IS PHIL ANGELES CRYING?
I’m sure Phil Angelides is crying somewhere right now, depressed that he is not in Sacramento to sign the outrageous shift towards socialized medicine that has been passed by legislative Democrats and placed on the Governor’s desk. Much time has been spent on this page criticizing Governor Schwarzenegger for his own proposal to significantly increase the size of government and state government’s role in health care. That said, today is a good time to take a pause, and appreciate that the extreme agenda of Don Perata and Fabian Nunez is too far to the left, even for the port-side shift of Schwarzenegger. The Governor has vowed to veto AB 8 and he should be applauded for doing so. Perhaps if Mr. Angeles is bored, he can print out a copy of AB 8 on his computer, and sign the bottom of it. That’s about all of the relevance that he will have in this process — thank goodness!
THE LINE IN THE SAND ON REDISTRICTING REFORM
Lost in all of the press on this healthcare debate is the fact that the time remaining to work out a fair redistricting proposal for the February ballot is quickly coming to a close. Of course this is good news for the liberals that control the legislature because they benefit greatly from the status quo. Left to their own devices, they would prefer to do nothing, as would their leaders, Don Perata and Fabian Nunez. However, there is something that these two left-wing overlords do want — more than anything. They want to preserve their offices and their power. Hence their rather shameless ballot measure that, if passed, would allow them to stay in their ivory towers for another four and six years, respectively. Of course, their play for longevity in office is precariously relying on California’s Republican voters, who currently favor the measure because of a mis-perception that the measure strengthens term-limits. Last weekend the California Republican Party strongly opposed this power-grab measure, with delegates passing along direction to party operatives to include the their opposition in all voter contact mail produced for the February election. So what are two self-absorbed political bosses to do? The answer, of course, is to come to the negotiating table in good faith with their Republican counterparts. It’s been made clear that there is a redistricting proposal that would be good enough for Republicans to consent to a weakening of term limits. But for GOP legislators to sign off on such a deal, it needs to be a real redistricting reform package. One that includes all three of the "must have" requirements to allow a Republican to sign off — a truly independent commission with no political appointees, Assembly Districts nested within Senate Districts, and no remap plan can exclude the horrible gerrymandered U.S. House seats. Our position is that if a redistricting plan does not include all three of these, we punt. There are cases, like now, were a bad plan is worse than no plan.
ACA 8 – SESSION ISN’T OVER YET
While it appears that the wind is out of the sails of the League of Cities’ attempt to thwart real eminent domain reform with their ACA 8, the session is not over, and so we want to encourage Republicans to stay vigilant. Last weekend the State GOP formally opposed this proposed constitutional amendment, and for good reason. It is terrible public policy, that is designed to place into the State Constitution some permanent rights for governments to trample property owners. One need only look at the unwillingness of the League to come forward with equal protections for all property owners as proof. They just don’t get it. You cannot set up a ‘tiered’ system of property rights, guys. Everyone’s rights are equal — a business owner, a home owner, a church owner, a farm owner — all deserve the same level of protection.
A PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNION BY ANY OTHER NAME…
Last night I blogged about the impasse that exists between the Administration and the public employee union for the state’s prison guards. I’ve had a few Republican friends e-mail with me, trying to say that this is a Republican-friendly union and I should chill out. To this I would say that like all other public employee unions, the CCPOA opposes paycheck protection, they oppose moving from a defined benefit to a defined contribution system (pension reform) and they spend millions upon millions of dollars promoting their own benefits and candidates for offices that will support them. I also watched, by the way, when now-disgraced and recalled Governor Gray Davis gave these guys the store. I think that this union has too much say over what should be management issues, and I think that having these compensation packages that are tied to automatic raises based on what kind of raises other government employees make is very poor public policy. Anyways, as long as this union is steadfastly opposed to key issues such as paycheck protection and pension reform, Republicans should be very dubious about helping them in any way. If they want our support, how about starting with a million dollar contribution to Keith Richman’s public employee pension reform measure?
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