We are pleased today to feature a special guest commentary from FR Friend Jon Coupal, who is President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and is a frequent contributor to this site:

In 1990, voters fed up with career politicians who had learned to game the system to perpetuate their careers and live a lavish lifestyle passed Proposition 140 to limit Assembly members to three, two-year terms and State Senators to two, four-year terms.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown — who often behaved like the emperor of California — and his allies fought back, taking their case for an unlimited length of service all the way to the State Supreme Court.

**There is more – click the link**

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We are pleased today to feature a special guest commentary from FR Friend Jon Coupal, who is President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and is a frequent contributor to this site:

In 1990, voters fed up with career politicians who had learned to game the system to perpetuate their careers and live a lavish lifestyle passed Proposition 140 to limit Assembly members to three, two-year terms and State Senators to two, four-year terms.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown — who often behaved like the emperor of California — and his allies fought back, taking their case for an unlimited length of service all the way to the State Supreme Court.

I know Proposition 140. I successfully argued in defense of Proposition 140 before the Court. And Proposition 93, being falsely advertised as a further reduction in terms, is no Proposition 140.

Proposition 93 on the February ballot is a fraud designed to allow all current members of the Assembly to serve an additional six… Read More

U.S. Representative Jerry "The King of Pork" Lewis is officially the Million Dollar man. Why? Because his costs in legal fees to deal with an ongoing federal investigation has now cost him over a cool mil. Check it out here.

(h/t CfG Blog)… Read More

Today was a big day for me. To go along with my guilt cleansing, super-nifty carbon credit certificate I bought the other day – LiveNeutral (my carbon credit vendor) also sent me a car decal!

Woot! Isn’t it "earth friendly" looking? ———————————————->

Now I can show the world my 2005 Lincoln Aviator is carbon neutral – and drive without a care in the world.

All this for $45 – what a deal.

Now this slick sticker got me thinking……how come when I’m driving my non-polluting, carbon free Aviator with my sticker on it, I can’t drive in the diamond lane like those polluting, non-carbon free Prius’ do?

That’s right, if you didn’t already know – the legislature passed a bill a couple of years back… Read More

Only one political mailer in the box today — amailer from the California Republican Party: Yes on 94 through 97. Proposition 93 isn’t mentioned.Features a letter by Republican State Senator Tom McClintock. Looks to me like a JohnsonClark piece… but if I’m wrong feel free to point it out.

Comment from Valerie ‘I liked it – I haven’t been able to figure out what the 94 through 97 were all about or how to vote. Having McClintock on the piece make it clear.’ She gave it a MAILERB. I thought it was clear and cleantoo:MAILER A-.I graded it up from a B+ because I asked myself what I would have done different and couldn’t think of anything except to usea picture of CRP Chairman Ron Nehring in an ascot instead of a tie.

Again, to make clear, we consider a C the average mail piece or slate mailer. There has been some pretty good work this time around.… Read More

This morning after my wife Valerie popped in and said that she thought it might be nice for someone other than an ‘insider’ to grade the mail each day. She clearly indicated that she would be that ‘outsider’ (It was not in my interest to argue with her assertion that she is an outsider… but I would point out that before the kids came along she worked as an account executive for Ralph Reed at Century Strategies in Atlanta, for a campaign fundraising operation in LA, and for a builders’ association in Sacramento).So she’ll be grading the February 5th mail with me each day.

Anyway…. this all being the case, the only political mail I got today was a letter from former CRP Chairmen Visco, Schroeder, and Antonovich endorsing Shawn Steel for National Committeeman. Good piece, and came with a vast endorsement list, but we feel no obligation to grade the piece because it does not deal with a race to be decided on the 5th.… Read More

The sprawling Fourth Congressional District in North Eastern California (well, Doug LaMalfa would probably call is South Eastern) east of Sacramento has been in the news a lot because of the controversies with John Doolittle that have been the source of much fodder by the press. Doolittle’s recent decision to retire has created an "open" seat that is overwhelmingly Republican.

As we’ve written about before, former state legislator and conservative Rico Oller has put his hat into the ring, and is running hard. The only other significant candidate who has been running is Eric Egland, a military veteran who starts out at a big disadvantage to the well known and well liked Oller. We keep hearing that former moderate GOP Congressman Doug Ose may jump into this primary, but he hasn’t made any such announcement yet.

For the last few months, popular local Assemblyman Ted Gaines had been making active noises about running for the House seat (perhaps even if Doolittle was still in). Shortly after Doolittle… Read More

The Secretary of State has assigned the 2 eminent domain measures their designated proposition numbers for the June 2008 primary ballot. [you know, the "other" primary]

Proposition 98 is the one qualified by the good guys, California Farm Bureau, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the California Alliance to Protect Private Property Rights.

The League of Cities flim flam fig leaf special that doesn’t reform EmDo at all will be known as No On Prop 99…I mean Prop 99.

This’ll be tough going as the goal for the 99 crowd is to confuse voters with 2 measures and get ’em to vote no on both or pass 99 and take the whole debate off the table. They will try to convince votersto believe thatthey’ve ‘done something’ to fix abusive eminent domain takingsfor future elections as they continue to steal property. You can bet on the rhetoric flying about the rent control aspectof 98 being the central issue to scare voters. 98 will pass when the truth gets out, 99 will be a lot like how Prop 93 is doing right now.… Read More