AB 900, pulled together after months of discussions among the 4 leaders and many others, passes today by a vote of 70-1. This was a "between a rock and a hard place" decision for all of us under the ultimatespecter of unacceptablewholesaleearly releases of criminals by the federal judge because of the courts’ view of overcrowding. Thiscarried the most weight for Republicans, as our caucus believes that public safety is our duty and first obligation to the people of California. It provides for, via $7.4 billion in bonds, the building of 53,000 new spaces and for the expansion of the "pipeline" to train the personnel needed to staff the currently understaffed spaces andnew spaces to be built. Much will need to be done in the coming months to make this work with regard to recruiting the staff and building the new spaces needed in correlation with each other.

As our population increases by a million in this state every 2 years,many of us have realized for yearsthat we’ve needed to keep up with theseprison space needs. Instead, unfortunately, our reality is crisis-management instead oflong-term planning… Read More

With a narrow margin in the Senate, AB 900 also passed out of the Senate today, 27-10, with 3 abstentionsand will now go to the Governor. The vote was on call for awhile with 22 "aye" votes before reaching the required 2/3vote of 27.

**UPDATE (from Jon Fleischman)**

Here is information on who the GOPers were who voted against the bonds:

State Senate GOP Noes: Aanestad, Cogdill, Denham, McClintock Not Voting: Battin, Maldonado

This passed the Senate with the bare minimum 2/3 – Final Vote: 27 ayes, 10 noes, 3 not votings Assembly GOP Noes: Strickland Not Voting: Garcia, Houston Absent: Devore, Anderson Final Vote: 70 ayes, 1 no, 8 not voting, 1 vacancy… Read More

Every once in a long while a tide shift occurs in government that shifts power. In the form of a vote on firefighter’s raises, such a tide shift happened in the City of San Diego Tuesday afternoon.

At stake was actually much more than a raise firefighter union leaders wanted. At stake was who is in charge: the public employee union leaderswho, with the labor funded city council of now-disgraced Mayor Dick Murphy, drove San Diego to the verge of bankruptcy OR Republican Mayor Sanders and the reformers.

The vote on labor’s desiredraises was 4 to 4, a deadlock which ment no action (who besides the City of San Diego would have an even number of councilmembers?). Then the Mayor’s proposal to instead simply fix the firefighter’s ailing healthcare plan passed 6 to 2.

For more insight into this glorious revolution see today’s www.redcountysandiego.com.… Read More

Next year, conservative icon Tom McClintock will reach the limit of his allowable service in the State Senate under the term limits approved by California voters in 1990. McClintock’s 19th State Senate District, which is centered in Ventura County, stretches from Santa Barbara down to Los Angeles County (and even includes the Channel Islands), is favorable to a Republican candidate. As just about every FR reader knows, former Assemblyman Tony Strickland (pictured to the left), fresh off of the statewide campaign trail in 2006 where he failed in his bid to become California’s next Controller, is now running an aggressive campaign to succeed McClintock. The Assembly District that Tony represented for six years is fully within the Senate seat, and is currently (and conveniently) occupied by his wife, Audra, who is in the middle of her second two-year term… Read More

Next year, conservative icon Tom McClintock will reach the limit of his allowable service in the State Senate under the term limits approved by California voters in 1990. McClintock’s 19th State Senate District, which is centered in Ventura County, stretches from Santa Barbara down to Los Angeles County (and even includes the Channel Islands), is favorable to a Republican candidate. As just about every FR reader knows, former Assemblyman Tony Strickland (pictured to the left), fresh off of the statewide campaign trail in 2006 where he failed in his bid to become California’s next Controller, is now running an aggressive campaign to succeed McClintock. The Assembly District that Tony represented for six years is fully within the Senate seat, and is currently (and conveniently) occupied by his wife, Audra, who is in the middle of her second two-year term… Read More

As readers who saw Jon’s commentary yesterday know, Disney is circulating a ballot-box zoning initiative designed to prevent SunCal Companies from developing a condominium project within the Anaheim Resort District [full disclosure: I’m a member of the consulting team for SunCal’s project].

Disney has hired petition circulators to gather the 20,000 signatures necessary to place their initiative on the February 2008 ballot. During the last two weeks they’ve been posted at several shopping centers in Anaheim. On several occasion I drove around Anaheim visiting these shopping centers and getting pitched by these signature gatherers.

Interestingly, I never say Disney circulators at any of the several supermarkets, like Gigante, Northgate Markets or Jax Markets, that cater to Anaheim’s working-class Latinos. That can be explained, in part, by the sales pitch invariably used by the circulators to entice Anaheim residents to sign the petitions:… Read More

Yesterday the Democrats passed a bill out of the Assembly Human Services committee that would allow felons convicted of selling illegal drugs to get food stamps (AB 508, authored by Assemblyman Sandre Swanson).

A little background: Currently, federal law imposes a lifetime ban on food stamps and other welfare-related benefits for people with felony drug convictions. However, federal law allows states to opt out of this provision. In 1997, California declined to opt out when we passed our welfare reform package. According to the legislative analysis of AB 508, a 2005 report of the Sentencing Project reports that 11 states, plus the District of Columbia, have entirely opted out of the ban. An additional 14 states have partially opted out of the ban, either by limiting the ban to certain offenses (such as sale or trafficking) or establishing qualifying conditions which relate to participation in or completion of drug treatment programs. Governor Gray Davis vetoed several attempts to overturn the lifetime ban during his tenure. Three attempts were made to run bills that would have softened, but not have completely lifted, the ban. He vetoed… Read More

Last night, the Newport Beach City Council definately decided to place politics over principle in a decision to declare a 45 moratorium on the permitting if transient housing in the city. Aime

The Council voted unanimously (with Don Webb absent) to impose this rediculous restriction on property owners in their own city.

Courtesy of the City of Newport Beach website, you can contact these folks below.