Over the years, I’ve always tried to take advantage of, and use, the best technology available not only to win elections but to serve my constituents.

I know websites are passe now – everybody’s got one (Ihave five different ones I run), but my staff and I worked very hard on updating my official state site recently and want to use this space to show it off and detail what we’ve done.

Sure we have all the usual stuff – you can read my bio, see my latest news releases, track legislation and find out all about my great district (SD 37). But we went further. We wanted to turn the website into a tool people can use for information and, frankly, to protect themselves.

In this post, I want to highlight a feature we call RivCo’s Most Wanted.

For years and years and years… Read More

Here are a few passing thoughts for a quiet Saturday…

Former State Senator and FR friend Ross Johnson is Chairman of the State’s Fair Political Practices Commission. He is opposed moving to electronic-filing only for required FPPC filings from candidates, PACs, etcetra. I agree with Johnson, mainly because of a law that prohibits some informations from the paper reports from being placed on the internet. Such a change should not limit any degree of public disclosure. Putting aside the fact that I am a Lakers fan, I think that all taxpayers need to be very worried over discussions that the Kings might move to a new arena at the government-owned Cal-Expo site. The Maloofs were salivating over a taxpayer subsidy of their franchise not too long ago, and I’m sure they are still anxious to gauge Joe and Jane Public. If House Republicans are going to make a stand on earmarking, they should do so by calling for some objective criteria that all earmarks must meet in order to be in order. The problem is that everyone’s focus on reforming the earmarking process doesn’t address our biggest challenge — that a vast … Read More

Here are a few passing thoughts for a quiet Saturday…

Former State Senator and FR friend Ross Johnson is Chairman of the State’s Fair Political Practices Commission. He is opposed moving to electronic-filing only for required FPPC filings from candidates, PACs, etcetra. I agree with Johnson, mainly because of a law that prohibits some informations from the paper reports from being placed on the internet. Such a change should not limit any degree of public disclosure. Putting aside the fact that I am a Lakers fan, I think that all taxpayers need to be very worried over discussions that the Kings might move to a new arena at the government-owned Cal-Expo site. The Maloofs were salivating over a taxpayer subsidy of their franchise not too long ago, and I’m sure they are still anxious to gauge Joe and Jane Public. If House Republicans are going to make a stand on earmarking, they should do so by calling for some objective criteria that all earmarks must meet in order to be in order. The problem is that everyone’s focus on reforming the earmarking process doesn’t address our biggest challenge — that a vast … Read More

What could possibly be more egregious than a government entity using taxpayer dollars to lobby to increase taxes on those taxpayers? It happens. FR friend Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, tells the story in today’s commentary:

Our Tax Dollars Turned Against Us by Jon Coupal, President, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

When the Legislature is in session, the Capitol is awash with millions of dollars worth of lobbying talent. You have never seen so many suits per square yard in your life.

In Sacramento, nothing of importance happens without the involvement of lobbyists. These denizens of the Sacramento political scene are involved in the legislative process from beginning to end. They draft legislation, find sponsors and co-authors, visit legislators and staff, build coalitions and generally… Read More

What could possibly be more egregious than a government entity using taxpayer dollars to lobby to increase taxes on those taxpayers? It happens. FR friend Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, tells the story in today’s commentary:

Our Tax Dollars Turned Against Us by Jon Coupal, President, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association When the Legislature is in session, the Capitol is awash with millions of dollars worth of lobbying talent. You have never seen so many suits per square yard in your life. In Sacramento, nothing of importance happens without the involvement of lobbyists. These denizens of the… Read More

It’s too badthat the initiative to change the apportionment of California electoral college votes in the Presidential election unfortunately has not been able to get off the ground. The leaders of the effort, including mega-consultant Marty Wilson and respected California political attorney Tom Hiltachk, deserve serious kudos for attempting to advance this forward thinking effort that would have made California of huge strategic importance in future presidential elections, and also assure representation of the diversity of California,by changing the method of apportionment of electoral votes from "winner-take-all" to one that would be largely by Congressional district results. The result would be a Republican candidate could be assured of receiving electoral college votes from our state.

The initiative was unable to garner the financial support it deserved, and, in addition, one of the donors had some apparent organizational difficulties. Regardless, it was a good try and an issue deserving of more consideration in future by donors, operatives, and voters alike.… Read More

"I have been against the fence, I thought it’s a bad idea even when it was just a matter of discussion," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "These are communities where you have a border going through them, they are not communities where you have a fence splitting them."

I beg to disagree, Nancy. Having lived on or near the border for years I would hardly consider San Diego and Tijuana a single community.… Read More

Imagine a place where bank robbery is not a crime. Where people can walk up to teller windows and take money to spend on any outrageous, egregious thing that they want, and no one stops them. That’s the problem that we have with egregious pork barrel spending on Capitol Hill. To make matters worse, the only people that can make this form of robbery a crime, are the same people who are robbing the bank! Well, then imagine that the public, who are the depositors at the bank, are becoming more and more outraged that their savings are being withdrawn "at gunpoint" to be spent on billions of pork-barrel projects. So, these robbers, who happen to be the Board of Directors of the bank, have to do something to try to mollify the concerns of their depositors. So what do they do? You would think that they would simply STOP robbing the people’s bank, and put an end to this terrible self-defeating practice? No. Instead, they have engaged in a sidebar discussion that is not about whether we ban… Read More