Rumor abound around the capitol that revenue is falling short of projections in last year’s budget. The May revise, coming soon, is said to be gloomy, although no one has said so publicly yet. Capitol bean counters have an interesting method for determining what receipts from income taxes will be. If you will recall on your tax form, you send your return to one address if you owe money, to another if you get a refund. By counting the trucks going to each address, the estimators know, within a couple of million dollars, exactly how much the state is going to receive.

That being said, it appears that the state is on the verge of another budget crisis.

I survived two such crises during my fourteen years in the Legislature. The first began in 1991 and ended in 1994, after several years of increased spending, an average of 11 percent per year in the late 1980s. Governor Deukmejian tried to stave off the crisis by returning surpluses to the taxpayers, as he did in 1986, with the billion dollar rebate. The CTA responded with Proposition 98, which required any surpluses to be spent on education, and put all education spending on autopilot. The… Read More

Welcome to Anaheim, California. As you read this column, there are professional signature gatherers who have been hired by a coalition headed up by the Walt Disney Corporation to qualify a ballot measure in this central Orange County city. No, the measure is not to name Mickey the official mouse of the Anaheim (I would be surprised if that wasn’t the case already!). Actually, the measure they are circulating is a very bad one — which actually is the reason for me spending some time on this local issue.

The measure, in a nutshell, would institute an extreme form of what is called ‘ballot-box zoning’ in this city of well over 300,000 residents. Specifically, Disney is pushing a measure that would set into stone the current city zoning ordinances (the ones that dictate the ‘acceptable uses’ on property) in the Disney Resort Area around the Magic Kingdom. It would do so by requiring that ANY changes (like if you own a coffee shop and want to convert the use into an apartment building) would have to go through a citywide vote for approval at the next regularly scheduled municipal election. Normally you would pursue this… Read More

Welcome to Anaheim, California. As you read this column, there are professional signature gatherers who have been hired by a coalition headed up by the Walt Disney Corporation to qualify a ballot measure in this central Orange County city. No, the measure is not to name Mickey the official mouse of the Anaheim (I would be surprised if that wasn’t the case already!). Actually, the measure they are circulating is a very bad one — which actually is the reason for me spending some time on this local issue.

The measure, in a nutshell, would institute an extreme form of what is called ‘ballot-box zoning’ in this city of well over 300,000 residents. Specifically, Disney is pushing a measure that would set into stone the current city zoning ordinances (the ones that dictate the ‘acceptable uses’ on property) in the Disney Resort Area around the Magic Kingdom. It would do so by requiring that ANY changes (like if you own a coffee shop and want to convert the use into an apartment building) would have to go through a citywide vote for approval at the next regularly scheduled municipal election. Normally you would persue this… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail:

Freedom Fighter

Ward Connerly is on a roll. Less than six months after leading a successful effort to abolish race and gender preferences in government contracting and college admissions in Michigan, the former University of California regent is taking his cause on the road again. This week he announced he will promote anti-quota ballot measures in Colorado, Missouri, Arizona and Oklahoma in the November 2008 elections.

"We’re calling it the Super Tuesday of Equality," says Valery Pech Orr, who is spearheading the fight in Colorado. The measures are… Read More

SB 850 by Republican Abel Maldonado and Democrat Lou Correa was a simple bill. The bill would allow mothers to request a "certificate of birth resulting from stillbirth". This seems simple enough. Women who feel the need to recognize their child would have that option. This seems like a compassionate bi-partisan bill. And it was until Sheila Kuehl and the lobbyists at Planned Parenthood got hold of it in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Despite Maldonado’s attempt to have an up and down vote, the committee added language that "(j) (1) Through its courts, statutes, and under its Constitution, California protects a woman’s right to reproductive privacy. California reaffirms these protections and specifically its Supreme Court decision in People v. Belous (1969) 71 Cal.2d 954, 966-68..” … Read More

Plaintiff Jim Gilchrist has cried "Uncle" and dismissed his own case in Orange County Superior Court in which he attempted to gain back control of the Minuteman Project, Inc.

The Court was scheduled to hear argumentstomorrow (4/25) on whether or not Minuteman should go into receivership pending a trial on who the members of the Board actually are. (Background: the lawsuit was brought by Gilchrist on 2/22/07 against my clients, Deborah Peterson, Barbara Coe, and Marvin Stewart, who state they are the majority of the Board of Directors. Gilchrist claims to be the "sole director.") In the short time since filing the case, Gilchrist and his lawyers lost three applications for Ex Parte Orders, lost a request for a Writ of Possession of the property of the organization, lost most of his request for a preliminary injunction, and were headed to defeat on the issue of receivership set for this Wednesday. His only victory was a tangential interim "preliminary injunction" pending trial restrictingDefendants from spending $4,000 of Minuteman funds in their possession and using stationary for fundraising under Jim Gilchrist’s name… Read More

Breaking news, we just confirmed that Judge Randell Wilkinson, Department C-19, Orange County Superior Court, will hold the scheduled hearing on Minuteman receivership tomorrow at 1:30 pm regardless of Gilchrist’s Notice of Dismissal of his own case!!! The Court may be inclined to DENY what is usually a routine request for dismissal and nevertheless order Minuteman into receivership anyway! Hold on!… Read More

The aforementioned, in today’s FR, bill to ban incandescent light bulbs moved through the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee this afternoonwith a 9 to 3vote.… Read More