the CPUC works with the Federal Trade Commission to align state ...