Sacramento killed two bipartisan lobbying transparency bills without a hearing, while a separate bill that could expose journalists who cover taxpayer-funded immigration nonprofits to $4,000-per-violation fines is now one committee vote from the Assembly floor. Across California, the same pattern keeps surfacing: SFMTA promised 465 affordable units it never had funding for, SFUSD approved an ethnic studies curriculum through a review designed to rubber-stamp it, and Berkeley courts blocked a disease-ridden homeless encampment cleanup for sixteen months. The throughline is governments and institutions that resist accountability while the costs land on everyone else.
Two bipartisan bills would have shown you who's lobbying your lawmakers. Sacramento killed them both.
AB 2624 just cleared committee. It could allow taxpayer-funded immigration NGOs to sue the journalists investigating them.
The board voted 6-1 to commit to a curriculum validated by a rigged process. But litigation is incoming.
The Mission spent eight years in working groups designing housing that SFMTA admitted was only ever a future possibility — never a funded commitment. Then the city cut 365 units and called it a compromise.
Leptospirosis, common in underdeveloped countries, spread through Berkeley's Harrison encampment—and courts continued to prevent cleanup efforts.
Waymo cleared every safety bar and got exiled to the Rental Car Center. Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft keep 800,000 monthly trips.
California's EDD lost $20 billion to fraud and still owes $21 billion on its federal pandemic loan — and that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Now they want a new tax, and can't find the invoice for the "equity" report they commissioned to argue enforcing fares was pointless
Los Angeles emptied a building that was already housing people. Four years and $625,000 per unit later, it still houses nobody.
SF's 540-page city charter is the longest in the country, and it was built to protect insiders. Lurie is finally tearing it apart.