AboutBusinessPulse

Introducing Business Pulse

Welcome to Business Pulse, a part of The California Public Policy Foundation’s Prosperity Project. This timely, quick-reading bulletin appears each week on CPR Online (if you would like to receive Business Pulse directly, and free of charge, by e-mail, just send us your e-address) — packed with news, insights on legislation crucial to the state’s business climate, and solid information about how politics works and affects your livelihood.

Why a new publication? Consider: California’s Chamber of Commerce released a 2003 list of more than 60 “job killer” bills introduced this year. Although they threaten the state economy, business climate, and jobs, the millions of Californians they will hurt won’t be able to stop many of them from becoming law, any more than they could stop 2002’s “job killers” — steep workers’ comp cost hikes, for instance.

The reason is not a failure to participate in the democratic process. Business gives as much or more in political donations and lobbying expenditures each cycle as any of California’s most politically active groups. Yet other major political players — trial lawyers, for instance, or public employee unions — do not find themselves subjected to the fierce legislative onslaughts that routinely hammer the business community. On the contrary, these groups exert great influence over the content, timing, and tone of legislation, derailing bills they oppose, pushing through ones they support.

One explanation is that, despite the business community’s heavy political spending, many California business owners, managers, and employees know little about what actually goes on day-in-and-day-out in Sacramento that effects their interests. A second reason is that business’s political resources are often used ineffectively or even counterproductively.

Business Pulse exists to address these twin concerns:

• to bring you up-to-the-minute news on how Sacramento is harming or helping your business and

• to examine and clarify state political developments of vital importance to every Californian who works in and whose families depend upon small, medium, or large business.

Please share your reactions to Business Pulse by return e-mail. And thanks for reading.

PO Box 931• Camarillo, CA 93011 • 805/445-9183 • cppf.org

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