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It looks likely that California voters will be presented with the “Two-Thirds Vote for State and Local Revenue Increases Initiative” on the November 6th ballot. The proposition has potentially sweeping implications for our state governments and yet the push to certify and promote the measure is funded by out-of-state corporate interests. Californians may want to tie the fundraising hands of their cities, but they should only vote to do so with their eyes wide open about who is pushing the initiative. The ballot measure is quite complex but has one overriding purpose – to make it more difficult for the state and its local governments to raise revenue. It rewrites major portions of Article XIII of the California Constitution, which governs taxation. Currently, taxes are categorized as either ‘general’ taxes or ‘special’ taxes. General taxes are collected for general use and, after approval by local government, require majority approval by the electorate. Special taxes are collec...

Many historians think the worst President in American history was James Buchanan. A Democrat, he served immediately prior to Abraham Lincoln for one term, from 1857-1861. President Buchanan served at a difficult time in American history. Chief Justice Roger Taney lobbed a controversial political grenade at the outset of Buchanan’s term, on March 6, 1857, with the infamous Dred Scott decision. The opinion declared that slaves were not citizens of the United States, could not sue in Federal courts, and therefore the property rights of slave-owners were protected from interference by Congress. The delicate balance between slaveholding and non-slave states was threatened by the incorporation of Western Territories into statehood, particularly Kansas, which saw bitter political and sometimes violent fights over the legal status of slavery. Tensions in the country were so taught that the Whig party, which became a national force in the 1830s through its opposition to the states’ rights...