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The California Business Roundtable responded to a legislative analysis Monday that said SB 562, a single-payer health care bill by Sens. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) and Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), will cost California $400 billion annually to implement. CBRT President Rob Lapsley says "there is no responsible way to pay for this proposal." "Let’s look at the facts: California’s 2017-18 budget is estimated at $180 billion. We are the highest tax state in the nation, we are growing lower-wage an

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRtznPEc4RA Over the weekend, President Trump and Saudi King Salman signed several deals regarding military and economic partnerships between the two countries. This includes a $110 billion investment deal as well as another $350 billion over the next 10 years. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) has come out in strong opposition to the deals, condemning Saudi Arabia as having a "devastating record of human rights violations at home and abroad, and a long history of p

The Texas House approved a bill Saturday that eliminates straight-ticket voting, which allows voters to choose a party's entire slate of candidates in a single ballot marking. Texas will likely become the second state in 2017 to eliminate straight-ticket voting, following Iowa. The bill, HB 25, originated in the state House, and was initially approved by the chamber in early May. However, before passing the Senate, an amendment was added to the bill that required the bill to go back to the Hous

From the media blackout of a DNC lawsuit to open primaries to term limits and more, here are 5 things you may have missed in nonpartisan political and election news. 1. Media Blackout of DNC Lawsuit Go to CNN or MSNBC or NBC News or the New York Times or Washington Post and  you won't find much on an ongoing lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee and former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for showing favoritism toward Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic pr

It’s Not What You Believe. It’s How You Believe It George Orwell’s novel 1984 has been selling in large numbers to people scared of a lurch toward authoritarianism in the USA. I recently noted that both that book and Animal Farm were written not as a warning against a particular political ideology but against the implementation of any ideology, however progressive, by people who think themselves too smart to have to test their politics against the emotions, sentiments and experiences of those t

Last week's memo released by Attorney General Jeff Sessions may place him in direct conflict with public opinion as well as a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers. The memo directs federal prosecutors to seek the harshest sentences possible when prosecuting federal cases and also signals a formal withdrawal from a signature aspect of Obama era Attorney General Eric Holder's "Smart on Crime" initiative, which "sought to target the most serious crimes and reduce the number of defendants charged with

Recording Votes: Fixing the Electoral College Our Electoral College (EC) is out of date. Powerful coalitions exist to push for its effective abolishment and a switch to a popular vote, but the support for this movement is not as strong as proponents had hoped. Constitutionally speaking, it will be easier to update the EC and improve it. In this section, I discuss three proposed methods for use of the EC: Winner-Take-All, District Plan, and Proportional Plan. Winner-Take-All method for the Elec

Dr. Ron Paul, who served 12 terms in the US Congress and became famous when he ran on a libertarian platform for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, has been on a rampage this Spring, excoriating both President Trump and the Republican-held Congress on one issue after another. Carol Paul must be putting something in her husband's coffee, because the libertarian firebrand (who turns 82 this year) spent the month of April challenging the political establishment with the kind of gusto

Now comes the hard part. The house passing health care repeal and replace legislation is a significant short-term win for President Trump, but it won’t mean anything lest he can wrangle the Senate’s support. And that won’t be easy. Clearly the bill is going to be put through the ringer in the Senate, as it should, and it will likely undergo significant changes and modifications before and if it is enacted into law, but make no mistake, this was an important political step for Washington, D.C.,

Last week, Congress avoided a government shutdown by agreeing to a continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded for another week. Then over the weekend, US lawmakers agreed to a deal that will extend funding through September while Congress and the White House continue to negotiate longer-term fiscal policy priorities. The US House passed the budget deal Wednesday. But amidst Washington's annual kabuki theater dance around fiscal policy and possible government shutdowns, a litt