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When Gavin Newsom took office as governor in January 2019, he inherited a budget signed into law the previous June by Jerry Brown that had $138 billion in general-fund tax revenue. Brown deposited $4.4 billion of that into California’s Rainy Day Fund — money set aside in good years to cover the state in bad ones.

Earlier today, we delivered the following letter signed by 598 members of the GFC Network to to Governor Newsom. He has until September 30 to sign or veto the bill.

Only a tiny number of Californians know about a 1991 boneheaded budget maneuver by Gov. Pete Wilson, but every Californian since then has suffered $500 billion in consequences, with more pain to come unless changes are made.

No election this fall is more important than the contest for Insurance Commissioner. That’s because virtually every family, business, and non-profit depends to some extent upon the availability of affordable insurance, but affordable insurance is hard to find in California.

Dear Assembly Member McKinnor, Senator Grayson and other sponsors of Assembly Bill 1383, which proposes to enhance pension benefits for certain public employees:

One of the beneficiaries of AB 1383 has written you in opposition to my proposal to hold taxpayers harmless from unfunded liabilities arising from the pension enhancements provided by your bill. However, his letter makes a factual error and omits a material fact.

Three critical seats on the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Board are up for grabs this fall. Whether or not you have a child in SFUSD, you should care about who wins.

Before the 2008 housing crash, some deceptive mortgage lenders lured borrowers into unaffordable mortgages by offering artificially low initial “teaser” interest rates without disclosing the consequences when the artificial caps were removed. Some California state legislators have taken a page from that deceptive book.

Dear Assembly Members McKinnor, Addis, Ahrens, Alanis, Ávila Farías, Boerner, Calderon, Castillo, Chen, Connolly, Flora, Hoover, Krell, Nguyen, Ortega, Pacheco, Patel, Patterson, Ramos, Ransom, Sharp-Collins, and Solache and Senators Cortese, Gonzalez, Grayson, and Pérez:

Earlier today, every state legislator received the following letter signed by 400 members of the GFC Network. Votes are expected before August 31.

On a recent public radio show about California’s budget, one participant challenged my use of the phrase “legal corruption” to describe campaign contributions made to elected officials by recipients of government funding.