Every election cycle, seeking to vindicate the rights of private citizens who, at great time and expense, have qualified an initiative for the statewide ballot (often a subject matter that has no chance of making it through the dysfunctional Legislature), against a partisan Attorney General who has crafted a biased summary of the proposed measure.

The Elections Code tasks the Attorney General with preparing “a true and impartial statement of the purpose” of any measure appearing on the statewide ballot. The Attorney General’s statement cannot “be an argument, nor be likely to create prejudice, for or against the proposed measure.” The ballot label, title and summary prepared for Proposition 32 by Attorney General Kamala Harris failed this basic standard, which unfortunately is no surprise.

Attorney General Harris’ proposed ballot language described Proposition 32 as restricting or limiting contributions to candidates from corporations, unions and government contractors, and as restricting the collection of campaign contributions from corporate employees and union members through payroll deduction. These… Read More

San Diego Politics & Media Mashup

I’m not sure what’s worse: suggesting the Republican Party is racist or calling someone a criminal while offering no evidence to support the claim.

Congressman Bob Filner, running for mayor in San Diego, did both of those things in a span of a few days.

Adding fuel to the fire was local labor Lorena Gonzalez. More on her in a minute. First, Filner.

At a mayoral debate Thursday, Filner played the race card while refuting a point by City Councilman and mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio.

“They (the Republican Party) are a party that does not believe that the people of color in this nation deserve an equal chance, they do not believe that Mexico is worthy of respect as a nation,” Filner said, according to KPBS.

Monday on KOGO, host LaDona Harvey noted that Filner basically accused her and a whole bunch of other people of being racist without offering any proof.

Within the hour, Filner was doing the same thing —… Read More

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As if her job isn’t already hard enough, the task for Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway got a bit tougher yesterday. You see she, along with her counterpart, State Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff, are spending a lot of their time convincing potential donors that it if we want to stop tax increases in California, it is critical that enough Republicans occupy each chamber of the legislature to block the two-thirds vote threshold required to raise taxes under the State Constitution. This pitch, by the GOP leaders, is pretty persuasive — especially when you consider how aggressively Capitol Democrats try to raise taxes. However, the presupposition of their pitch is that… Read More

The trial lawyers and radical environmentalists took it in the shorts over the weekend as the California Republican Party voted overwhelmingly to oppose Prop 37, the ballot measure that would ostensibly require the labeling of “genetically modified food.”

I engaged in the battle against Proposition 37 after receiving an email from a political operative for the “Yes on 37” campaign ahead of this weekend’s state party convention and it became clear the liberals were going to make a play.

During my four years as state party chairman, the liberals would occasionally show up and lobby the party to back one of their big government propositions if they thought they might be able to get away with it. Fortunately, we stopped them every time.

Prop 37 of course isn’t really about food – it’s about lawsuits. It would require food sold at the grocery store, convenience store or other shop to bear a label if it contains genetically modified ingredients (as though genetically modified foods are potentially harmful, which of course they are not).

The real objective behind Prop 37 is to open the floodgates for a new round of lawsuits against… Read More

BURBANK — The California Republican Party convention is taking place this weekend in Burbank, CA. While there have been guffaws and snickers about the relevance of the Caalifornia Republicans, the party made significant gains in the June primary, but this was largely ignored by most of the California media.

The convention agenda is not packed as full as previous meetings given that many politicians are campaigning for November races, but there is still plenty of red meat being offered.

Repeal Obamacare

A forum on “The Future of Health Care” was an excellent panel presentation to a packed room. Health care insiders presented facts about the impacts of Obamacare, and John Eastman discussed Obamacare following the recent Supreme Court decision.

Eastman, an attorney, Professor and Dean at Chapman Law School, and former candidate for State Attorney General, asked audience members, “What happened on June 28, who did it, and why?”

“There was this little case up at the Supreme Court,” Eastman said. “28 states sued the federal government. Eastman said that liberals predicted case wouldn’t even get to Supreme Court.… Read More

The California Air Resources Board seems to be on everyone’s list of what not to do in state government. Charged with implementing AB 32, the California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, CARB is under increasing scrutiny for operating as a rogue agency, appearing to be accountable to no one.

All attempts to reel in the agency have failed, including another attempt to audit its operations and finances–thanks to Democratic legislators who clearly are getting marching orders from Assembly and Senate leaders.

A Joint Legislative Audit Committee hearing on Wednesday brought CARB close to accountability with the threat of the six-month state audit. But the committee chairman, Assemblyman Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, surprised everyone when he nixed the plan after having made the pretense that he was on board.

CARB and AB 32

In 2006, the Legislature promised that AB 32 would help clean the environment while still protecting the economy. Supportive legislators promised that utility and gasoline costs would not increase with the implementation of the climate change law.

The opposite has happened, and businesses are now… Read More

Prior to joining the Legislature, I was a lawyer for over 13 years, with a primary emphasis in business disputes. I still work as a lawyer since I left the Legislature for the last six years. Of course, while in the Legislature, I served on the Senate and Assembly Judiciary Committees, given my experience in the law and litigation.

Why is that important? Because during my time as a lawyer, I had more than one client weave conspiracy theories about what was going on in their cases. My response always was: What is the evidence? What can we prove? What documents or witnesses do you have? Of course, there are two types of evidence admissible in a court action, direct evidence and circumstantial. Both are of equal weight in a court action. Direct evidence can best be described as Jack sees John shoot Ted. Jack’s testimony about what he saw is direct evidence. Circumstantial evidence is Jack hears a gunshot, runs into the room, and see John standing over a dead Ted, holding a smoking gun. It is this type of circumstantial evidence that always leads people to look “for the smoking gun” in any conspiracy type claims. It also leads those who… Read More

One of the biggest problem with our tax system in America, and here in California, is that it is overly complex and is filled with all kinds of special treatment for one group or another. It is filled with subsidies, credits and exemptions — each of which, when it comes down to it, is a result of the politicians in Washington, D.C., or in Sacramento picking winners and losers. Long has there been a movement to establish a “flat tax” system, where there is one tax rate paid by everyone, and no longer would those in political favor get preferential treatment in the tax code, nor would the tax code be used as a tool to manipulate the behavior of the people to the liking of the political class. So while I appreciate that NASCAR gets a tax break, end it. And while those who make rum get favorable tax treatment, that should end. And if you want to make corn ethanol, that’s great — but you shouldn’t get a break on your taxes for it.

Of course, it takes a lot of commitment to truly support a flat tax — where the government treats everyone the same. It seems like there will always be temptation to want to use the power of government to… Read More