Retired State Senator Larry Stirling weighs in this morning. From the San Diego Daily Transcript:

The California child-support fiasco In the annals of government screw-ups, the repugnant epic of the federal and California state governments bollixing child-support collections is the worst.

Unpaid child support for 2 million children now totals approximately $19 billion, up from $14.4 billion just six years ago. This whole mess started with a 1988 federal law that requires each state to create a "statewide computer system to track and help collect child-support payments."

The collection of civil child support orders falls under the "police powers" of the states. Federal legislators should read the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which clearly forbids such initiatives.

The state of California should have sued the Feds, pointing out to the court that such legislation is "ultra vires" to federal constitutional authority and therefore void.

States did not sue because the Feds included a hook designed to snare the greedy. That law promised money to the… Read More

In his column today, George Skelton joins the ranks of those who think a) religion should be seen and not heard (unless they agree with Skelton) and b) being a Catholic means being able to flout Catholic doctrine without consequence. Skelton’s column is a classic of this particular of genre of secular political outrage, hitting all the bases.

Skelton is upset that Cardinal Roger Mahoney pointed out that Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez’s support for legalizing assisted suicide "…he has allowed himself to get into this other direction, the culture of death."

Excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but making it easier for people to kill themselves is inextricably linked to death. Death is kind of the point of assisted suicide.

But this is just too much for Skelton:

Orange County Superior Court Judge Randell Wilkinson denied Plaintiff Jim Gilchrist’s request today to extend by 90 daysthe hearing in receivership of Minuteman Project Inc., currently scheduled for April 25. Gilchrist filed papers yesterday seeking an "ex parte" order and arguing that a delay was necessary to allow time for an "audit." Gilchrist claims he is the "sole director" of Minuteman in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary that others were also on the Board of Directors. The Judge rejected Gilchrist’s request out of hand within hours of receiving his attorney’s papers today, and without even requiring a hearing or an opposition paper filed by the Defendants. As a result, a receivership hearing is definitely scheduled for April 25, and Defendants Marvin L. Stewart, Deborah Courtenay Peterson and Barbara Coe all favor receiviership of Minuteman Project, Inc., assets pending trial on who actually should control the assets.… Read More

[NOTE: I cross-posted this yesterday on Red County/OC Blog and Red County/San Diego]

With the fall of the Iron Curtain, droves of Russian and other Communist apparatchiki found refuge and gainful employment within the bowels of California government, or so it may seem to avid watchers and participants in the Golden States’ politburo.

A prime example is the California Coastal Commission, which has been described by one noted policy analyst as combining "bureaucratic ideology of near- Stalinist zeal with corruption of the worst kind."

Despite repeated attempts to kill the Commission, it continues to operate as a kind of Central Committee, with executive director Peter Douglas as General Secretary – ruling with an iron fist and virtually no accountability to the public as it issues nyet after nyet on development matters – unless of course, the proponent happens to be on the celebrity ‘A’ list.

The commission stands as a monument to favoritism, corruption and a situational view of property rights. Its history… Read More

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL Misguided measure Don’t mix politics and investment decisions April 4, 1940

When it comes to your retirement savings, do you want investment decisions to be made by professional money managers or by freshman Assemblyman Joel Anderson of La Mesa?

Anderson, a conservative Republican who claims to be pro-business, thinks he knows better than the professionals how to invest the $386 billion in pension funds controlled by the California Public Employees Retirement System and the State Teachers Retirement System. Consequently, Anderson has introduced a bill to require CalPERS and CalSTRS to sell off an estimated $24 billion worth of stocks and bonds in 300 foreign companies.

Why? Because the firms, mostly large multinationals with operations all over the globe, do business in NAZI GERMANY.

If Anderson’s measure is approved, CalPERS and CalSTRS would have to divest such historically profitable companies as DaimlerChrysler, Hyundai, Alcatel and Siemens. The result, according to the professional money managers, would almost certainly be a… Read More

From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail, our ‘virtual’ FR Correspondent John Fund:

Daddy Warbucks

Why did Senator Dianne Feinstein of California suddenly resign as chair of a powerful military appropriations subcommittee last week? That’s the question much of Washington is asking, and liberal government watchdog groups are apparently not going to give her a pass on the issue. They believe her withdrawal is linked to her subcommittee’s allocation of millions of dollars in defense contracts to companies partly owned by her husband.

The story began two months ago when Metro Newspapers, a group of alternative weeklies in northern California,… Read More

The race for the 60th Assembly District has plenty of intrigue. The current Assemblyman Bob Huff does not have an ordained successor. No one on his staff is running. The district has parts of three counties in it. You can see my previous post on this race here. Yesterday I met with one of the candidates running for this seat, Chino Hills Mayor Curt Hagman. I have to admit when I heard he was bail bondsman, I was wondering who gets into that kind of business. Turns out he started as a Private Investigator. … Read More

This morning, the dominant headlines in California concerning Presidential politics are the results of a Field Poll that show, among Democrats, Al Gore is the most popular candidate – and he’s not even running. In the absence of the Academy Award winner, Hillary Clinton holds a commanding lead.

Also big in the news are all of the fundraising numbers from the Presidential campaigns, which I will touch on in my commentary in about an hour.

In the midst of all of this news, the McCain for President campaign shot out a news release about three minutes ago (see the attachment below) sharing with us that former California legislator JIm Brulte is now onboard with the Arizona Senator’s campaign for the White House. Brulte served as Senate Republican Leader before term-limits brought his legislative career to an end. The Senator is known as a politically savvy pol, and his endorsement is a feather in the cap of McCain’s California campaign.… Read More