• In what can only be good news for American taxpayers, it would appear that the Republican Congress has funding for High Speed Rail projects in their crosshairs.   Two other states have rejected HSR funding from the Feds, and California should be doing the same.  In fact the legislature should put a undoing of the HSR bonds on the next California ballot.
• The filing has closed in the special election to fill the 4th Assembly District seat vacated by new State Senator Ted Gaines.  There are eight candidates, seven Republicans and one Democrat.  This special election is the first one in a Republican seat where we will see if the new Proposition 14  "Top Two" election rules in place — if no candidate wins 50%+1 of the vote in the first election, which is likely, then the two candidates with the most votes will advance to the runoff.  As of a few months ago, registered Republicans outnumbered Democrat 131,899 to 91,395 with DTS at 60,566.  It’s entirely possible that the lone Democrat still advances to the runoff (and an eventual loss in this safe GOP seat) since the Republican vote will be so splintered.
• Well respected political analyst and columnist Michael Barone penned an outstanding column panning federal spending on High Speed Rail, which concludes:  "…we are spending billions on high-speed rail that isn’t really high speed, that will serve largely affluent business travelers and that will need taxpayer subsidies forever. This should be a no-brainer for a Congress bent on cutting spending."
• Loren Kaye, an affable guy, is Chairman of the California Foundation for Commerce and Education, which is more or less a think tank tied to the California Chamber of Commerce.  In a column back in December on the Fox & Hounds website, Kaye made an observation that was very insightful — "Tax reform should never be attempted when the budget is seriously out of balance, otherwise every proposal will be viewed as a way to get well, rather than promoting equity, efficiency or growth. The temptation to use a legitimate reform effort as a smokescreen for more net revenues becomes too great, and opponents of reform can too easily make that accusation, even if not true."  Well said.
• President Obama’s approval rating has climbed in recent weeks to 52% — not surprising at Obama has tacked to the center after the results of the mid-term elections.  Look for a lot of conservative themes in the President’s State of the Union Address tonight, as Obama seeks to channel Bill Clinton. 
• Kaye’s comments about the need to be wary about attempts at tax reform when the state budget is out of balance is just as applicable to this whole idea of "alignment" — moving services from the state level to the local level.  There may be some good ideas there, but everyone I know is convinced that such a maneuver is really just a way for the state to try and balance its books — leaving local governments to try to figure out how to fund their new-found responsibilities.
• Editorial Boards of MSM newspapers, filled with liberals, love to trash Republican legislators for signing a pledge not to raise taxes.  What they fail to understand is that to the 96% of GOP state legislators who have signed the pledge, it was more like an afterthought.  GOPers in the State Senate and State Assembly oppose tax increases as a matter of public policy — they are a bad idea in a state where taxpayers have amongst the heaviest burden in the country. 
• Last weekend many "experts" in California politics gathered at an election post-mortum event hosted by the U.C. Berkeley Institute of Government Studies.  Apparently Immediate Past State GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim, who still sits on the party’s Board of Directors, declared the Republican Party brand in California to be dead.  So glad the California Republican Party had such an eloquent spokesman and cheerleader at the event.
• Yesterday State Senate President Darrell Steinberg released the list of committee assignments for this legislative session.  While almost all Democrats were named to head up committees — two Republicans were tapped as Chairmen of committees — Anthony Cannella and Mimi Walters for Agriculture and Ethics, respectively.  That said, we’ll see how long these two GOPers keep their new posts.  Just a few days ago, the former Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Republican Senator Tom Berryhill, was summarily dismissed from his spot after he dared to turn up the rhetoric against the liberal Democrats who have literally overspent California government into its current fiscal crisis.
• When Duf Sundheim was Chairman of the party, he pretty much turned over the keys to Arnold Schwarzenegger and his campaign.  Not content to turn everything not bolted down over to the "Dream Team" — Sundheim orchestrated a maneuver to put the State GOP millions of dollars in debt on his way out the door.  We all then watched as Sundheim played the role of Grima Wormtongue in the ear of the donor who loaned Sundheim’s administration the money, helping to drag out the forgiving of the loan for what seemed like an eternity.  Even after being term-limited out of his Chairmanship, Sundheim continued to support Schwarzenegger’s initiatives — including the 2009 massive tax increase measure and Proposition 14. 
• Back in 2009, the League of California Cities rather notoriously endorsed Proposition 1A, the measure on the ballot that, if passed, would have triggered a massive tax increase on Californians.  At the time, I know that this really frosted a lot of City Councilmembers from my home County of Orange.  While it took a little time to gel, it would appear that a great many cities in The OC are giving the League the ol’ heave-ho, and are now starting their own organization. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.