When Ernie Dronenburg announced his resignation from the San Diego County Board of Education on December 14 during the regular board meeting, the resultingnews reports were nowhere to be found. Curious, considering that only a few years ago when Susen Fay and Jim Kelly served on the board, neither of them could breathe without a Union-Tribune headline or editorial.

Nowadays, without anyone serving on the board that the media would define as "right-wing," apparently the U-T doesn’t even cover the meetings, so the paper knew nothing about Dronenburg’s resignation. It should be noted that before serving on the County Board of Ed, Dronenburg served a mere 20 years as a Republican on the State Board of Equalization, among many other things authoring the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. See his bio here.

Yet, still no news reports or even announcements from the board’s County… Read More

Governor Schwarzenegger trumpeting the age of borrowing with his proposal to place a $68,000,000,000.00 (that’s how $68 billion would look on a calculator, except calculators don’t have enough digits!). You would think that he rang the cow bell — because here come the Democrats. Their voracious appetite to spend money has the entire herd cramming into the feed barn at once!

The only good news, if you can call it that, is that the Democrats can’t really propose borrowing more than the Governor (since he pretty much maxes out the state credit card). Maybe when the Governor sees how enthusiast all of these liberals are about the Bondinator, he will come to his senses, and scale back this massive proposal. No one is saying there are not major infrastructure investments needed, but a plan that includes no reforms so that we, starting… Read More

OC Attorney Power Broker John Ramirez (pictured to the right) and Rutan & Tucker law partner Joel Kuperberg had a huge victory on Friday. The pair defended the Orange County Water District (OCWD) in a lawsuit v. the Yorba Linda Water District (YLWD).

Sadly this was a dispute that has wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funds.

I will forgo the legal stuff and focus on the amusing facet of the case. After making accusations in court that OCWD had engaged in "deceit" by hiding a 1970 agreement from Yorba Linda Water District (note that the agreement was recorded, and is a public record), OC Water District attorney’s found evidence that OCWD in fact sent the agreement to YLWD in 1988. YLWD then switched its story to admitting that OCWD sent the agreement, but accusing OCWD of not telling YLWD… Read More

The FlashReport has a very narrow focus on California politics. So why this short column on the importance of an Arizona Congressman running to replace Tom DeLay as Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives? Well, an ancillary effect of his candidacy is significant California news, because Shadegg is stepping down as Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, one of the top leadership posts. None other than "our own" Darrell Issa is now campaigning for this seat (read more about it on the FR Weblog).

Arizona Congressman John Shadegg is a leader of the Republican Study Committee. Last week, we featured a column from Congressman Ed Royce, another strong conservative Congressman, on the importance of the efforts of the RSC. Frankly, the current leadership of the House of Representatives has failed in its primary mission. When Republicans… Read More

Some explanations for California’s ongoing budget problems

For the first time in four years, California does not expect a budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year, thanks to unexpected tax revenue pouring into the state this year.

But a $6 billion deficit is expected to return during the 2007-2008 fiscal year, with continued deficits anticipated for the next several years. Here are some of the central reasons why state government has so much trouble living within its means:

MANDATED SPENDING As much as 70 percent of spending in California’s budget is mandated through federal law, court order or voter initiatives. Even if lawmakers had the will to cut, most of the reductions would fall disproportionately on specific programs. Some of those smaller pieces of the budget pie are considered critical such as certain law enforcement, parks and recreation, and public health programs.… Read More

Dan Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee has the makings of a great policy idea Here is his proposal, which I have reprinted below, and I have some brief comments at the end:

Walnut, Salifornia is one of those places that isreally hard for teachers to work in. The place has the highest test scores in the San Gabriel Valley. If you drive through Walnut you see plenty of businesses that offer tutoring. (Which makes you wonder if the teachers or the tutoring are responsible for the high test scores?)It is a Republican area to boot.

Now the union there really has it rough. Despite all the allegededucation budget cuts, the district is offering a 4 percent raise. The union bosses wants a 5 percent raise. See article here. What’s a union goon to do?

I knowthey should vandalizethe homes of board membersand threaten them andother districtemployees.See the article here.What the articles don’t tell you is thatthe head of union made the statement that they can’t be held responsible for what someone might do two nightsBEFORE the vandal(s) struck.

That makes the uniontotally responsible.… Read More

The Republican National Committee is made up of about 165 or so members (a rough estimate), which includes the 50 State Republican Party Chairmen, and a Committeeman and a Committeewoman from each of the 50 states and the U.S. Territories. So California’s three representatives to this body are CRP Chairman Duf Sundheim, Tim Morgan, and Barbara Alby. As a practical matter, when there is a Republican in the White House, the RNC members, in practice, defer the running of the National Committee to the President, who exercises this faith by naming the Chairman of the Party (in this case, Ken Mehlman), who goes through a ratification vote by the full committee (but I don’t think the committee has ever turned down the pick of a President). The Chairman runs the day-to-day operations of the party. The Republican National Committee meets from time-to-time as the policy-setting body of the RNC. Under party rules, they are involved with budgetary issues, matters concerning party rules, the… Read More