Free Republic

State Finance: California's massive public employee retirement fund, dubbed Calpers, sacked its top executive this week. To that we say: It's about time. If you don't know about Calpers, or think it's of interest only to California, shame on you. Calpers is the largest public investment fund on earth, and wields enormous clout in stock markets around the world — including our own. So when the State Personnel Board voted 3-to-2 to fire controversial head Sean Harrigan, it made waves. Some blamed "big business" for the firing, others a secret deal between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his big-money backers in...

Maybe it was the time that Gov. Gray Davis mocked Arnold Schwarzenegger's thick accent that did him in.A candidate for governor should at least know how to pronounce "California," Davis said on Sept. 6.To most non-Hispanics, it was a lame joke. To many California Hispanics, it was insulting."It showed Davis didn't know what state he was governor of," said Raul Damas, director of Latino Opinions, a research group. Whatever the reason, Hispanic voters were a key factor in Davis' historic defeat in the Oct. 7 recall election. And they helped turn Republican Schwarzenegger's victory over Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a...