As law enforcement leaders, we know that these discriminatory practices betray fundamental values of policing, including courtesy, respect, and authentic service. They undermine public trust in policing as an institution, making us all less safe. Yet Antioch is not an outlier. 

And that is why it is critically important that California pass Senate Bill 50, a bill that will ban discriminatory traffic stops that fail to make California roads safer. If passed, officers will not be allowed to conduct certain stops that drive racial disparities, including pretext stops and stops for specific minor traffic offenses, such as having a brake light out or expired registrationtinted windows. Instead, tickets would be issued through license plate numbers when deemed necessary. Passing it is a critical first step to root out the racially discriminatory practices the Antioch texts so explicitly revealed, and make our roads safer.

After all, some officers stop drivers not because they are driving unsafely but to randomly search their car. Pretext stops, for example, are used by officers to justify pulling drivers over for traffic violations when they are actually motivated by a hunch or bias. Frequently, officers conduct these non-safety related traffic stops using things like a broken tail light as pretext, allowing officers to question the driver and try to obtain probable cause or consent to search the vehicle. This practice drives racial disparities; in San Francisco police were 10.5 times more likely to use a pretext stop to pull over Black drivers than white drivers. 

As a recent report by Center by Policing Equity shows, it is a dangerous and ineffective practice that not only fuels racial bias but also ensnares innocent drivers and diverts traffic enforcement resources away from effective public safety strategies.

In California, traffic stops are a key driver of racial disparities in both the likelihood of someone being stopped and the likelihood of a search and or use of force during that stop. A 2021 study uncovered another alarming pattern: During stops, officers spoke to Black men in a less respectful and less friendly tone than they did to white men. At the same time, officers do not find guns, drugs, or any evidence that a crime has been committed in an overwhelming majority of these pretext stops. Additionally, Black drivers are more likely to be subjected to intrusive searches, despite the fact that contraband discovery rates are higher among white drivers. These frightening and humiliating experiences poison the well of police-community trust that many of us in law enforcement have spent years trying to protect.

Rooting out the racism exposed by police officers’ texts in Antioch will not come easily, but we as law enforcement leaders can start by unequivocally condemning bigotry and taking concrete steps to protect the public from discrimination.

SB 50 offers an opportunity to build trust, conserve police resources, and enact policies and training that are based on empirical research. Moreover, it strikes a careful balance between the use of sound enforcement tools and respect for Californians’ constitutional and civil rights. 

Diane Goldstein is a 21-year veteran of law enforcement who served as the first female lieutenant for the Redondo Beach (CA) Police Department. She is the Executive Director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, a group of criminal justice professionals that work advancing justice and public safety solutions.

Chris Burbank was with the Salt Lake City Police Department for 25 years, spending nine years as Chief of Police. He served as Vice President of the Major Cities Chiefs, and President of the FBI National Executive Institute Associates. He is currently at the Center for Policing Equity.

It’s the ever-increasing conflict between the state government’s current and projected tax revenues, which are drifting downwards, and the demands for billions of additional dollars for vital services, such as health care, homelessness and mass transit.

In January, when Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled his initial budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year that begins July 1, he projected a $22.5 billion deficit – just a few months after boasting the state had a $97 billion surplus. This month, in a revised budget, he said the deficit had grown to $31.5 billion.

As worrisome as those numbers appear, they might be a best case scenario, according to the Legislature’s budget analyst, Gabe Petek.

“Based on our assessment, there is a roughly two‑thirds chance revenues will come in below May Revision estimates,” Petek said. “As such, while we consider the May revision revenues plausible, adopting them would present considerable downside risk.”

Moreover, Petek said that using the Newsom administration’s own projections and assumptions, “the budget condition would worsen in future years” with annual operating deficits of around $15 billion in the following two years, and hinted that the real shortfalls in the final years of Newsom’s governorship could be larger.

These estimates of a chronic and perhaps widening gap between income and outgo also assume that the state’s economy won’t be clobbered by recession.

Many economists believe that the Federal Reserve System’s increasing interest rates, meant to slow the economy and battle inflation, could trigger a recession within the next year. If it occurred, Newsom’s budget says, “revenues could decrease by $40 billion in 2023-24 alone, largely driven by losses in personal income tax,” adding that “revenue declines relative to the May Revision forecast could reach an additional $100 billion through 2026-27.”

While the state has amassed more than $30 billion in reserves to cushion the impact of recession, an even moderate economic downturn would quickly consume them, drowning the budget in red ink as the Great Recession did.

To summarize: California’s budget faces several years, at least, of budget difficulty. But the demand side of the fiscal ledger is not shrinking.

After the January budget was released, advocates for programs, particularly health care and social services, cranked up pressure on legislators to protect their slices of the pie. That pressure is even more intense with the May revision’s deficit increase.

They have been joined by three other major stakeholders seeking multi-billion-dollar increases in state aid: hospitals, transit systems and cities on the front lines of the state’s worst-in-the-nation homelessness crisis.

Hospital and transit system officials say they have been unable to fully recover from the impacts of COVD-19 on their patronage and finances and may be forced to shut down or at least reduce services. Mayors of the state’s largest cities say they need an additional $2 billion per year to maintain ongoing efforts to house those on the streets.

There’s little question that advocates for existing and new state financing would prefer that Newsom and the Legislature tap into reserves and/or raise taxes to satisfy their demands. In fact, the state Senate’s budget framework proposes a hike in corporate income taxes, although Newsom has rejected it.

Were California’s budget squeeze to continue or grow tighter, as seems likely, the remainder of Newsom’s governorship would be dominated by the difficult task of resolving it.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.

But bad news for young job seekers is stewing. Some politicians in Washington are attempting to pass a policy that would severely compromise teenage employment opportunities.

Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) unveiled a plan that would more than double the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour. The move would broadly shrink the pool of available jobs—either forcing businesses to consolidate positions, scale down operations, or encourage automation. And in this environment, younger American workers would be the first to get the boot.

When faced with the decision to fill an open position that is required by law to pay a higher minimum wage, employers are more likely to choose a more skilled job candidate, rather than take a chance on a high school student with little experience.

The extra hurdle to locking down employment as a teenager would set off a domino effect—having implications well beyond not being able to find near term work as a lifeguard, restaurant worker, or retail associate. Teenage jobs are the first rung on the career ladder, and without that experience, it can be much more challenging to ascend to higher paying positions in the future.

Because some states are already implementing higher wage floors, a natural experiment has unfolded that reveals the connection. According to a recent analysis from the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), there is a clear correlation between state minimum wage levels and the teenage unemployment rate. As government mandated wage floors rise, so does the rate of teenage joblessness.

When comparing minimum wage levels between the 10 states with the worst teen unemployment rates to those with the best, the former group has a significantly higher average minimum wage level. More specifically, states with the top ten highest teenage jobless rates have an average minimum wage of $12.78 per hour, while states with a healthier teenage job market have an average government-mandated wage floor that’s roughly 38 percent lower.

Washington, D.C. provides the most jarring example. With the highest minimum wage in the country, the city’s young workers grapple with an unemployment rate of nearly 35 percent. Meanwhile, California has a rolling 12-month average teen unemployment rate of 11.6 percent—a reading that’s above the national average.

Experts confirm what the statistics suggest.

A 2022 survey found that three-quarters of labor economists agree a $15 minimum wage would have a negative effect on teen employment. With Sen. Sanders’ $17 proposal, the negative impact predicted by economists would likely be even more dramatic.

Other academic research points in the same direction.

Summer jobs provide young Americans with the opportunity to gain valuable work experience that will act as a building block for a future career. Given that state employment statistics and economists agree that higher minimum wages will have an outsized negative impact on youth employment opportunities, Sen. Sanders should rethink his proposal.

After all, to get a good job, everyone needs a first job.

Elaine Parker is the President of the Job Creators Network Foundation.

But does good news from the desert mean hope is on the horizon? Does a Phoenix judge’s evisceration of liberal-run cities’ failure to adequately address homelessness show a path forward for California? 

Like their counterparts in California, residents and business owners in downtown Phoenix’s homeless “Zone” have dealt with unimaginable hardships as one of the nation’s largest homeless encampments continues to expand. Murder, rape, arson, theft, public drug use, and prostitution are common occurrences. It’s not fair to business owners who have found dead bodies on their property and been forced to seal their windows and doors to keep out urine and feces. Nor is it fair to the homeless themselves, who face a hazardous environment riddled with violent crime and human waste.

Meanwhile, city leaders have handled the crisis the same way as officials in California: with uncontrollable spending and with big talk. The result: criminals roam free because city officials won’t enforce the law, and the crisis spirals. 

After a group of property and business owners sued the city of Phoenix over its failure to protect their rights, Judge Scott Blaney issued a preliminary ruling blaming the city for maintaining The Zone and ordering officials to clean up the encampment. Notably, the ruling dismantled the city’s excuse for failing to act—that a 2019 Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision in Martin v. City of Boise prohibits cities from enforcing anti-public camping laws against “involuntarily homeless” people. 

California leaders—and officials in other West Coast cities under the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction—have used that very same excuse. But enforcing the law is not the same thing as criminalizing homelessness, which under the Martin ruling violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. And many homeless people choose to live in encampments where they can continue using drugs or drinking alcohol rather than go to a shelter. 

City governments owe their citizens a duty to ensure crimes like murder, assault, and public urination, defecation, and drug use don’t go unchecked. In fact, the Martin ruling does not “preclude municipalities from abating a nuisance, arresting violent offenders, enforcing the laws against drugs and violence, or enforcing laws against biohazards and pollution of public waters, etc.,” Blaney wrote in his ruling. 

The ruling provides hope not just for Phoenix, but for cities in California and other states too. For too long, liberal leaders have used the Martin ruling as an excuse to allow rampant crime and homelessness to take over neighborhoods. But no longer.

California cities can no longer claim that their hands are tied and that law-abiding citizens are on their own. They have no obligation to allow their communities to be overrun by illegal activity. Rather, leaders have an obligation to enforce the law and protect the rights of every individual they were elected to represent. 

The Phoenix court ruling sends a message to all West Coast cities that have failed to address the growing homelessness crisis: no more excuses. It’s time to take our cities and streets back. 

Austin VanDerHeyden is the Municipal Affairs Liaison at the Goldwater Institute, which has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of business and property owners suing the city of Phoenix for maintaining The Zone.

The RDAs were bleeding the state during a budget crisis similar to today’s.

Created to address urban decay, redevelopment agencies became cash cows for developers, big box retailers and car dealers shaking cities down for public money. Through eminent domain, homes and small businesses were seized and demolished, the land given to favored developers. Rather than reviving depressed urban areas, RDAs assembled raw land for malls and auto centers.

By the early 2000s, there were over 300 redevelopment agencies operating in California, administered by city governments. They were meant to last 45 years, then shut down after the blight was cured, but they kept extending and expanding. The “blight fight” scam would never end.

Redevelopment abuses created a bipartisan coalition of teacher unions, property rights defenders and neighborhood preservationists. In 2006, I moderated a conference including Congressmembers Tom McClintock and Maxine Waters, one libertarian-conservative, the other progressive-liberal, but both united in opposition to eminent domain abuse. McClintock is strong on property rights and Waters knew eminent domain targeted poor minority communities for displacement.

By 2010, the public financial burden was unsustainable. Over 12% of property taxes statewide were being diverted to redevelopment coffers. In 2011, under pressure from Gov. Brown, the Legislature in which I then served abolished redevelopment agencies, ordered cities to pay off their debts, sell surplus property and restore lost property taxes to school districts and counties.

Since then, legislative attempts have been made to revive watered-down forms of redevelopment: Cities may now create an EIFD (Enhanced Infrastructure Finance District) or a CRIA (Community Revitalization and Investment Authority), but neither can divert school funding nor use eminent domain.

Assembly Bill 1476 by David Alvarez, D-Chula Vista, would restore all the previous powers of redevelopment, including past abuses such as:

Blight makes right: Redevelopment was aimed at curing “urban blight” but definitions of blight were so vague that anything qualified. Everything from farmland to historic downtowns were deemed “blighted” for redevelopment purposes. By 2010, fully 30% of all urban land in California had been declared blighted, including in affluent cities like Yorba Linda, Arcadia and Claremont.

Fiscal waste: In redevelopment areas, all increases in property tax revenue are taken by the agency. Since schools rely heavily on local property taxes, they were the biggest losers in RDA money grabs. County governments and special districts lost, too. To backfill revenue lost to school districts, the state took money from cities to make up for revenue cities (through their RDAs) took from schools. This jury-rigged fiscal merry-go-round proved unsustainable by the early 2000s, when redevelopment was abolished completely and full funding restored to education.

Sales tax shell game: Cities used redevelopment to heavily subsidize new retail development, trying to capture more sales tax (1% of gross sales) for their general fund. Big box retailers, movie multiplexes, auto centers and malls were built with land write-downs, cash grants and tax rebates. With the over-building of retail and rising internet sales, California’s landscape became littered with empty auto dealers, dying malls, struggling strip centers and empty theaters. Fiscalization of land use led to a surplus of empty stores and a shortage of housing.

Corporate welfare: Billions in property taxes were spent chasing giant retailers, even as overall on-site sales declined. Heavily subsidized Costcos and Walmarts proliferated at the expense of traditional supermarkets.

Debt: RDA bonded indebtedness topped $81 billion, with over 20% of revenues being spent on interest. Redevelopment was a cash cow for Wall Street bond brokers, who are now pushing to bring it back.

Californians concerned with funding schools, fair play, free enterprise and fiscal responsibility should oppose AB 1476 and any other attempts to revive redevelopment agencies.

Chris Norby is a former Orange County lawmaker. He is the author of the ““Redevelopment: The Unknown Government,” published and updated between 1995 and 2011. 

While I appreciate some of Rep. Adam Schiff’s accomplishments, I never felt comfortable  voting for an incumbent who has voted for every war effort since the early 2000s, including the Iraq War, Afghanistan War and the Saudi invasion of Yemen. I also found it extremely troubling that Schiff authored several pieces of legislation to increase incarceration among juveniles during his tenure as a California state senator.

To be anti-Trump does not necessarily imply one is a progressive or leftist. If there is any district in the United States to elect a real progressive who rejects corporate influence money and puts people first, it’s CA-30.

I entered this race to fight for universal healthcare, housing for all, education for all, environmental justice and LGBTQIA+ rights — all of which I have been impacted by. I’ve personally struggled to afford healthcare, housing and education. I recognize that this is more than common in CA-30 and the rest of the nation. Focusing on economic equity should be a priority for every representative right now, but legislatures across the U.S. are caught up in the distraction of culture wars while folks are struggling with food and rent. Our district deserves a representative with lived experience as a working-class person to represent the real needs of working-class people.

I am the best candidate to replace Adam Schiff because I know and understand the needs of the everyday people who live and work here. I’m entering my third term as an elected official for the city of Los Angeles, serving on the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council since 2019 as an at-large representative and treasurer. If elected to Congress, I plan to lead with a bottom-up approach from neighborhood to nation with intent to make a substantive impact on my neighbors in the district.

During my tenure on the SLNC, I cofounded the Silver Lake Community Fridge, voted for and processed Neighborhood Purpose Grants for the Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic as well as grocery cards for low-income families at all elementary schools in Silver Lake, volunteered for hot meal and produce box distribution, advocated for humanely alleviating homelessness via permanent supportive housing and services, and successfully lobbied the city to require DEI and anti-bias training for all city employees and neighborhood councils.

Many believed our small, grassroots campaign would never come close to unseating Adam Schiff with his $15 million war chest and 22-year incumbency, but we came close in 2022, finishing second out of nine candidates with over 60,000 votes in the general election, despite being outspent over 500-to-1. Spending less than 50¢ per vote is unheard of in a federal election, but it speaks to how voters in this district are more concerned with a candidate’s values than how much money they raise.

I became the first trans non-binary person to ever advance to a general election for a seat in Congress. While I try to avoid identity politics, the hundreds of anti-LGBTQIA+ bills our legislatures requires at least one trans person to be a voice for trans equity in Congress.

We can make this a better world for all of us, but it requires new, 21st-century approaches and leadership that represent the voices of the people, not corporations. Voting for the same kind of corporate-funded, establishment candidates that brought us to where we are today will not result in the improved quality of life we all seek for ourselves, our families and our neighbors.

I hope you’ll look into my intersectional, humanitarian platform of economic equity and human rights when choosing who to vote for in 2024.

Maebe A. Girl is running for California’s 30th District congressional seat.

The bad news is some legislators believe tax increases should be the preferred alternative when revenues slow down.

We disagree.

The California Senate released a budget plan earlier this month that proposes a $7 billion business tax increase to maintain state budget spending for education, safety net services, and public safety programs. While we may agree with some of the spending priorities announced by the Senate, we do not believe now is the time for a multibillion-dollar tax increase on our community’s economic engines.

The Senate proposal would subject certain businesses to a 10.99% corporate income tax — the second-highest rate in the nation. High corporate tax rates put California companies at a tremendous competitive disadvantage. The 49 other states would benefit from California’s decision to make itself less attractive to employers.

A thriving economy is the best source of revenue for important government programs. However, chasing jobs away would hurt the state’s bottom line rather than helping working class families. The United States recognized its corporate tax rates were among the highest in the developed world, outpacing rates in the European Union and elsewhere.

California is competing globally to attract and retain investment and employers. Increasing the corporate tax rate when the rest of the world is reducing rates is counterproductive. It fails to recognize this trend in taxation, putting California out of step with the economies that are looking to lure California investors and jobs.

A 2021 study by the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation found the corporate tax falls predominately on labor and that for every increase in the corporate tax rate, retail prices are increased. A tax increase on business impacts individuals through less economic growth, lower wages, higher prices, fewer jobs, and decreased returns in retirement accounts.

These taxes would be detrimental to California as the state fights off the prospects of an economic downturn. Voters in 2014 approved a constitutionally protected rainy-day reserve to backstop the state budget. During good times, the Legislature and the governor deposited more than $30 billion in the rainy-day reserve. One of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s strategies to address the revenue slowdown is to stop adding to the rainy-day reserves. Even while proposing a $7 billion tax increase, the Senate plan proposes adding another billion dollars to reserves.

California is an expensive place to do business, between the high cost of living, taxes and regulatory climate. We also enjoy great benefits with a skilled and educated workforce, unmatched innovation and access to global markets. However, we should not take lightly the competitive environment our companies must operate in; further undermining of our investment climate will inevitably damage prospects for job growth and economic stability.

Increasing taxes will send the wrong signals to job creators and investors in the state’s economy. Now is not the time to test California’s ability to withstand the impact of an economic downturn or a recession by placing our economic success at risk.

Blanca Rubio represents the 48th Assembly District. Paul Granillo is president and CEO of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership.

But the laugh’s on us.

At the risk of branding myself terminally unhip, something I made peace with eons ago, I think it’s time we had a serious conversation about getting high.

A new report from Quest Diagnostics shows pot use by American workers has skyrocketed. Last year, employees testing positive for pot after an on-the-job accident rose to 7.3%, the highest (if you’ll forgive the term) it’s been in 25 years. This shouldn’t come as a surprise.

With two-thirds of the states having legalized recreational pot, whatever stigma was attached to toking up has gone up in a puff of bong smoke. That pot remains in the bloodstream for days, even weeks, also explains the rise noted by Quest, so the uptick doesn’t necessarily mean more people are showing up for work high, but life experience tells me they are.

I live a sheltered life, meaning nobody invites me to do anything. Therefore, my everyday experiences with people other than The Wife, the wobbly old men I play softball with and the two cats who live in our house, is limited. Still, it’s hard not to suspect many of the folks working cash registers at gas station convenience stores and possibly brain surgeons, airline pilots and newspaper columnists as well are high as the Matterhorn while on the clock. With employers desperate for employees, more companies are dropping drug testing and/or any prohibition on recreational pot use.

The truth is the American people have decided they want pot to be legal, which is fine by me. I don’t believe in imposing prohibitions on a free people. However, if we are going to live in a country immersed in pot smoke, we should be prepared for the predictable consequences.

I’ll spare you the studies linking pot use to other more deadly drugs since that argument fell on deaf ears around the time Cheech and Chong became box office gold. That it happens to be true doesn’t seem to matter. Is there a direct link to 50,000 annual deaths from opioids and fentanyl? To homelessness? To the horrifying increase in psychosis among young people?

We’re never going back to the “Reefer Madness” days of cops filling prisons with stoners. But we need to ask ourselves what compels so many people in turn to drugs and alcohol to get through their day? After 50 years of “This is your brain on drugs,” “Just say no” and countless other well-meaning but ineffectual anti-drug abuse campaigns, we appear to have simply surrendered.

A few years back, former NYPD and LAPD Chief Bill Bratton snatched a joint out of a teenage girl’s mouth at 8 a.m., telling her, “Not before school, not on a public street.” Walk down any street in New York today (and in many California neighborhoods) and the scent of pot hangs over the city like gunpowder in Chicago. Nobody thinks a kid drinking a tallboy out of a paper bag at 8 a.m. is cool. It’s a cry for help. So is smoking pot. I told you I’m not hip.

As a recovering addict myself, I am the last person to blame the victim. But we all have choices to make, including how badly we need a laugh or a second chorus to our new song.

Doug McIntyre can be reached at: Doug@DougMcIntyre.com. His novel “Frank’s Shadow” will be in stores July 18. 

For months, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his GOP allies have demanded spending cuts in exchange for voting to raise the federal debt ceiling. Biden and congressional Democrats have refused to acquiesce, citing the bipartisan tradition of lifting the country’s borrowing limit without preconditions.

To be sure, Biden’s argument prevails in a vacuum: both parties accrue debt, and thus are equally responsible for ensuring the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. It is regrettable – and dangerous – that House Republicans are using the debt ceiling as a political football, and there is merit to Biden’s claim that McCarthy is “holding the economy hostage.”

That being said, with just days until default, it is simply not feasible for Biden – whose approval rating hit a record-low just after he announced his reelection campaign – to continue digging his heels in. Not only is striking a deal to reduce spending good politics, as most voters actually support many of the House GOP’s proposals; it also makes practical sense, given how high both inflation and interest rates currently are, and the fact that the U.S. is over $31 trillion in debt.

This showdown comes at a time when half (48%) of the country has “almost no confidence” in Biden on the economy, per a Gallup survey, and the majority (60%) also believe the federal government spends too much money, according to AP-NORC polling.

Accordingly, the electorate supports several of the budget cuts Republicans have proposed, as well as McCarthy’s plan to roll these policies into one bill in exchange for raising the debt limit, per the April 2023 Harvard CAPS Harris poll. In addition, nearly two-thirds (64%) of registered voters believe Republicans should hold out until Democrats agree to spending restraints.

Evidently, Biden recognizes that he doesn’t have the upper hand in this fight. This week, he designated top aides to negotiate with their GOP counterparts while he attends the G-7 Summit in Japan, which he will return from prematurely to continue talks. This is a step in the right direction, though there is still much to be done before the June 1 deadline.

Biden is no stranger to debt ceiling deal making. In 2011, then-Vice President Biden played an active role in negotiating $2.4 trillion in spending cuts with Tea Party House Republicans in exchange for raising the country’s borrowing limit. In 1995, then-Senator Biden advocated for a deal that would lift the debt ceiling and restrain federal spending, while still protecting vital social programs. Biden will need to strike a similar compromise in the next two weeks, despite facing pressure from the progressive left to reject all of the House GOP’s proposals.

Biden has already indicated an openness toward rescinding billions of dollars in unspent pandemic relief funds, which most registered voters (65%) support, per the aforementioned Harvard CAPS Harris poll. Additional GOP proposals that also have majority support are strengthening certain work requirements for recipients of some federal assistance programs (62%) and freezing U.S. government spending at last year’s level (61%).

Most importantly, Biden must come out in support of capping federal spending – which is the big-ticket item in the House GOP proposal – and back away from his initial plan to increase discretionary spending by nearly 10% in 2024.

Work requirements will likely prove to be the most difficult piece of the deal for Biden to hammer out, which McCarthy has indicated are a ‘must’ for any deal, though progressives have deemed “entirely unreasonable.” On Wednesday, Biden took the smart approach by leaving the door open to expanding requirements, with the exception of those programs related to health care, i.e., Medicaid.

These House GOP proposals are not unprecedented, nor as draconian as some on the left have suggested. When I advised former President Bill Clinton, we worked with Republicans in Congress to pass bipartisan welfare reform that required recipients to begin working after two years of receiving benefits, among other measures. We also reduced government spending, decreased the debt and deficit, and achieved a balanced budget. Clinton left office with an approval rating of 65%, per Gallup, higher than that of every other departing president since Harry Truman.

Beyond the politics of the debt ceiling debate, it is self-evident that a default would be completely catastrophic for the U.S. and world economy. If a deal isn’t reached in time, the consequences could include a worldwide recession, frozen credit markets, tanking stock markets, and massive layoffs, according to an October 2021 report from the White House Council of Economic Advisors.

In 2011, when House Republicans pulled a similar maneuver, a prolonged impasse over raising the debt limit led to the first ever credit rating downgrade for the U.S. government, even though an agreement was ultimately reached at the eleventh hour.

The current stalemate is already producing real economic consequences: according to Bloomberg, the cost of insuring against a U.S. default is now higher than in emerging markets, such as Brazil and Mexico.

Clearly, there are no winners in this debt ceiling deadlock – not Democrats, not Republicans and certainly not Americans. But if a deal isn’t reached in time, even if McCarthy and his GOP allies are to blame, President Biden will be the biggest loser.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Five days later, in one of his last acts as governor, Davis signed Senate Bill 796, the Private Attorneys General Act, or PAGA, a unique-to-California law empowering workers to file class-action lawsuits against their employers, alleging violations of state laws governing working conditions.

Davis’ signature gave unions and personal injury attorneys a long-sought victory in their quest to gain the upper hand in employment disputes by supercharging what they contended was lackadaisical enforcement of labor laws by the state Labor Commissioner’s Office.

It was also Davis’ way of thanking unions and trial attorneys for standing by him during his two campaigns for governor and the recall election.

Business groups, of course, were and remain steadfastly opposed to PAGA, contending that it gives rapacious lawyers a hunting license to hector employers with suits or the threat of suits that are expensive to defend and even more costly to lose.

In the two decades since PAGA was created, there have been two parallel efforts by the contending forces. Unions and attorneys have sought to increase PAGA’s reach while employers have sought to undo what the Legislature and Davis had wrought.

In 2018, the state Supreme Court indirectly expanded PAGA’s potential impact by greatly restricting employers’ classification of workers as independent contractors exempt from state labor laws.

The Legislature then codified the decision a year later with Assembly Bill 5, converting millions of contractors into payroll employees, and ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft responded by persuading voters in 2020 to exempt them from the new classification law.

The battle continued last year, when the Legislature passed and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills to expand PAGA’s potential scope, one authorizing workers to essentially refuse to work if they believe conditions are unsafe, and a second requiring employers to disclose wage scales for current and potential employees.

As those laws were being drafted, however, California employers scored a partial win in the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that workers who had signed pre-employment agreements to arbitrate disputes with their employers could not use PAGA to pursue their claims.

These skirmishes have set the stage for two more PAGA battles, one in the state Supreme Court this year and one at the ballot box next year.

The state’s Supreme Court this month heard oral arguments in the case of an Uber Eats delivery driver who filed a PAGA suit alleging that he was unlawfully denied reimbursement for his expenses. In their questions to lawyers, the justices seemed to agree that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on arbitration did not preclude the driver from using PAGA.

Employers allege that PAGA has been a vehicle for lawyers to claim millions of dollars in fees while doing little to help workers settle legitimate grievances. However, even were the initiative to gain voter approval and PAGA to vanish, the long-running conflict over the relative powers of workers and employers would continue.

Given that lawyers and unions often have more clout in the Capitol than employers, one can be certain that ballot measure passage would generate a new flurry of legislation.

The stakes for the combatants are just too large to be ignored.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.