Like a few other industries, recyclers in California have found that our state laws can sometimes place law-abiding operators at a distinct competitive disadvantage. And it’s easy to see how. Simply put, a metal thief is not likely to take stolen material to a business operator that is going to take his picture and fingerprints, along with the other state mandates. He or she will undoubtedly take the material to a business which thumbs its nose at the state. Metal theft criminals know exactly which recyclers are willing to look the other way when it comes to making a profit. Hence, the uneven playing field.

But Governor Brown now has an opportunity to show California he is serious about reducing metal theft. While AB 841 was able to make it to his desk, it wasn’t with strong bi-partisan support. To the contrary, SB 485 made it to the Governor’s desk with only one no vote in the Assembly and without opposition in the Senate. The near unanimous approval of SB 485 did not come without concerns being expressed by industry leaders, particularly related to the cost of the enhanced inspections. However, the industry put their support behind SB 485, which will in fact help… Read More

By Larry Sand and Ed Ring

September 16, 2013

Although California is not a right-to-work state, public school teachers have the ability to receive a yearly rebate of $300 – $400 from the California Teachers Association.

Teachers have these options because the United States Supreme Court has held that a union can’t force a non-union member to pay for the union’s political and other activities unrelated to bargaining and representing workers.

A teacher’s ability to exercise these options is limited, however, and the necessary paperwork must be sent to CTA by November 15. (All teachers in LA Unified and those represented by the California Federation of Teachers have different rules and information is available on CaliforniaTeacherFreedom.com.)

First, if teachers are CTA members, they must leave the union. A generic resignation letter is available here. Teachers only have to opt out of CTA one… Read More

Not unlike it’s behemoth statewide counterparts, CalPERS and CalSTRS, the Orange County Public Employee Retirement System (OCERS) is facing an unfunded pension liability that is epic in size (for Orange County it’s approaching $6 billion, for the statewide groups its exponentially larger). In fact a study out of Stanford University pegs the aggregate unfunded liability statewide at just shy of half a trillion dollars. To illustrate the difficulty of trying to bring down these numbers, you need look no further than the very modest so-called Public Employees Pension Reform Act (PEPRA) which contained limited reforms championed in the 2012 legislative session by Governor Brown and legislative Democrats. For all of the hoopla and declarations of “meaningful pension reform” that new law addressed significantly less than… Read More

[Publisher’s Note – We are pleased to offer this column from GOP congressional candidatePat Maciariello, who argues the best way to help the poor is to grow the pie.- Flash]

We have heard a lot from the Obama administration about the growing gap between the rich and poor among us. Less discussed by the Left however, is how middle-income families have done under this administration. What is their record? The fact is that median household income has fallen by 7% since 2007, with most of the decline coming on President Obama’s watch. Liberals are quick to find villains on Wall Street and in “Benedict Arnold” corporations while ignoring how their anti-growth policies and rhetoric are making the problem worse for those struggling to reach the middle class.

The U.S. economy is not a “fixed pie” entrusted to Washington elites to slice up in the way they see fit, but is instead a dynamic and adaptive system, the likes of which the world has never seen. It is a system capable of growing quickly and lifting the prospects of all in it, if we don’t screw it up. Yet nobody in this… Read More

[Publisher’s Note – We are pleased to offer this column from Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, who explains why she has filed a lawsuit against State Senator Mark Wyland.- Flash]

Are there bounds of decency in which campaigns should be run? I think so.

Before joining the Assembly, I built a very successful 30-year career in finance. My husband of 30 years, Dan, also built his businesses, but did so independent of my career interests.

When the real estate downturn came, one of Dan’s investment firms took a hit. Many investors, who were forewarned about the risks of investing, saw their portfolios shrink as a result of the economic crisis. That’s not unusual.

A handful of investors filed suit, even though they knew the risks of investing. Unfortunately forCaliforniabusinesses, that’s not unusual either.

What is unusual is that one of my political opponents for the Board of Equalization, Mark Wyland, has taken an active interest in the plight of these plaintiffs. Why would a State… Read More

There are three ways legislators can attempt to prevent a law from taking effect – and they vary in terms of transparency to the public. The first, most obvious way is that they can vote against it, and hope to persuade enough colleagues on board to vote with them. But once passed into law, a legislator can attempt to defund the measure. This can be done in a public fashion, as we are witnessing in the current Obamacare debates in Washington.

But it is the third way that should concern us all as Californians: the use of budget trailer bills that quietly have tucked within them the poison pills intended to kill particular programs. What is so insidious about this last strategy as that these bills rarely carry titles that would indicate their intended targets, and are often so complex that a few lines of text defunding a mandated program squirreled into 400-500 page trailers can easily pass the notice of even the most exacting observer, at least until it’s too late.

Well, if it happened once, it would be an event, and two times a trend. But do three instances of this practice constitute a strategy for the Legislative Democrats and Governor Brown in using budget… Read More

“Just as the overseer of Detroit lied to the public about Detroit’s unfunded pension liability, these extremists are likewise lying to the taxpayers of Orange County, and they’re following his playbook.” – Jennifer Muir, Communications Director, Orange County Employees Association

We’re not lying, Jennifer. We’re not even stretching the truth.

What government union spokesperson Muir is referring to is an analysis released last week by the California Public Policy Center entitled “Are Annual Contributions Into Orange County’s Employee Pension Plan Adequate?”

They aren’t adequate. They aren’t even close to adequate. No lie.

The problem with pensions, unfortunately, as Teri Sforza aptly put it in her coverage of the CPPC study on September 10th in the Orange County Register, is“the nature of America’s public pension systems is to peer 20 to 30 years into the future – and the crystal ball can get a bit… Read More

Criminals don’t register their guns with authorities. Despite this indisputable fact, the California Legislature recently passed 14 gun control bills, taking aim at citizens who legally own guns.

California lawmakers are ignoring the historic recall last week of two Colorado state legislators who backed new gun restrictions. And they are ignoring the Bill of Rights. Second Amendment

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” says the Second Amendment within the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

The gun control debate waged during the last eight months in the California Legislature has been an attack on the Second Amendment. Democratic lawmakers claim the… Read More