As noted in CAIVN's Public Safety and Prison Reform forum, "the per-prisoner cost of California prisons is in the range of $50,000 per year, significantly higher than in other states," and the main reasons are, "Extraordinarily high medical costs driven by an aging inmate population, the remote locations of most facilities, and the relatively high cost of health care in California."

While the nation has been focused on healthcare and jobs, 2010 has already witnessed a significant spike in the number of injuries and deaths for US troops fighting in Afghanistan.  Compared to the first three months of 2009, the number of US troops killed has approximately doubled, while the number of injured US troops has more than tripled over the same period.

Along with the rising tide of amateur budgetary solutions recently percolating in California’s ballot initiative process, the occasional piece of legislation with truly drastic implications will often manage to work up enough signatures to be proposed, and this election cycle is no exception.

After months of some lawmakers making questionable statements about what health insurance reform meant for our nation's seniors - death panels, killing Medicare, etc. - a report that received virtually no attention found that seniors are actually the big winners from national health insurance reform. 

Of course, no American would know this as the media was and still is more interested in propping up the tea party movement and reporting on the politics of reform as opposed to informing the public of the actual content in health insurance reform itself.

 “Together we will bring California’s economy roaring back out of this recession.” – Governor Schwarzenegger, weekly radio address, March 26.

In light of overwhelming public disapproval, the California Department of Agriculture has announced it will not consider the aerial spraying of pesticides over Bay Area counties as an option to control the population of the light brown apple moth (LBAM) at this time. The agency will focus instead on a “ground spraying” campaign and placing pheromone laced “twist ties” on public and private lands. Opponents of California's war on the apple moth aren't exactly cheering the news.

In all likelihood, California could be the very first state in the union to legalize the recreational use of marijuana this November.  After legalization activists submitted nearly 700,000 signatures for a proposition to legalize marijuana, California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified a ballot initiative earlier this week to legalize the cultivation, possession, and sale of marijuana in the state of California for recreational purposes.

This month there has been little good news for the California public school system.  On March 4, California got word that the state’s bid for a piece of over $4 billion of the federal stimulus dollars available to improve education for the poorest students, the program known as Race to the Top, was denied.  Instead, fifteen states including New York, Pennsylvania and Louisiana as well as the District of Columbia were selected in the first round of Race to the Top dollars.  

“Reform” is in the eye of the beholder. One policymaker’s idea of improvement is another’s disaster.  Those differences in viewpoint have become apparent as California’s Legislature begins debating a package of procedural changes that would dramatically affect how the state creates its annual budget and ease the ability of local governments to raise taxes.

According to this week’s California Field Poll, no one issue is going to influence Californians in who they choose to be their next governor.  In reality, they are considering a myriad of factors before they hit the ballot box in November.