Last year, California enacted a law requiring schools (public and private) that issue pupil identification cards to students in any of grades 7-12, inclusive, to print the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline telephone number on either side of the cards.  The measure, SB 972, authored by State Senator Anthony Portantino, won passage in both…

A strange thing happened – or, I should say, didn’t happen – to AB 218 on its way through the California State Assembly.  Bills deemed to impose non-negligible costs upon the state are generally heard before an Appropriations Committee in each house.  AB 218, a measure that would open a three-year window for…

It’s no secret that the California Teachers Association has no love for tax credit legislation. To illustrate the point, one need look no farther than AB 337, a bill authored by California Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer in 2015, that proposed a modest tax credit (to a maximum benefit of $250) for out-of-pocket expenses incurred…

During the course of the week leading to the California Legislature’s February 16 deadline for the introduction of proposed legislation for the current year, some 3,200 bills saw the light of day at the State Capitol.  We are still in the process of sifting through the…

Opponents of school choice appear committed to the application of the maxim, he who defines the terms wins the argument. Consider a recent letter to the Comptroller General of the United States, jointly signed by Senators Patty Murray (D. -WA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D. -RI), and Ron Wyden (D. -OR), in which the…