(A tongue-in-cheek post, with a serious thought at the end…) My State Senator, Repubican State Senator Tom Harman, recently held a little contest in his district where he asked for suggestions from local students on potential legislation. For the winner of the contest for the best bill idea, who happened to be a local high school student, Harman agreed to introduce their suggestion as legislation. I would like to encourage the Senator to have another contest. This one would be to ask bloggers in his district for our ideas for legislation. In anticipate of the Senator seeing the wisdom of this idea, I am going to get ahead of the game by laying out my proposed legislation right now! In the Sacramento area, there is a home being used for business purposes in a residential neighborhood. What’s happenning is that this that every room in this home has been rented a transient occupant — specifically, state legislators! For our… Read More

A couple of weeks ago, I had a lengthy conversation with my friend Debra Saunders, a columnist over at the San Francisco Chronicle. We were talking about the fact that all of the Republicans in the State Legislature (save one) had just signed the Americans for Tax Reform no new taxes pledge.

Debra was making the case to me that she thought that it didn’t make a lot of sense to sign a pledge against ever raising taxes, using the argument that if you spend the money, you have to be able to pay for it — and that spending more than you have (deficit spending) was a worse alternative.

Debra made a point that the focus is always on not raising taxes, rather than on not increasing spending.

As Debra and I spoke, somehow we ended up talking about the fact that what is really needed in California is a "no new spending" pledge. This is so true.

Tomorrow there will be a lot of news coverage of a "deal" struck on prison reform, to deal with the massive prison overcrowding issue, and the looming specter of a federal judge doing who-knows-what if we don’t solve the problem.

Given that the starting-off point… 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

Senator Dave Cogdill’s bill, SB 59, to build much needed water supply via new dams,was defeated this morning in the Senate Natural Resources and Water[less] Committee, by a party line vote of the 3 Reps aye and 4 Dems no, with one Dem abstaining.

Statements in opposition include that lakes cause global warming and that even though there will be 12 million more Californians by 2030, that we will be using less water in totalby then. This is the kind of genuine give and take we have when discussing water policy in this state. Look for this to become an initiative, where I believe that voters will see through the distorted logicand support new water supply. Too bad this legislature cannot see the light and place it on the ballot itself, giving the voters the option without an expensive qualification petition effort… Read More