California
California’s Budget Deficit Is Not the Problem | Connecting California
California’s constitution is full of guarantees and formulas that ratchet up spending on favored programs, writes columnist Joe Mathews, even when revenues drop and the budget is out of balance. California Governor Gavin Newsom during a news conference on May 10, 2024. Courtesy of AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli.
You can tune out Gov. Newsom when he talks about the state’s big budget deficit. Ignore the pleas of Democrats who control the legislature, too. And turn the volume down when Sacramento lobbies complain about the proposed cuts.
California’s ballooning budget deficits, and the cuts to services they cause, are not a crisis. They are not really news. They are, sadly, normal and predictable.
And they are grounded not in budgeting mistakes—lapses of discipline in collecting revenue or controlling spending—but in our state constitution and in a reality so paradoxical it would make Kafka blush:
Our constitution requires the state to balance its budget. But balancing the state budget requires violating the state constitution.
How’s that? Because on fiscal matters, our constitution is effectively a ratchet. The document is full of guarantees and formulas, approved by voters, that ratchet up spending on favored programs, even when revenues drop and the state budget is out of balance.
Meanwhile, the constitution also has plenty of voter-approved limits on taxes and fees. These limits ratchet down revenues in slower economic times and make it harder for the state and local governments to raise revenues to cover budget increases.
Californians may have forgotten about the ratchet. The past decade was an unusual one for the state budget, as stock market growth and federal pandemic relief sent government revenues soaring and created surpluses.
But with those revenue sources gone or declining, California’s Kafkaesque constitution is reasserting itself and producing deficits projected recently to range anywhere from $27 billion to $70 billion.
That leaves Gov. Newsom stuck and left to do with the budget what all California governors must:
Violate the constitution.
First, he’s not offering a balanced budget. The spending delays, draw-downs on reserves, and cuts he’s proposing to state operations eliminate only about half of the deficit.
Second, to close the gap, he’s violating the state’s education funding guarantee, a voter-approved formula called Prop 98.
Our constitution requires the state to balance its budget. But balancing the state budget requires violating the state constitution.
Prop 98 is, famously, so complicated that no one really understands it. (It involves three complex formulas to determine state funding, and it’s never clear really clear which formula will apply in which year.) The main effect of Prop 98 is to keep pushing education spending up; it’s one of the biggest spending ratchets in our constitutional budget ratchet.
Newsom’s maneuver is a sneaky ploy to reduce Prop 98’s ratchet effect by changing the inputs to the formula. Newsom’s budget proposes to travel back in time and reclassify certain moneys spent on education in previous years as non-education spending.
This maneuver is intended to lower the funding base underneath the formulas—helping him “balance the budget” while allowing the ratchet to do its work.
The problem (besides the inherent ridiculousness of having to bend the law in this manner) is that the lower funding base would mean tens of billions less in school funding in future years.
Yes, my fellow Californians, “screw the kids” remains the real, if unofficial, state motto.
The powerful education lobby is crying foul, as are some Democrats and local governments. Newsom defends himself by saying he’s required to balance the budget.
The problem with this blame game—and demands that Newsom reverse the cuts—is that it defines the discussion as being about the budget. The real problem is California’s broken constitution.
Finding tens of billions of dollars in cuts for anything is hard. Health programs have all kinds of court-ordered, statutory, and, in some cases, constitutional protections. Cuts to prisons and state agencies require concessions from politically powerful labor unions. Tax increases run up against Prop 13 and other state revenue limits.
That doesn’t mean I’m trying to let Newsom, the Democratic supermajority in the legislature, and other powerful Sacramento interests off the hook for the state’s budget problems. It’s the exact opposite. The governor, Democrats, and interest groups are responsible for the budget mess—because they’ve had plenty of time to fix the constitution, and haven’t even tried.
Gavin Newsom has been in statewide office since 2011. California Democrats have had full control of Sacramento since that same year. And powerful unions and other lobbies have held sway for far longer than that.
All of these politicians and lobbies know very well that the California constitution is broken. They have long had the power to come together and give the state the new constitution it needs—without all the fiscal ratchets that drive up spending and limit revenues.
But they haven’t been willing to lead and change the system. They have focused instead on building their own power within this broken system. Jerry Brown and other California leaders have spent the past decades dismissing calls for a constitutional rewrite (including my own, via the book California Crackup) as unrealistic.
But state leaders are the ones who have lost touch with reality. They claim they can fix the budget, but they can’t because the constitution won’t let them. And they won’t fix the constitution because they say it’s politically impossible. How long can they keep saying this—and keep pretending they are doing their jobs?
When the governor and legislators say they are trying to solve the problem, they aren’t telling the truth. This miserable budget, full of cuts to education, is a product of the budget system, and the constitution, that they themselves have chosen.
California
Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’
We are counting down to the California governor’s race. Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, is one of the two biggest names running on the Republican ticket.
In a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News political reporter Josh Haskell, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, “I am the antithesis to California state government because I am going to take a nuclear bomb into that building and absolutely destroy everything that they do to us behind closed doors.”
Although he’s been elected by the voters twice, Bianco says he’s not a politician — which is why he believes his campaign for California governor is resonating, as reflected in the polls.
“President Trump, in one year, from 2025 when he took over, until now, did absolutely nothing to harm California. What’s harming California is 30 years of Democrat one-party rule that have created an environment here that no one can live in anymore. They’ve only been successful here in California because we vote D no matter what. You vote D or die. I mean, that’s it. Charles Manson would be elected in California if he was the only Democrat on the ballot,” Bianco said.
Bianco isn’t the only conservative Republican running for governor, and according to polling, he’s neck-and-neck with former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
SEE ALSO: CA governor candidate Steve Hilton says ‘everybody supports’ Trump’s immigration policies
Leading in some polls in the wide-open California Governor’s race as the June primary creeps closer is Republican and former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
“Steve has no chance of winning in November. The Democrats know that I’m going to win in November, and so they have to do everything they can to keep me out of that,” Bianco said.
When asked about the affordability crisis in the state, Bianco said, “Almost the entire issue of affordability in California is because of regulation, excessive regulation imposed by government. Every single regulation can be signed away with the governor’s signature.”
“It is a drug and alcohol addiction problem that, and a mental health problem,” he said about the homelessness crisis. “Every single bit of money that is going to these nonprofits that say ‘homeless,’ zero money. You’re getting absolutely nothing. I can’t tell you that we would end what we see in the homeless situation within a year, but I guarantee you we would never see it again after two years.”
When challenged on that prediction, pointing to how the state doesn’t have the facilities to treat the number of people living on our streets, Bianco responded, “We have been conditioned to believe that buildings take five years to build. It takes 90 days or less to build a house, but in California, it takes three to five years because the government won’t allow it. The regulations that are destroying this state are going to be removed with me as the governor.”
Bianco also said California jails shouldn’t have to play the role of treatment facilities.
Although he says he supports the Trump administration and wants the president’s endorsement, Bianco has been traveling the state — meeting not just with Republicans, but Democrats and independents as well. He says all of our state government officials have failed.
The primary election is June 2.
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A new poll shows there’s still no clear front-runner in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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California
PlayOn Sports fined $1.1 million by California watchdog over student data violations
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (FOX26) — California’s privacy watchdog has ordered PlayOn Sports to pay a $1.10 million fine and change how it handles consumer data after finding the company’s practices violated state law in ways that affected students and schools in the state.
The California Privacy Protection Agency Board issued the decision following a settlement reached by CalPrivacy’s Enforcement Division.
The decision is the first by the board to address privacy violations involving students and California schools.
Schools across the country use PlayOn Sports’ GoFan platform to sell digital tickets to high school sporting events, theater performances, and homecoming and prom dances, with attendees presenting tickets at the door on their mobile phones.
Schools also use PlayOn Sports’ platforms for other sports-related activities, including attending games, streaming them online, and looking up statistics about teams and players.
In California, about 1,400 schools contract with PlayOn Sports for these services.
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GoFan is also the official ticketing platform for the California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school sports.
According to the board’s decision, PlayOn Sports used tracking technologies to collect personal information and deliver targeted advertisements to ticketholders and others using its services.
The company allegedly required Californians to click “agree” to tracking technologies before they could use their tickets or view PlayOn Sports websites, without providing a sufficient opt-out option.
“Students trying to go to prom or a high school football game shouldn’t have to leave their privacy rights at the door,” said Michael Macko, CalPrivacy’s head of enforcement. “You couldn’t attend these events without showing your ticket, and you couldn’t show your ticket without being tracked for advertising. California’s privacy law does not work that way. Businesses must ensure they offer lawful ways for Californians to opt-out, particularly with captive audiences.”
The decision also describes students as a uniquely vulnerable population and warns that targeted advertising systems can subject students to profiling that can follow them for years, expose them to manipulative or harmful content, and develop sensitive inferences about their lives.
Instead of providing its own opt-out method, PlayOn Sports directed students and other users to opt out through the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance, which the decision said violated the company’s responsibility to provide its own way for consumers to opt out. The company also allegedly failed to recognize opt-out preference signals and did not provide Californians with sufficient notice of its privacy practices.
“We are committed to making it as easy as possible for all Californians — from high school students to older adults, and everyone in between — to make the choice of whether they want to be tracked or not,” said Tom Kemp, CalPrivacy’s executive director. “Californians can opt-out with covered businesses, and they can sign up for the newly launched DROP system to request that data brokers delete their personal information.”
Beyond the $1.10 million fine, the board’s order requires PlayOn Sports to conduct risk assessments, provide disclosures that are easy to read and understand, and implement proper opt-out methods.
The order also requires the company to comply with California’s privacy law prohibiting the selling or sharing of personal information of consumers between 13 and 16 without their affirmative opt-in consent.
California
California bill to bar police from taking second job with ICE advances in state Assembly
Wednesday, March 4, 2026 4:43AM
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KABC) — A bill that would prevent police officers from moonlighting with federal immigration enforcement agencies, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is advancing through the California State Assembly.
AB 1537 passed the State Assembly’s committee on public safety on Tuesday.
The bill also requires that officers report any offers for secondary employment related to immigration enforcement to their place of work.
Those failing to comply could face decertification as a peace officer in California.
The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, whose district includes Mar Vista, Ladera Heights, Mid-Wilshire and parts of South Los Angeles.
Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
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