Hot Takes In California Politics
A little bit of everything in one of my occasional "around the state" hot takes columns... enjoy!
Below are nine “takes” — six of them are above the paywall, for all readers. The other three are a thank-you to our paid subscribers and appear below it!
You can listen to this post on our podcast feed, So, Does It Matter? SPOKEN. It’s available on your favorite podcasting app, or you can find it here. The spoken version pierces the paywall if you want to HEAR the extra three!
Gavin Newsom’s High-Speed Rail Fantasy Now Comes With a $231 Billion Price Tag
A new state review of California’s high-speed rail plan makes the obvious impossible to ignore: Gavin Newsom’s bullet train fantasy is not a transportation project anymore. It is a rolling fiscal embarrassment. The latest draft business plan pegs the full San Francisco-to-Anaheim system at roughly $231 billion, compared with the $33 billion dream voters were sold in 2008. Nearly two decades later, there is still no operating high-speed train, no credible, fully funded plan, and no private-sector cavalry riding to the rescue.
Newsom did not initiate this disaster, but he has enthusiastically taken full ownership of it. He could have forced an honest reckoning. Instead, the consultants, unions, planners, and bureaucrats keep feeding off the project while taxpayers keep getting the bill. I’m guessing this will not be one of the selling points Newsom uses on the national campaign trail.
Gavin Newsom’s Bullet Train Adds A $1 Billion Detour To Protect A Disgraced Icon
As if Gavin Newsom’s high-speed rail disaster were not already absurd enough, Californians can now add a roughly $1 billion detour around the Cesar Chavez National Monument to the bill. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the state adopted a special route moving the train about three-quarters of a mile away from the monument, adding tunnels, viaducts, access roads, extra track, and even a massive berm to hide the train from view.
The irony is rich: the monument already sits beside an active freight corridor. But California’s bullet train bureaucracy bent over backward anyway, adding huge costs to avoid offending the political symbolism around Chavez — symbolism now complicated by serious abuse allegations. This is how megaprojects die in California: not from one bad decision, but from a thousand politically protected ones.
A Government Union’s Self-Interested Tax Grab
The most revealing part of California’s billionaire tax is not the tax itself. It is who is pushing it. The SEIU, one of the most powerful government employee unions in the country, is driving the measure, and 90% of the money would be routed into health care spending, where the union has direct institutional interests. That tells you almost everything you need to know.
This is not some abstract crusade for fairness. It is a union-backed revenue grab aimed at expanding the very government spending ecosystem that feeds its own power. The SEIU is asking voters to punish wealth creation while pretending the beneficiaries are ordinary Californians. In reality, this is about leverage, dues-paying jobs, and more taxpayer money flowing through union-dominated public programs. California’s political class may call that progressive. The rest of us should call it what it is. My friend Bruce Bialosky lays it out.
Michelle Steel Is Headed To A Serious Post At A Serious Time
President Trump’s nomination of Michelle Steel to serve as U.S. Ambassador to South Korea is not just a nice honor for a former member of Congress. It is a serious assignment at a serious time. Michelle has been a close personal friend for nearly 40 years, and I have watched her serve with toughness and discipline on the State Board of Equalization, the Orange County Board of Supervisors, and in Congress.
South Korea is not a ceremonial diplomatic post. It is a critical American ally facing North Korean threats, Chinese pressure, and serious domestic political turmoil. That requires someone who understands both American politics and Korean culture. Michelle Steel does. She was born in South Korea, built a remarkable public-service career here, and has the judgment and backbone for the job.
Spencer Pratt Sounds Great. Los Angeles Is Still Los Angeles.
Spencer Pratt is saying a lot of things Los Angeles voters should want to hear: accountability after the fires, broken City Hall, elite failure, and the need to shake up a political system that treats ordinary residents like an afterthought. Compared with Karen Bass, he sounds like a massive upgrade. In a multiverse that looked like social media, maybe this would even be possible. Love his new ad, by the way!
But Los Angeles is still Los Angeles. City registration numbers from late 2025 showed about 1.22 million Democrats and 326,000 Republicans — nearly a four-to-one gap — with another 510,000 no-party-preference voters. In 2024, more than 70% of city voters backed Kamala Harris, while just 26.5% voted for Donald Trump. Pratt is running in a nonpartisan race, but he has publicly identified as a Republican. If he even begins to look like a threat, the public employee unions Bass feeds so generously will be ready to remind the city’s Democrats exactly which candidate is in Trump’s party. Viral energy is real. So is voter registration.
The Sacking Of San Francisco
San Francisco is facing a $634 million budget deficit, but City Hall is still preparing to hand police and fire unions contracts costing an additional $100 million over two years and more than $300 million over four. Police and fire employees would receive 14 percent raises over four years, even as city departments are being told to cut hundreds of millions from the general fund.
This is not fiscal discipline. It is municipal self-dealing dressed up as public necessity. San Francisco’s political class spent years building a government it cannot afford, only to discover that the loudest and most politically protected interests still get fed first. Ordinary taxpayers, small businesses, and basic services are left to absorb the consequences. The city is not being mismanaged by accident. It is being sacked one contract, one concession, and one politically convenient excuse at a time.
