Just about two years ago, in May 2011, the US Supreme Court in Brown v. Plata 131 S.Ct. 1910 (2011) upheld what Justice Scalia called the “most radical court injunction in our nation’s history.” The injunction imposed by a special 3-Judge federal court in August 2009, required California to reduce its prison population by some 40,000 prisoners, … Continue reading »
Jerry Brown
The turn-around state? Does California have one of the finest prison systems in the nation?
As readers of this blog know, Gov. Jerry Brown of California has combined leadership on reducing California’s bloated prison population with relentless attacks on the courts whose orders have made that badly needed “realignment” political possible. Still even I was surprised by the air of unreality to the Governor’s dual press conference yesterday, backing up … Continue reading »
Exploring policies to promote local renewables
Last July, California Governor Jerry Brown held a conference, hosted by the Luskin Center at UCLA, to launch his initiative to achieve 12,000 megawatts of local renewable energy projects in California by 2020. Local renewables, often called distributed generation, are projects no larger than 20 megawatts located close to customer demand. Berkeley Law’s Center for … Continue reading »
Brown administration’s view of renewable energy in California by 2020
Governor Brown entered office in January with an ambitious agenda for renewable energy, calling for 20,000 megawatts from renewable sources by 2020, including 12,000 of localized or distributed generation and 8,000 from large-scale development. So how will this vision become a reality? UCLA and Berkeley Law gathered key leaders in California to discuss this issue at … Continue reading »
California’s new budget: Bad for revitalizing neighborhoods
California Governor Jerry Brown, apparently emerging from his time warp where Republicans weren’t completely radicalized against taxes and government,signed on to an all-cuts budget today, passed with majority numbers in the legislature. His failure to get any of the four Republican votes he had sought means no new taxes and a major victory for the … Continue reading »
Progress and peril in California’s prison crisis
Maria Lagos of the SF Chron provided an excellent year start summary and analysis of where things stand with California’s both chronic and acute prison crisis. Progress? Only 8,200 prisoners are sleeping in “non-traditional” quarters, like day rooms and gyms, down from 20,000 in 2006. But almost all of this improvement has come from shipping … Continue reading »