Sacramento lawmakers killed two bipartisan bills that would have required lobbyist position letters to be posted online in real time—blocking a reform already standard in ten other states. Meanwhile, a bill moving through the Assembly could expose journalists who report on taxpayer-funded immigration nonprofits to $4,000-per-violation fines, with no press exemption. Across California, from SFUSD's rigged curriculum review to SFMTA's phantom affordable housing to a leptospirosis outbreak courts blocked cities from cleaning up, the pattern is the same: government agencies making commitments they can't keep, obscuring accountability, and insulating themselves from oversight.
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.