We at Santa Barbara Current celebrated the launch of the first edition of California Current on, appropriately, July 4th, and we plan to publish once or twice a week, most likely on Friday and Saturday.
Regular subscribers to Santa Barbara Current may not be aware of this, and neither perhaps are many Jim’s Journal readers.
We want to change that.
California Current was launched to fill the same void statewide that Santa Barbara Current fills in its limited area. There is no established Santa Barbara-based or California-based opinion site that speaks exclusively to common-sense voters of a conservative bent.
Right now we’re deep into the November ballot. California Current will publish in-depth analyses of all 14 California propositions from our unique perspective. Four are already live.
Since Democrat politicians in this state have taken the position that debate between candidates is neither warranted nor desired, we’ll have interviews with many of the Republican candidates for statewide office that you’d otherwise never hear from.
You can subscribe for free, but of course we would rather you commit a small yearly sum and become a paid subscriber to California Current. We’ll need your contributions to continue the effort. We have plans for paid-members-only events before and after the November election, so be sure to be a paid-up California Current subscriber!
Welcome aboard!
If you do not wish to receive California Current, you can cancel anytime.
Until the state of California gets out from under the power and influence of the veto-proof super majority of Democrats in the state legislature, our efforts in tiny Santa Barbara will be for naught.
The Props So Far
In case you missed the first few issues of California Current, you should know that James Fenkner is in the middle of analyzing and opining on each of the 14 Proposals that will be on your ballot, come November 3rd.
Here in capsule format are his observations so far:
Prop 1: Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act
It’s a con job.
Don’t fall for it.
Democrat legislators named Prop 1 the “Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026” to make it sound noble; it’s anything but.
Prop 1 proposes borrowing $11.25 billion from taxpayers “for our veterans.”
I would say “Hah,” but this is no laughing matter.
And, just so you know who’s behind this charade, Santa Barbara’s own California Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, along with her partner in crime, Democrat Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, and the usual Democrat leadership put it there.
Veterans get the name on the bond. Taxpayers get the bill, with interest.
The housing industrial complex, filled with non-profits and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) whose leadership lives off their quarter-million-dollar-plus salaries, get the money.
Central Valley Republican Senator Shannon Grove, an Army veteran herself, called the packaging “shameful.” She says it’s “a homeless bond with a veterans’ garnish.”
Proposition 1 leaves the rules and costs that created the housing shortage untouched. It piles on more debt. And it uses the prestige of people who have actually served to paper over a system that keeps failing.
The troops deserve better than to be marketing fodder for yet another worthless progressive bond.
Veterans put the country first. It’s time voters returned the favor.
Vote NO on Proposition 1.
Proposition 2 Doubles California’s Already Bloated Slush Fund
The coalition of big spenders advancing Proposition 2 includes Governor Gavin Newsom, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Senate President pro Tem Monique Limón and Assembly member Jesse Gabriel.
Under Prop 2, every time a “rainy day” occurs, California taxpayers will get soaked. If this constitutional amendment passes, don’t be surprised to find an increase in California’s “Rainy Days.” The process for accessing these funds is easy: the governor simply cries out “emergency” and a simple majority of votes in the legislature releases the money into the general fund.
Proposition 2 doesn’t fix the plumbing or repair California’s leaky financial roof. It simply pours more billions of unaccountable dollars into the hands of the same spend-happy politicians who’ve squandered it before.
Vote NO on Proposition 2.
Now Comes Proposition 3
It’s billed as the California Children’s Education and Health Care Protection Act. Prop 3 is the final act in a long confidence game, a tax that began life as “temporary,” was later extended, and now seeks permanence under the soft lighting of “children’s education and health care.”
Those responsible for much of the electorate’s education asked that electorate to extend the “temporary” income-tax rates through 2030. A mere 12 more years of the income tax increases “so that school children would not suffer.” Its purpose is simple: remove the expiration date on Prop 30 and make the income tax increase permanent.
The numbers are enormous. Since 2012 the higher rates have generated more than $120 billion, according to the California State Controller’s office. That is twenty times the original shortfall Brown cited.
This is one of the largest, if not the largest, temporary-to-permanent tax in California history. Should voters naively approve Prop 3, enhanced tax receipts on the order of $5 to $10 billion a year will only grow with inflation and will continue forever.
The dominant beneficiaries of billions in tax revenue have been administrators. Their ranks and pay expanded even as enrollment shrank. Principal and district-level yearly salaries commonly reach $250,000 in most California districts to well over $500,000 in others.
Yet poor outcomes have not prevented district administrators from becoming richly compensated. Superintendent David Miyashiro who has presided over the entire academic decline since 2013 took home $592,416 in total compensation in 2024.
If the goal were higher reading and math scores, the last fourteen years of elevated revenue would have produced visible results.
They have not.
If the goal were simply to keep the lights on for a shrinking student body, the scale of the haul would still look excessive.
The permanent tax increase of Prop 3 will be wrapped in a soothing floral package of “protecting the vulnerable.” The record of deception is clearly visible in poor test scores, decreasing enrollment figures, and administrative salary increases.
Vote NO on Prop 3
Proposition 4 Wants You to Pay for Politicians’ Campaigns
For over five decades California has banned using public money to bankroll candidates. Voters put that rule in place for a very good reason: Nobody should be forced to fund the campaigns of the people who tax them.
Prop 4 would erase that ban.
Supporters say this levels the playing field. It doesn’t. It does, however, coerce you into picking up the tab for what may well be your least favorite politician.
Incumbents still get the money. Challengers still need to qualify. And every taxpayer—left, right, or checked out—ends up bankrolling attack ads and mailers for candidates they may actively despise. You don’t get to opt out. That’s not democracy.
Look at the coalition pushing this thing. Common Cause. League of Women Voters. ACLU. The usual suspects who treat government expansion like a moral duty.
Every statist organization loves Prop 4. It lowers the cost of electing people who promise more programs, more rules, and more spending.
Prop 4 sells itself as “reform.”
It is anything but.
It takes a clear line—that taxpayers should not be required to fund political campaigns—and replaces it with a permanent invitation for politicians to help themselves to the public trough.
Vote NO on Prop 4.
Community Calendar:
Got a Santa Barbara event for our community calendar? Fenkner@sbcurrent.com