Sacramento Bee

But it's not clear that IOUs are sufficient to force lawmakers to close a deal, said Joe Mathews, Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

It's no surprise that wellpoint and other stakeholders would want to take the pulse of the American public, said Jacob Hacker, a professor of political science and co-director for the Center for Health, Economic and Family Security at the University of ...

There is an encouraging – perhaps surprising – amount of agreement that health care in the United States must be reformed now. Key players in the debate, from Wal-Mart executives to labor union leaders, agree that reform should expand affordable health coverage to all, that no one should be denied insurance, and that government, employers and individuals should all share responsibility for funding health care.

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A constitutional convention has been proposed by some California business leaders as a vehicle to fix the Golden State's deeply entrenched political and economic woes. While a convention offers the hope of a new beginning, it also inspires understandable fear that hard won rights may get trampled in the horse-trading.

The state's leadership in recent years has hardly inspired confidence.

Why should we imagine that it could match the brilliance of James Madison, George Washington and the other Founders, and chart a new course for our state?

Newspapers won't die. They'll survive, along with local TV and radio news broadcasts, by publishing and showing content produced by others. Those old media brands still have value in a fragmented world. I live within walking distance of Hollywood, so forgive the metaphor: The publications and broadcasts will be like movie studios - marketers and distributors.

Journalists, the folks who make the movies ... er ... news, will work for content-production companies.

With the state government lurching from budget crisis to budget crisis, many frustrated Californians are thinking about what political reforms might make the state Legislature more functional.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger billed this year's State of the State speech as "untraditional." To be sure, evoking Conan's sword, as he did in his most memorable line, is quite original.

Evoking Reagan and Obama to start a political speech, however, is par for the political course. And there is no more conventional way to conclude an address than by praising state heroes who have fallen in the line of duty. The speech was also similar to other State of the State addresses that Arnold has delivered as Conan's pen wrote a speech that was relatively Democratic.

Such groups as the New America Foundation's California branch and the Bay Area Council, a consortium of corporate executives, are more aggressive than ...

Nearly 100 years ago, California Progressives, in their search for a way to beat political machines, seized upon Switzerland's system of direct democracy and added the initiative, the referendum and the recall to the state constitution.