Manuel Pastor reminds us of how much California has changed. >>read more

The split roll idea has a lot of pluses -- but it could harm the retailers, especially small ones, who often give an urban area vitality. >>read more

After 40 years, some pieces of the initiative are baked into California's political DNA. But reforms could help alleviate the housing crisis. >>read more

Cities need fiscal incentives to approve more housing. >>read more

A California Supreme Court decision seemed to upend a major provision of Proposition 13 and its companion laws. Exuberant as it is, that analysis is misguided. >>read more

Did Howard Jarvis really mean to force transit advocates to try to make everybody happy in order to get a two-thirds vote for Measure M? >>read more

Allow me to laud something about California's state and local ballot initiative system. No, really. 

Voting schemes for electing human beings to office are inevitably flawed. Whether a jurisdiction uses party primaries, open primaries, ranked choices, multiple votes, pluralities, majorities, voice votes, or anything else, no system can capture the true passions and preferences of all voters as they relate to all candidates. 

Since January we have witnessed the unusual spectacle of elected local officials throughout the state expressing intense and emotional anger and frustration about the possible end to redevelopment -- and no reaction at all from anybody else. 

Nothing from the people in blighted neighborhoods, who supposedly benefit from better housing and more jobs and more retail choices.

Proposition Thirteen.

There, I said it. But I'm not the only one uttering those words during the ongoing discussion of the State of California's enormous budget gap. Just maybe, we can no longer ignore the elephant in the room.

The state's fiscal problems are as big as an elephant, and the reasons for them are legion. But, make no mistake, the largest contributor to those problems -- by far -- is the system created by and in reaction to Prop 13.