Links:

• A while back, a former UCLA chancellor named Charles Young filed a suit to reverse the 30 year-old 2/3 requirement for tax increases, claiming that its enactment as part of Prop. 13 violated the single subject rule.  The State Supreme Court today dismissed the suit without comment.

• Oh noes! I (Brian) think I might agree with Abel Maldonado. The GOP is thinking about barring Decline to State voters from their primaries. In sheer electoral terms, that would be some colossal stupid. So, GOP, go for it.

• Dan Walters has a perceptive column today, arguing that tying teacher evaluations with student performance “could evolve into simplistic fingerpointing unless it’s done fairly and contextually.”  There are so many variables with student performance – in particular (but not limited to) the expanding class sizes, rise in state poverty and the slashing of the social safety net – that such data must be carefully circumscribed.  The Obama/Duncan plan for education reform has multiple blind spots.

• The Cal Fire Chief was arrested on DUI charges.  He did apologize, however.

• Timm Herdt points out to the legislators that the federal court isn’t really kidding. You really have to reduce prison population, and it has to be sooner rather than later.  Playing the same old ToughOnCrime Games isn’t going to work this time.

• Federal judges are not pinpointing the state prison system, either; the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the Federal Bureau of Prisons cannot exclude violent criminals from sentence reductions for completing rehabilitation programs, mainly because officials have given no rationale for such a policy.

• CalBuzz makes some funnies in their “Dr. Hackenflack” column.

• The BART labor strife is finally over as the last union approved the contract.