Unlike Washington, the California legislature has proved that cooperation is both possible and essential to successful policymaking, while stubborn absolutism will have you trailing head lice in popularity polls.
We're planting trees to break up the concrete jungle. We're building public transportation and affordable housing.
The infrastructure at Union Station is antiquated. High-speed is going to come in eventually. We need to upgrade that system. Every day the Metro comes in, the Amtrak comes in, and they idle their engines for hours, spewing poisonous toxins - all that crap - into the air.
Yes, we absolutely need to eliminate the single-use plastic bag, but we don't have to eliminate the jobs of hardworking Californians to accomplish this goal.
I think that many Californians have been accustomed to, have normalized, that being good sometimes is good enough.
California's university system is one of the premier higher education systems in the world, and we should require that non-resident students pay a premium to attend it. The revenue generated from these fees can be used to increase affordability and access for more Californians.
Police chiefs know a thing or two about public safety.
Clean air shouldn't be a privilege dictated by where you can afford to live but a right to which we are all entitled.
California will not become a cog in the Trump deportation machine.
We will not lift a single finger or spend a single cent to be a cog in the Trump deportation machine, and we won't be complicit in his effort to make American great again by reengineering the legal immigration system.
Drafting local police into Trump's immigration crackdown undermines public safety and is a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars.
When I was elected for the first time in '06 I'd never been elected to any body. City councils, school board, community college boards, trustee, water district trustee, class president, ASB president, senior class president - nothing. I was never elected to anything in my life.
I believe strongly that when you have political capital, you should use it in a manner that helps improve the human condition. You shouldn't just compile power and hold onto power for power's sake.
When people see the healthful impact this is having and all the hard hats constructing, their minds may change about high-speed rail.
I am not delusional. Listen, I am not naive to the fact that people are not shouting my name all over the state of California.
I don't believe the federal government should be snooping into American citizens' cell phones without a warrant issued by a federal judge. You cannot give the federal government extraordinary powers to eavesdrop without a warrant. It's simply un-American.
Equity and economic justice are now hardwired into all of our climate policies.
California lost its way in 1994 with Prop. 187, but that tragic episode gave birth to a new California consciousness - one that will now do everything within its power to protect our diversity and the economic power it has created.
Dependence on oil from volatile foreign markets undermines our economic security and threatens our national security. Moreover, that addiction is producing toxic air and a public-health epidemic.
Foreign relations should involve human rights, workers' rights, and environmental protection.
