LA Opera Took $27M in Taxpayer Grants While Paying Executives $33M, Investigation Finds | The States

On this episode of The States: California's largest state employee union moves toward a strike vote, a new report grades states on public-sector worker freedom, 9/11's 25th anniversary brings both remembrance and political controversy, a Center Square investigation finds the LA Opera collecting millions in taxpayer grants alongside millions in executive pay, and FIRE releases its latest college free speech rankings.

SEIU Local 1000, representing 96,000 California public employees, opened a strike vote Wednesday after saying the state failed to bargain in good faith over contract priorities. The vote runs through October 7; the union, the governor's office, and California's Department of Human Resources did not respond to requests for comment.

The Commonwealth Foundation released its fifth biennial report grading states on public-sector labor law, finding seven states — Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas — earned A+ grades, while California, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington received F's. Senior Director of Labor Policy David Osborne discusses how union membership has rebounded to pre-Janus v. AFSCME levels in several states and what separates the highest- and lowest-graded states.

As the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaches, ceremonies took place in Washington, D.C., including a Tunnels to Towers event and a 9/11 survivor tree planting attended by Attorney General Todd Blanche and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a records release detailing what city officials knew about toxic air at Ground Zero, while separately facing calls from a coalition of 9/11 families to skip Friday's anniversary ceremony over his past statements; New York Governor Kathy Hochul said he should attend. Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed also faced scrutiny over past social media posts comparing COVID-19 death tolls to 9/11 casualties.

A Center Square investigation found the LA Opera has received more than $20 million in government grants over the past decade while paying more than $30 million to top executives over the same period, including payments funneled through a production company to music director James Conlon. Investigative reporter Adam Herbets discusses how the opera also received forgiven PPP loans despite tax filings suggesting it may have exceeded employee-count thresholds for eligibility.

FIRE's latest College Free Speech Rankings surveyed 62,000 students across more than 250 colleges, ranking the University of Chicago first and New York University last. The survey found 30% of students consider using violence to stop a campus speaker acceptable in at least rare cases, and 69% say shouting down a speaker is acceptable in some circumstances.

America's Talking headlines: a $1.9 billion federal loan to restart Iowa's Duane Arnold nuclear plant to power a Google data center; DHS revising its Nevada noncitizen voter list from nearly 16,000 to 185 confirmed cases; a University of Illinois Chicago study linking immigration enforcement to $1.26 billion in lost Cook County retail and restaurant activity; and the U.S. Supreme Court blocking Missouri's new Republican-favoring congressional map pending a statewide vote.