by Jeremy Loudenback On the eve of another election in America, we would like to take a minute to highlight the importance of voting access. So for our October Best and Worst in Governance, we call attention to those states who are moving forward with good ideas to bring more of Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Los Angeles has been garnering ignominious attention for its voting habits lately. In 2013, turnout for the city’s mayoral contest was a woeful 23% percent, triggering anxious reflections on civic identity in the City of Angels. And earlier this year, Los Angeles proposed holding a raffle with prizes Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback What do Newt Gingrich and the American Civil Liberties Union of California have in common? If you guessed shared support for a measure that would reduce some felony drug and theft convictions to misdemeanors, you would be right. Gingrich and the A.C.L.U. have both backed California’s Proposition 47, which Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback The way Steve Soboroff remembers it, the most significant development in Los Angeles in 75 years started with a helicopter ride. As he was riding high above the downtown L.A. skyline in search of potential sites for a National Football League stadium in the mid-1990s, the empty space Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Over the course of the past few decades, the country has been in the midst of a significant demographic shift, becoming more racially and ethnically diverse than ever before. Unfortunately, the people who govern it are still overwhelmingly white and male. Attention has frequently focused on the less-than-representative Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Best in Governance Civic participation efforts in Hong Kong and Scotland Scotland is usually overshadowed by England, its more prominent neighbor in the United Kingdom (U.K.). But last month, the land of bagpipes, unicorns, and the Loch Ness monster captured the world’s attention as it considered a Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback “Government has always been in the communications business,” says Los Angeles’s first chief data officer. As part of his new job, Abhi Nemani will be charged with connecting the public with the city’s growing portfolio of open-data resources and conveying the administration’s commitment to using data to measure Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Over the past 20 years, there are few people who have played a more active role in the public life of Los Angeles than Steve Soboroff. In the words of former Mayor Richard Riordan, Soboroff is among rare company when it comes to making a difference in the Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback For more than 15 years, researchers having been drawing attention to a digital divide, the idea that access to digital technologies is not equally available to all. But now some are suggesting that another persistent gap is emerging: the data divide. “The Rise of Data Poverty in America,” Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Our conversation with Beltran Highlights the Need for Civic Engagement With rates of voter turnout in Los Angeles at a low ebb in recent elections, the city faces a crisis of civic participation. Local leaders remain perplexed at how to improve the city’s lagging civic culture, and ideas Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Best in Governance Los Angeles Unified School District An evidence-based approach to policy-making is a hallmark of good governance. By tying decision-making to what has been proven to work—rather than past precedents or sheer political considerations—leaders are more likely to meet the needs of their constituencies. In Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Until now, evidence about the ways in which interest groups shape U.S. national policy has largely been anecdotal or limited to conspiracy theories. But a startling new paper offers a stunning portrait of the extent of the influence of interest groups. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback In the June, only a quarter of California voters cast ballots in the state’s primary election, a record low. In Los Angeles, similar concerns about voter turnout aren’t new. The Los Angeles 2020 Commission highlighted the city’s woeful record of voting and civic engagement, which has stimulated calls Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Earlier this month, the California Supreme Court disqualified a bid endorsed by Democratic state lawmakers that would have allowed an advisory measure on the 2014 ballot in reaction to the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision that allows unlimited campaign donations from corporations and unions. Proposition 49 would have Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti garnered national scrutiny this month, thanks to a cover story in Governing magazine. In his first year on the job, Garcetti has received mixed reviews, according to the profile. He has largely eschewed the lofty ambitions of his predecessors. Antonio Villaraigosa championed big-ticket Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback The shock of the Representative Eric Cantor’s loss in the Virginia Republican primary earlier this summer has not quite subsided for some, including U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY). According to a New York Times op-ed written by Schumer, Cantor’s loss to a small group of ideologically driven Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback If it were up to Timothy Draper, he would move all of Los Angeles County’s residents to a new state in the name of better government. Draper, a Menlo Park venture capitalist, is behind a much-ballyhooed initiative that would divide California into six states. This week Draper gathered Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Best in Governance U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York Release of the drone memo As the Obama administration has expanded the scope of its worldwide drone war campaign to include American citizens, information about the drone strikes, including the targeting process and legal Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Does public-sector corruption help explain state-government spending? According to a recent study by Cheol Liu and John L. Mikesell in the Public Administration Review, the answer may be yes. With “The Impact of Public Officials’ Corruption on the Size and Allocation of U.S. State Spending,” the pair examined data Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week or binge watching the newest Netflix offering, it’s been hard to escape the worldwide pageant of soccer, nationalism, and celebration that is the World Cup. But at a time when FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), the Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Best in Governance Seattle Mayor Ed Murray The issue of a minimum wage increase has received outsize attention in the past year. Conversations about widening inequality and persistent poverty have yielded momentum around an issue that has received popular support as well as backing from leaders like New York City Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Today marks the most wide-open election for Los Angeles County Sheriff in more than a century. As the Los Angeles Times noted, Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell is favored by many to win the county’s top law enforcement job, a rarity for an organization where most departing Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Crowdsourcing is a familiar term in the world of fundraising, where platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have helped bring to life passion projects and dynamic new businesses. Crowdsourcing has also made its mark on the world of social enterprise and marketing campaigns. And now you can add government to that Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Best in Governance Adam Silver Last week National Basketball Association (NBA) Commissioner Adam Silver came out with a decisive decision in response to odious remarks from Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. In response to tape-recorded comments from Sterling released by the gossip website TMZ, Silver threw Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Until recently, American political leaders from James Madison to Dwight Eisenhower have been linked together in a fiscal tradition that considers the need to avoid handcuffing future generations with oppressive levels of debt. But in 2001, that connection was broken, according to Bill White. Thanks to the cost Read more…