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    Outside the Beltway: Head Start Fraud

    Head Start, which provides child development services primarily to low-income families and their children, is one of the few popular programs that came out of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. But following up on hotline tips alleging fraud and abuse, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) began an undercover investigation of … More

    One Nation Under Arrest: Criminalizing Unsatisfactory Hedge Pruning

    How should a city treat one of its long-time, law-abiding citizens if her mature, decades-old hedges offend aggressive new standards set by city bureaucrats? What if this citizen is a 61-year-old grandmother fighting breast cancer? The answer the City of Palo Alto, California, provided to these questions was to send … More

    A Victory for the Rule of Law

    Do you remember Anna Nicole Smith? The Playboy model died from a drug overdose back in 2007, but the litigation over her late husband J. Howard Marshall’s estate lived on. After forum shopping for a friendly venue and multiple appeals that went all the way to the United States Supreme … More

    Outside the Beltway: What Country is California in Again?

    < Do American citizens have the right to express pride in their country by wearing the American flag public? Not in California they don’t. KNTV reports: On any other day at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Daniel Galli and his four friends would not even be noticed for … More

    Outside the Beltway: The Day the Happy Meal Died

    There might be 14,000 things to be happy about, but there is one less reason in Santa Clara County, California: the government there voted to ban toys in Happy Meals. Toys that come in those delightfully colored boxes filled cheeseburgers and fries that have brought joy to millions of children … More

    It’s Time to Terminate California’s Cap and Trade System

    California legislators passed a statewide cap and trade bill in 2006 that is set to begin in 2012, but a growing opposition is seeking to include a ballot measure that would postpone a carbon cap until the state’s economy recovers: “The ballot measure would bar the state from implementing the … More

    Solar Investments: Stimulating the Economy or Reshaping It?

    So much for shovel-ready. In February of 2009 President Obama signed the $862 billion stimulus bill into law and of that; $36.7 billion was allocated to the Department of Energy. More specifically, $16.7 billion is geared towards increasing the production of renewable energy and improving energy efficiency in buildings and … More

    Nothing Jolly About California’s Giant Green Economy

    The state of California likes to sell itself as a leader in the transition to a green economy. The only problem is, their policies are making that transition harder—and they’re not producing the job boom that politicians have been promising. The California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) recently reviewed the impact … More

    Same-Sex Marriage and a Level-Playing Field for Religious Argument

    Last week, the evidentiary phase of the trial in Perry v. Schwarzenegger came to an end. Perry is the federal court lawsuit in California that claims, in effect, that the U.S. Constitution contains a right to same-sex marriage. Specifically, the lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the November 2008 … More

    Subsidizing the Golden and Sunshine States

    In the February 1, 2010 edition of StateNet Capitol Journal, Lou Cannon notes that “only 12% of Californians with homeowners insurance also have quake insurance” as offered by the California Earthquake Authority. Cannon cites premiums costing “several hundred dollars a year and the deductible is 15 percent of the home’s … More