In the middle of California’s driest winter on record and following an active fire season, our state must provide the firefighting services Californians need and expect.

That’s why I recently sent a letter to Gov. Brown urging him to eliminate the controversial (and probably illegal) Fire Prevention Fee. I also asked him to restore full funding to Cal Fire in the revised version of his 2014-15 budget proposal. In this time of drought, Cal Firemust have the reliable funding it needs to fulfill a mission that benefits all Californians.

Remember, the fire fee doesn’t pay one cent toward fighting fires, but rather backfills budget cuts made to Cal Fireyears ago. The third set of bills is currently scheduled to go out in early March.

The fire fee is a bad tax, not just because of the unnecessary burden it places on taxpayers, but because it is horribly inefficient to collect. From the beginning, the process of collecting the Fire Prevention Fee has been lengthy and expensive, proving it is a poor method for funding Cal… Read More

A major California employer just announced that it will be moving 1,000 high-paying jobs out of state. Charles Schwab asserts that a major reason for the move is the sky-high housing costs in San Francisco. But the company is looking to move the operations to one or more of five states — NOT to another part of California where housing costs are (relatively) reasonable compared to crazy San Francisco.The candidates for the Schwab operations: Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Arizona and — of course — Texas.

Even if the company TOTALLY left the grossly misnamed “Golden State,” Schwab would not have one bad word to say about California. They have too many customers here who might take affront — especially the people managing the massive pension funds. Plus, the state agencies will go after ANY business that does ANY business in CA. Criticizing California could result in retaliation. If it did so, Schwab would always be at risk.… Read More

Nearly every member of the media in Sacramento is openly advocating for a new basketball arena to be built in downtown. And they are supportive of a massive public subsidy to offset the cost for the owners of the Sacramento Kings. Besides gross incompetence, this is also willful negligence.

A group of citizens and taxpayers known as STOP (Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork), and Voters for a Fair Arena Deal, are fighting the public subsidy of the proposed new arena. According to the lawsuit filed bySTOP, the city subsidy is actually $338 million — not the $258 million the city claims.

STOP has tried to get the details of the arena deal and purchase of the Sacramento Kings to be made public.

Beyond the legal challenge… Read More

California’s water crisis continues to grow worse.

We are currently in the midst of one of the driest winters on record. Hardly any measurable rain fell in December and January, which are usually among the wettest months of the year, and there is no relief in sight. The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center recently forecast that this dry weather pattern is expected to last for at least the next three months.

Meanwhile, real people are suffering under mandatory water rationing orders. There is not enough water for farmers to grow crops. Restaurants, hotels and equipment rental companies that rely upon water for tourism like skiing and water sports have seen their business drop sharply. Californians are demanding action from Sacramento to address the immediate crisis and solve our water challenges once and for all.

Ironically, one of the primary reasons why this year’s drought is so bad has nothing to do with Mother Nature. It is a lack of forward thinking from Sacramento.

California’s current water infrastructure is outdated and overwhelmed. It was built more than a half century ago to meet the needs of 1960’s California for… Read More

Is it possible that the California Legislature is finally coming to grips with the public employee pension crisis? We certainly hope so.

For years, our political leadership has behaved more like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand regarding the many billions of dollars of “unfunded liabilities” in California’s pension funds. Unlike most retirement plans in the private sector, government workers get “defined benefit” plans that guarantee fixed payments to retirees, no… Read More

A poignant reminder to all of my friends with whom I am working hard to maintain our Republican majority in the House, build a Republican majority in the Senate, and capture the White House with a Republican in 2016…

From 2002 – 2006 we, as a party, had achieved all of those political goals — the “triple crown” was achieved. Yet, we did not achieve our end-goal as a party. After all, the purpose of a political party is not merely accumulating power — it is expending that power to achieve your goals (as articulated in your platform). During those four years when the GOP ran the table in DC, federal spending increased, regulations increased, and entitlements expanded. It was a horrible chapter in our party’s history, from my perspective.

I bring this up as a reminder to all of those out there who wonder why there seems to be such a strong effort, by conservatives in the party, to make sure we have more strong Constitutional conservatives in our House and Senate GOP Conferences, and likewise with our GOP nominee for President. Because we’ve been to this dance before.

That is why I will back a Constitutional… Read More

San Diego is losing a(nother) good employer to Texas. Websense is leaving, moving to Austin. See the article below (and the many comments after — many of my comments are also posted on my Facebook blog on this).

445 San Diego jobs — GOOD jobs — are about to disappear into the Lone Star State. 445 of our local friends and neighbors are about to join the ranks of the unemployed — unless they move to Texas with Websense, which I suspect a fair number will.

The press and public are putting too much importance on the $4.5 million the state of Texas is paying to entice Website to come to Austin. That money was NOT nearly enough to entice a company of that size to decide to disrupt operations, pull up stakes and leave sunny San Diego.

The money probably DID help Austin get the nod — but only in preference to the many OTHER states more business friendly than California. In other words, the company owners had correctly deduced that San Diego and California were no longer “bottom line” friendly governments. The Texas subsidy only helped them decide WHICH state to move to — and probably was not the… Read More

Later this year California’s 34th State Senate District, in the heart of Orange County, will be ground zero in a statewide battle between Republicans and Democrats — hanging on the outcome will likely be whether or not Democrats will go into the next legislative session with our without the super-majority in the upper house. For those trying to envision where this seat is located, the cities within the district include Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Los Alamitos, Santa Ana, and portions of Anaheim, Huntington Beach, and Orange.

The field is pretty much set — representing the Democrats will be termed-out Assembly, now Community College Trustee Jose Solario. Representing Republicans will be Orange County Supervisor Janet… Read More