You don’t need another example of how the Legislature wastes time and taxpayer dollars, but here’s a great one: AB 667.

This bill is nothing new. A version of it is introduced almost every session. Last go-‘round it was SB 469 by Juan Vargas, and it’s such a bad bill that even Governor Brown vetoed it, saying that “plenty of laws are already on the books” that throw hurdles and roadblocks in front of large retail stores before they can be approved and built. Before that, Schwarzenegger vetoed the same bill, and Governor Davis vetoed it before him.

The bill would make it harder to open a larger retail store — over 90,000 square feet — that also sells groceries.

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Last week the California Public Policy Center released a compilation ofpublic employee compensation databases. Apart from the CPPC’s own studies that disclose and evaluate compensation for city workers inSan Jose,Anaheim,Costa Mesa, andIrvine, of May 2013, they found nine additional sources of information on California’s state and local government employee compensation, incorporating eleven databases. Here they are:

State Controller,employees of all California Cities and Counties Sacramento Bee,California State workers… Read More

SACRAMENTO — As I left the Capitol today, I noticed several official vehicles double parked around the Capitol. Then I heard that Sen. Ron Calderon’s Capitol office had been raided by the FBI. Calderon, is a Democrat from Montebello, CA.

Additionally, I was contacted by legislative staff and told that the FBI raided the Latino Caucus offices in the Legislative Office building across the street from the Capitol.

“Three cars from the Dept. of Justice and one from the FBI, parked on N Street in front of the legislative office building about 3:30 pm,” I was told by a legislative staffer. “It looked as if there were seven people who entered the building with collapsed boxes.”

Scott Lay, publisher of Around the Capitol, reported more:

The U.S. Attorney in Sacramento (Eastern District of California) has confirmed that it has executed… Read More

Below is a fine example of how to use carefully selected statistics – (im)properly presented — to make a point at odds with reality. The graphic below originated in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, so that media outfit bears ultimate responsibility for this flawed analysis.

But some local CA booster organizations are using this same misrepresentation to claim that California is doing better than Texas – a ludicrous assertion. More on that later. Here’s the original graphic that’s now being circulated, along with a link to the short accompanying article. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-06/californias-job-growth-outpaces-texass … Read More

The constitutional deadline is just two weeks away and the Governor and Legislature are busy negotiating the state’s next budget. With Democrats now holding enough seats in the Legislature to pass the budget without Republican input, we can expect a budget that reflects their priorities and grows the size of the government. Fortunately for them, budget revenues this year are exceeding expectations and multi-billion budget deficits appear to be a thing of the past—at least for now.

As you can see in the graph,… Read More

Some residents of Kings County, California are waiting with trepidation for the June 6, 2013 California High-Speed Rail Authority board meeting.

At that meeting, the board will vote on its “Preferred California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Alignment and Station Locations for Inclusion in the Fresno to Bakersfield Final Environmental Report (FEIR).”

Farmers will finally know which fields the bullet train rail line will bisect. And residents will know which buildings the High-Speed Rail Authority will demolish to make way for the rail line, adjacent support infrastructure, and elevated embankments for road crossings.

One Kings County structure targeted for demolition has special economic significance, so much so that it’s hard to believe the California High-Speed Rail Authority isn’t conspiring to destroy the building as part of a grand plan to elevate California as the zenith of enlightened civilization.

If the board selects the initially-proposed and still-preferred “eastern route,” the bullet train line will take out the Baker Commodities rendering facility in Hanford. Or to quote one dumbfounded Kings County opponent of the rail… Read More

Late last week and over the weekend United States Senator Rand Paul traveled first to Northern and then to Southern California. Last Friday, in the middle of his Golden State travels, we published an exclusive column from the Senator. Yesterday, after his trip through California was over, I had the opportunity to catch up with Senator Rand on the phone where he was kind enough to grant me an interview. We spoke for about twenty minutes on a wide range of topics including technology, privacy rights, immigration, gay marriage, domestic drone use, and more. The interview appears below.

Jon Fleischman (JF): Thank you, Senator, for agreeing to this interview. I publish the Flash Report website on California politics. Our readers are stranded conservatives in California who are watching with gross fascination as Rome burns in Sacramento. We are hopeful we can turn some things around here and we appreciate your time. You just returned home from your three-day visit from northern and southern California.… Read More

When Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa loses his job in July, he’ll also lose access to some swanky public housing. Zocalo Public Square is helping the mayor’s transition with its Adopt-a-Mayor program, a neighborhood competition to determine the best block in town. In the following piecepublished at Zocalo Public Square, I make the case for a micro-apartment.

Micro-House This Ex-Mayor Before the mayor decides where to… Read More