• Mexican President Vincente Fox is coming to California this week. I’m sure he has economic development on his mind. Fox opposes a fence at the border. He probably isn’t facing an influx of Americans sneaking into his country.
• It’s how you vote, not whether you speak to legislation that is the measure of a legislator. The reality is that floor speeches are limited, so don’t use whether someone makes one or not to judge their support on an issue.
• The new Cal-EPA director for Governor Schwarzenegger was a senior staffer heading up legislative issues for recalled Governor Gray Davis. Why do we keep taking on officers from the HMS Titanic?
• Sent to me from a senior House staffer (re: immigration): “I agree with your comments, but I believe the stronger case is based not on the semantics but rather on the impact of the policies under consideration. Beyond being unfair to those who came here legally or are currently waiting to come here legally, amnesty would harm our country by promoting massively more illegal immigration and making it even more difficult to stop it and ofcourse all the other attendant harms (infrastructure, health care, social services, etc.). The policies being considered by the Senate would have the same-or worse-impacts than traditional amnesty. So, whether they call it amnesty or some other linguistically creative term, the harm to our country is the same. That should be enough for politicians to oppose the Senate and President’s plan.”
• I don’t think FR friends John Doolittle and Richard Pombo have real races on their hands, and apparently they don’t think so either. Voting against the Republican Study Committee alternative budget that would cut discretionary spending sends mixed signals about whether they want to cut federal spending.
• After hearing Assemblyman Mark Wyland speak yesterday morning, I was sad that it is Brian “Oatmeal” Bilbray, and not the passionate conservative Wyland that is the GOP nominee for Congress in CD 50. I get a steady stream of emails from conservatives in this battleground district who can’t stomach Bilbray’s policy positions. Probably why a “safe GOP” seat is competitive.
• While Phil Angelides and Steve Westly want to raise taxes, I think that we need to go the opposite direction. We need to devise a new system so that when there is a strong economy, instead of state revenues increasing, taxpayers should see additional relief. The growth in the size of our state government is horrific.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.