Staff columnist

Adam B. Summers

Adam B. Summers is an editorial writer and columnist with the Southern California News Group, originally hired by the Orange County Register. He has written extensively on California and national politics, individual liberty, law and economics, public pension reform, occupational licensing, privatization, government reform and various other political and economic issues. Summers has testified before state legislative committees in Arizona, California, Louisiana and Michigan on topics such as public pension reform and occupational licensing regulations. He previously worked as a policy analyst and senior policy analyst at the Reason Foundation for 12 years. In addition to his numerous Orange County Register articles and his dozens of Reason Foundation studies and policy briefs, Summers’s columns have been published by the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union-Tribune, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Los Angeles Daily News, Washington Times, Baltimore Sun, Contra Costa Times, Los Angeles Business Journal, The Freeman, Reason magazine and many others. Summers holds an M.A. in economics from George Mason University and a B.A. with a double-major in economics and political science from the UCLA.

After huge fires in the Los Angeles area in January, State Farm was granted an emergency rate hike following an emergency request from the state’s largest insurer. This photo shows a firestorm in the Altadena community. (SCNG)

Free up markets to solve California’s home insurance crisis

May 30, 2025 at 1:07 p.m.

Californians are coming to realize that higher-priced insurance is better than a broken system with no insurance at all.

State Senator Maria Elena Durazo joins the 89th Hollywood Christmas Parade as it makes its way down Hollywood Boulevard on Sunday, November 28, 2021
(Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)

California keeps shooting itself in the foot on affordable rental housing

June 21, 2023 at 2:03 p.m.

This crisis has only gotten worse in recent years as state and local officials have continued to double down on failed policies.

(AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Propositions 26 and 27 are more about protectionism than gambling

October 29, 2022 at 9:11 a.m.

Given the voluntary nature of this form of entertainment and the state’s history of endorsing many other types of gambling, sports betting should absolutely be permitted in California.

In this photo taken Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, Adrian Perez undergoes dialysis at a DaVita Kidney Care clinic in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Proposition 29 is about union extortion, not dialysis care

October 21, 2022 at 10:46 p.m.

The content of Prop. 29 is bad enough and would harm dialysis patients, the industry and taxpayers alike, but California voters should also vote against it to send a message...

A homeless man goes through his belongings outside his tent pitched on the beach in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 29, 2021. The proliferation of homeless encampments on Venice Beach has sparked an outcry from residents and created a political spat among Los Angeles leaders. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

California needs a new approach on homelessness

November 22, 2021 at 12:12 a.m.

California should be more open to alternative approaches to help the greatest number of people get off the streets and achieve their full potential.

Construction is under way at the Vista Verde Apartments in Ontario on Wednesday morning, March 11, 2020. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Prop. 21 would reduce quantity and quality of rental housing

November 2, 2020 at 11:49 a.m.

Unfortunately, bad policy can still be good politics, particularly since there are many more renters than landlords available to cast ballots.

In this photo taken Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, Adrian Perez undergoes dialysis at a DaVita Kidney Care clinic in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Prop. 23 plays politics with patients’ lives

October 24, 2020 at 1:40 p.m.

Proponents of Prop. 23 try to cloak their proposal in terms of aiding patient welfare, but it is really just a form of extortion.

This illustration provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January 2020 shows the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). (CDC via AP)

COVID-19: The great deregulator

April 26, 2020 at 5:00 p.m.

A silver lining of the coronavirus pandemic is that it has starkly demonstrated the errors in centralizing the power to make sweeping health and economic decisions that affect the lives...

FILE – This Jan. 21, 2018, file photo, shows the Statue of Liberty in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

Economic freedom, not government programs, key to reducing poverty

December 31, 2019 at 12:55 a.m.

In recent decades, this age of relatively free enterprise and global trade has resulted in an unprecedented reduction in poverty.

Nearly one in five Californians lives in poverty, according to U.S. Census data released September 12, 2018. Here, families in Santa Ana enter a Second Harvest Food Bank pantry in June 2017 where they are given five minutes to fill two bags with food. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG) ORG XMIT: RIV1706101842350647

To combat poverty, remove barriers to economic liberty

December 16, 2019 at 11:40 p.m.

California’s state government, and many of its local governments, particularly in its largest metropolitan areas, have largely failed to learn the lesson that economic freedom leads to economic prosperity –...