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Activate now to gain access to our digital content Activate your account Editorial A bid to skew elections flops at the Supreme Court San Francisco Chronicle This nation’s electoral system is facing changes that can boost or limit turnout in ways that dig deep into principles and politics. The Supreme Court is weighing in on one area with a welcome ruling in favor of counting all people, not just registered voters, in designing election districts. A Texas conservative group challenged that state’s system that measures total population in setting electoral boundaries, a decision that favors urban areas with sizable numbers who don’t vote, such as children, noncitizens here legally or otherwise, prisoners and others. If the state ... Continue Reading Editorial Airbnb plays nice, but city should keep the pressure on The San Francisco Chronicle Following years of criticism about the impact of its vacation-home rental service on San Francisco’s housing crisis, Airbnb has said it’s cracking down on hosts who violate the city’s short-term rental housing law. The law, which went into effect in February 2015, has proven nearly impossible to enforce, and city officials have pleaded with the company to help get rid of the worst offenders. On Friday, Airbnb said it would investigate hosts who offer multiple listings and purge listings that were illegal hotel operations in private homes. The company also released new, San ... Continue Reading Featured Columnists Debra J. Saunders Obama’s underused get-out-of-jail-free card “Did ‘Hope and Change’ really mean: ‘Arguably, better than the very worst?’” political science Professor P.S. Ruckman Jr. asked in his PardonPower blog last week. With 61 new presidential commutations making the total to date 248 , President Obama had reached a number of ... John Diaz GOP senators defy history with block of Supreme Court nominee Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., had just finished a deep dive into federal water policy when the subject turned to the Senate conflict over whether to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. “Let me be off the record, just for this part,” she said ... Featured Columnists Lois Kazakoff Gun violence and mental health: Don’t just blame the NRA A man who neighbors described as reclusive and anti-social killed three and injured nine Friday in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. The alleged shooter had no felony convictions or previous mental health issues, which under current law would have made him ineligible to buy a ... Caille Millner Taxing times — no matter how you made it It was deep in the middle of the night. I was gritting my teeth and trying to power through the preparation of my tax returns. But I’d drunk so many cups of coffee and seen so many exclamation points from Turbo Tax’s cheerful software assistant that I started thinking about how other people ... Featured Columnists Catherine Rampell The Millennial View: The real moochers are in Congress Let’s not be coy. There’s a certain population in this country that expects unlimited government handouts despite its piggish unwillingness to work. Don’t tell me this is about their child care responsibilities, or lack of access to transportation or education. Nonsense. ... Joe Mathews Rent control isn’t solving California’s housing problems Rent control won’t solve California’s enormous housing problems. But that’s not stopping Californians from pursuing rent-control policies in their hometowns. 2016 threatens to become the Year of Rent Control, with the topic white-hot in the Bay Area, home to ... E.J. Dionne Jr. The end of Trump It’s time to go back where we began: not only that Donald Trump will lose the Republican presidential nomination, but that he could be so weakened by the end of the primaries that his party will not even have to worry about choosing someone else. I feel your skepticism. ... Robert Reich How the People’s Party prevailed, in 2020 Third parties have rarely posed much of a threat to the dominant two parties in America. So how did the People’s Party win the U.S. presidency and a majority of both houses of Congress in 2020? It started four years before, with the election of 2016. As you ... Op-Ed Submission Form Send us your op ed Open Forum California’s statewide water restrictions still needed By Melissa M. Rohde This month marks one year since Gov. Jerry Brown sounded the alarm about the need for water restrictions. Now public officials are deciding whether to extend statewide and regional conservation measures. Ending such measures would be a poor decision for all Californians. Northern California had above-average rainfall and snowpack this winter. Some of our state reservoirs are overflowing. But this does not mean our drought is at an end. Groundwater has played an important role in safeguarding Californians in times of drought. The reality is that without implementing proven and ... Continue Reading Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor, April 5 San Francisco Chronicle Regarding “Treating chronic pain requires more than a pill” (Open Forum, April 4): Beth Darnall is correct in saying that we are treating pain the wrong way. But instead of putting more medicinal and psychological Band-Aids on the wound, we should be making a greater effort to identify and treat the cause. For example, more than 300,000 people are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year throughout the United States, making the tick-borne illness six times more common than HIV/AIDS, 20 times more common than hepatitis C virus infection and 30 times more common than tuberculosis. If left ... Continue Reading Chron Quiz Chron Quiz By Marshall Kilduff 1: People are lining up in the Bay Area to buy what, sight unseen? A: Warriors jerseys designed for the playoffs B: Tesla’s new, less-costly model going for $35,000 C: Non-GMO cognac made by French nuns D: Tiny portable houses that fit into parking spaces 2: California and New York are moving to be the first states to do what? A: Ban coal-fired power plants, blamed for pollution ... Continue Reading Insight Voters must demand a new BART labor contract By Steve Glazer Every day seems to bring a new level of frustration to BART riders: Train breakdowns caused by mysterious power spikes. Bus bridges. $1,000 surprise employee bonuses. Phony and disabled security cameras. It’s been one aggravating issue after another, leading to a growing migraine for hundreds of thousands of Bay Area commuters who rely on this critical public transit system to get to work, go to school, or make important meetings. BART failed to shore up its system while signs of operational and financial problems were becoming visible miles down the track. BART’s own financial ... Sunday Insight Insight Support a bond measure to reinvest in BART By Zakhary Mallett For a financially sustainable and more reliable BART system, in November Bay Area voters must do this: (1) Vote for the BART bond measure, and (2) elect financially responsible leadership to the BART board. Some associate BART’s deteriorating infrastructure with historic poor financial decision-making. Examples include lucrative board-approved employee contracts and investing in system expansion. They say that these practices have been at the expense of keeping BART in working condition and, because of this, our proposed 2016 bond should be rejected. I’ll be the first to ... Continue Reading Top About Our Company Ad Choices Careers Terms of Use Advertising Privacy Policy Your Privacy Rights Your California Privacy Rights Contact Customer Service Frequently Asked Questions Newsroom Contacts Connect Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+ Connect © Hearst Corporation