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.
MORE AFTER THE LINK – ON ACA 8 AND THE STATE PRISON GUARD UNION…
**There is more – click the link**