Editorial: The Times’ 2016 wish list

As dawn breaks on a new year, Angelenos are drawn together by a common wish: that the cold snap ends, sending winter back to the Northeast where it belongs.

In keeping with our annual custom, though, we on The Times editorial board would like to offer a more practical list of aspirations for 2016. Not that many of our wishes from a year ago panned out: We coveted faster economic growth, lots of rain and an end to the death penalty, among other things that remained out of reach. On the other hand, our wish for the Supreme Court to end state bans on same-sex marriage was granted, as well as our request for an end to the widespread blackout of Dodgers games. So it wasn’t a total loss.

Now it’s on to a year sure to be enlivened by political campaigns, campus protests, freakish weather and hyperventilating about the Ronda Rousey-Holly Holm rematch. In no particular order, we fervently hope to see:

Los Angeles residents resist the temptation to reinstall their English-countryside-style lush green lawns after watching all that El Niño rainfall run down the street.

Members of Congress realize that the nation’s immigration woes won’t get any better until they fix the broken system.

Police, prosecutors and elected officials address the flaws in training, standards and practices, and the legal review process — as well as racial bias, implicit or otherwise — that continue to result in an unacceptable number of deaths at the hands of police and an unacceptably sketchy level of police accountability in their wake.

The L.A. City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti fulfill their pledge to earmark $100 million to housing for the city’s 26,000 homeless people.

U.S. companies spur the economy by investing profits in expanded operations and larger payrolls, not stock buybacks.

Political leaders around the world forge the consensus needed to fulfill the carbon-reduction commitments that nearly 200 countries made in Paris, because the longer emissions remain at their current levels, the harder it will be to prevent life-threatening climate change.

Congress approve an Authorization for Use of Military Force against Islamic State that allows for a strong, concerted effort to drive ISIS out of Iraq and Syria but without the deployment of U.S. ground troops.

Americans stop retaliating against Muslims for the deeds of extremists, who share that faith in name only.

The many gun owners who recognize the wisdom in universal background checks, bans on military-style weapons for citizens and a host of other public-safety measures wrest control of the National Rifle Assn. from gun-rights extremists, which would make it easier for the nation to fight the national scourge of gun-related killings.

The U.S. Supreme Court stop state legislatures from placing onerous and unconstitutional burdens on women seeking abortions. It can start by invalidating the Texas law that requires all abortion providers in the state to have local hospital admitting privileges and all healthcare facilities providing abortions to be outfitted like ambulatory surgical centers.

Republicans in state legislatures stop making it more difficult for young people and minorities to vote and expend their energy instead on crafting policies that will win over those constituencies.

L.A. County leaders ease the return of military veterans, jail and prison inmates, mental health patients, juvenile camp residents, former foster children and others from institutions and the streets to homes, safely and sustainably.

Gov. Jerry Brown take the lead again on California’s financial health, engineering solutions to three potential funding crises in 2016: replacing the expiring income and sales taxes that voters approved in Proposition 30, finding the money to fix the state’s crumbling roads and plugging a billion-dollar hole in MediCal.

Local crime rates drop back to their pre-2014 levels. Crime in L.A. had been decreasing for more than a decade until 2014. Here’s hoping the uptick since then was an aberration that won’t be repeated in 2016.

Presidential candidates talk less about each others’ failings and more about their goals for this country and how they’d achieve them.

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