California Matters

With California moving its presidential primary to Feb. 5 of next year, what Golden State voters think about White House politics has actually begun to matter. A new poll of likely primary voters by San Diego-based Datamar, Inc. shows the two current frontrunners to be Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.

The poll shows Ms. Clinton with 34% of the vote, leading Barack Obama’s 24% and John Edwards’ 16%. Given Ms. Clinton’s enormous name ID advantage, her lead is not compelling. On the GOP side, pundits were startled to see former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani with 41% support, John McCain with only 17% and Mitt Romney trailing with 11%.

GOP analysts say the… Read More

California’s former Attorney General, now our State Treasurer, was banged up pretty hard by a Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday, that is worthy of sharing:

Following the example of Eliot Spitzer, state attorneys general have had a field day using their power to accuse all and sundry of wrong-doing. So it’s only fair that a little sun is now beginning to shine on the cozy business relationships between these AGs and their trial lawyer buddies.

The sight won’t be pretty, judging from a recent Associated Press report that former California AG Bill Lockyer’s office concealed tens of millions of dollars in contracts with lobbyists and legal firms. California has an open-records law so the public can see how officials spend their money. Yet Mr. Lockyer’s office… Read More

Farsighted state employees are realizing that state pension benefits are an illusion. Nowhere in the world does any government match the pension benefits as California state employees. However, many economists are warning that as billions and billions that will become due, those employees will get stiffed.Consider San Diego on steroids.

So what to do? Bring in financial experts in a special commission.

Would you hire a person who publicly opposed the Recall that got this Governor elected, who nearly bankrupted the Republican Party, who personally stiffed RNC funds for the nearly successful McClintock comptroller campaign in 2002, who testified against the GOP pension fix in 2005, presided over the scandalous UC payroll cover-up,was sued by Treasury Secretary William Simonand has a blatant conflict of interest because hemakes millions managing CalPERS money?

The choice of Parsky is laughable throughout California and extending to Washington where Parsky tried but failed to impose himself as Secretary of Treasury.

Goodness knows that this post employment benefits commission is doomed before it starts.… Read More

Anaheim Mayor and former Speaker of the State Assembly Curt Pringle was just appointed by the Governor to the Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission. He will serve with former UC Regents Chairman Gerry Parsky among others to find solutions to unfunded benefits for public employees.

You may recall reading that Mayor Pringle was also recently appointed by the Governor to the CA High Speed Rail Authority.

It’s not hard to figure out why the Governor would tap Mayor Pringle twice in as many weeks to serve on important statewide commissions–Pringle is a natural leader and a dynamic problem solver. I like having Curt on my team no matter what the effort.

But these two appointments are helpful in proving a point of mine, that there is a major lack of leaders in government and politics today. Perhaps it has always been that way, but among the thousands and… Read More

The Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill today released her analysis of the governor’s proposed budget for 2007-08. What’s the bottom line on the budget proposal, from her point of view? Hill says that the budget result in a $726 million deficit as opposed to the Administration’s projection of a $2.1 billion reserve.

Here are a few noteworthy excerpts from the analysis’ highlights. All of the documents can be accessed here.

* Based on our projections, we estimate that the Governor’s budget plan would result in 2007-08 expenditures exceeding revenues by $2.6billion. This would leave the state with a $726million year-end deficit, compared to the Governor’s January 10th estimate of a $2.1billion positive reserve.

* In addition, the… Read More

Bills, bills, bills:

There are 435 members of the House of Representatives. In the 109th Congress, these members introduced 6,438 bills. Only 294 of them passed in the House, the Senate, and were signed into law by the president. That is less the one bill per member of Congress. So, suffice it to say, we do not measure ourselves by how many bills pass with one’s name on them. That would be a small number unless you are a committee chairman

But, we still need to try. Over the next two weeks, I will give you a list of the things I am working on. In some cases, I am the "lead" sponsor of the bill. In other cases, I am a "co-sponsor" of the bill. In all cases, these are issues in which I am engaged.

Some of these bills do not have a snowball’s chance in Hades of becoming law in this Congress for various factors. These range from the fact that Democrats are in control to that the particular measure is a big idea which will take years to cultivate. I often point out the efforts of my predecessor, Christopher Cox, to end the death tax. He began this quest in 1988. Now, 20 years later we have gotten close, but the… Read More

That’s right! Lots of crazy uncle (nephew) jokes are flooding through my head as I read the story in the AV Press about McCarthy’s visit to the Mojave Air and Space Port. (That’s not a joke either, there is one)

McCarthy represents parts of LA County, Kern and San Luis Obispo counties. McCarthy mentioned that basement thing at the end of the visit. Check out the article hereand you will actually see why McCarthy made it to Congress, very articulate and knowledgeable about the issues. Living in Thomas’s basement notwithstanding.… Read More

The move by the Senate to move the California presidential primary to February is set to come before the Assembly this week. The reason for the change, according to rumors in the Capitol, is to put a term limit change on the ballot before the filing period for the legislative races in 2008. If term limits are changed before the filing period, existing termed out legislators will be able to extend their terms beyond 2008.

Here is the problem.

The 2008 filing period begins right around the first week of February. Tons of people are running for the Senate and Assembly seats of the termed out members. People are announcing campaigns, raising money, actively seeking to fill the offices. Lobbyists are evaluating these candidates, and will have to make decisions soon about who to back.

So what happens if terms limits are extended? Lots of candidates, expecting to succeed the current office holders will have raised lots of money and campaign support for the offices that the incumbents will run to keep. Will they be challenged by people who have already spent a year of their lives, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, actively sought local… Read More