The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that UCLA was enrolling twenty fewer African-American students in this fall’s freshman class than it did last year. This represents 2.9% of all incoming students, which the Times points out is well below the 9.6 percent African-American presence in the 1985 freshman class. The article includes the obligatory quote from Proposition 209 author Ward Connerly (who points out that preparing African-American students for college is a preferable alternative to "tinkering with the admissions criteria to make it easier to get in.") But otherwise, the story largely steers clear of the affirmative action debate in order to instead focus on how to address the situation.

Left unsaid is that admissions to a campus as competitive as UCLA is a zero-sum game, and that increasing the number of qualified African-American students means that fewer students from other racial and ethnic groups will be admitted. As an opponent of race-based affirmative action, I don’t see that as a problem. A larger number of academically successful African-American high school seniors is a good thing all around. But the fact… Read More

The State Industrial Welfare Commission has the authority, apparently, to hike the state’s wage mandates on private employers, without any action of the State Legislature. That seems like a poor set-up. Mandates on employers like this should require a vote of the people’s representatives EVERY time. If jobs are going to be cut due to regulation on businesses, someone in elected office should be responsible, not some extremely obscure commission. Anyways, if you haven’t been following the debate over the minimum wage between the Governor and legislative Democrats, here is a short breakdown:

The Democrats want to raise the minimum wage. The Republican Governor wants to raise the mandated wage. Republican legislators, overwhelmingly, do NOT want to increase the mandated wage. The Republican Governor wants a $1 an hour hike. The Democrats also want $1 (they would probably go for $10 if they could), but also want to create an ‘auto-pilot’ indexing to inflation of the mandated wage). The Governor had one of the few GOP supporters … Read More

A break from weekend political activities for a few bites from the week…

Survey USA Poll in 50th CD… Jim Sills noted it after Jon’s commentary yesterday…if you missed it, the survey was conducted 5/30-6/1 for local KGTV…448 likely voters…prior to the Busby "You don’t need no steenkin’ papers to vote" comment. The results show Bilbray up 47% to Busby’s 45%, with virtually zilch undecided. Sills astutely notes, however, that "the cross-tabs show Bilbray far ahead among voters over age 65, with Busby’s best segment being those under age 35. I think we all know the respective turnout history of those two age groups!" Survey USA’s own analysis, "Turnout Will Decide CA 50 Special Election," you can see here, along with the cross-tabs.

The North County Times… Read More

Libraries and pre-school. Wow, is that the best we can come up with? This election’s statewide ballot measures will go down in election history as 1) the most boring and 2) the most worthless.

The independent library system is one of the least important government institution of this century. I don’t discount their value in certain communities. But in your typical middle class community where there is a library at each school site, a (or a network of) city or county library(s) and college or university library(s), I think that makes a few too many librarians.

I have nothing against them. In fact, I quite enjoyed going to the library as a kid. Getting my own library card at 6 was a special event. But times have changed and I no longer have to go to the library on a hot summer day because it is the only place in town with an air conditioner (I am being dramatic–we had air conditioning as a kid).

I also know that large amounts of research that could once be the done exclusively at ‘the library’ can now be done on ‘the Internet’. I… Read More

The State Industrial Welfare Commission has the authority, apparently, to hike the state’s wage mandates on private employers, without any action of the State Legislature. That seems like a poor set-up. Mandates on employers like this should require a vote of the people’s representatives EVERY time. If jobs are going to be cut due to regulation on businesses, someone in elected office should be responsible, not some extremely obscure commission. Anyways, if you haven’t been following the debate over the minimum wage between the Governor and legislative Democrats, here is a short breakdown:

The Democrats want to raise the minimum wage. The Republican Governor wants to raise the mandated wage. Republican legislators, overwhelmingly, do NOT want to increase the mandated wage. The Republican Governor wants a $1 an hour hike. The Democrats also want $1 (they would probably go for $10 if they could), but also want to create an ‘auto-pilot’ indexing to inflation of the mandated wage). The Governor had one of the few GOP supporters … Read More

Francine Busby, the Democratic candidate running in the 50th CD special election against moderate GOPer Brian Bilbray, was speaking at the Joclyn Senior Center. After she spoke, during "Q&A" she was asked by a man in the audience (in Spanish): "I want to help, but I don’t have papers." Busby responded: "Everybody can help, yeah, absolutely…you can all help. You don’t need papers for voting, you don’t need to be a registered voter to help." Can you believe this?!? Well, don’t take my word for it… click here… Read More

Francine Busby, the Democratic candidate running in the 50th CD special election against moderate GOPer Brian Bilbray, was speaking at the Joclyn Senior Center. After she spoke, during "Q&A" she was asked by a man in the audience (in Spanish):

"I want to help, but I don’t have papers."

Busby responded: "Everybody can help, yeah, absolutely…you can all help. You don’t need papers for voting, you don’t need to be a registered voter to help."

**There is MUCH, MUCH, more – click the link**

View Full Commentary… Read More

In a CD50 race focused on illegal immigration, those could be Francine Busby’s dying words…or Brian Bilbray’s last nail for her coffin. Kinda like "We don’t need no steenkin badgches." I could come up with cliches all day on this one.

I know Jon will link to the SDUT story on the main page this morning, but it’s worth doing so here as well. Staff Writer Dani Dodge nails it withher lede, "If an election can turn on a sentence, this could be the one."

The taped Busby comments are floating around, but you can hear them right here on FR…just go to Jon’s daily commentary.… Read More