If it weren’t for the Republican Party, we would not even know who Nathan Fletcher is.

That’s right, the political party he abandoned last week after 15 years of professional association; the one that provided the structure and opportunities for a politically ambitious young man to learn the system; the one that gave him the identity and resources to run and win a seat in the State Assembly; the one that put him in position today to be a leading candidate for mayor in the 8th largest city in America; and the one that put him in a position of prominence such that his quitting actually mattered to anyone.

Unfortunately, Fletcher’s quitting the GOP has been looked at through the lense of a sympathetic establishment and media who believe Republicans are too extreme. This same establishment bemoans the party’s inability to focus on unifying economic issues while playing down “divisive” social issues. What makes this narrative remarkable is that in their enthusiasm to see Nathan as the good guy and the GOP as the bad, they ignored what actually happened.

The Republican Party didn’t reject Nathan Fletcher. It embraced Carl… Read More

Nathan Fletcher was raised in Arkansas, played college baseball in California and enlisted in the Marines as a reserve in 1997. He saw combat in 2004, based in the Sunni Triangle in Iraq.

One day Fletcher’s unit went to relieve a convoy and was, in turn, ambushed by insurgents with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire. According to his military records, the unit “attempted to break through the enemy line of resistance several times in order to relieve the convoy, each time coming under heavy, sustained fire, during which Sergeant Fletcher never wavered in his determination to engage the enemy.”

As detailed in fine reporting by Craig Gustafson of The San Diego Union-Tribune, Fletcher was awarded an achievement medal with a Combat “V” for Valor.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/opinion/brooks-a-moderate-conservative-dilemma.html?pagewanted=print… Read More

On Wednesday morning my friend of many years, Nathan Fletcher, who was elected as a Republican member of the California State Assembly in 2008 and re-elected in 2010, rather abruptly announced that he was changing his voter registration — leaving the GOP to be an independent (“decline to state”) voter. I also found out that his wife, Mindy, another friend, re-registered as well. We carried the video announcement recorded by Fletcher prominently on the main page of the FlashReport, and we have included links to a number of articles and columns that have appeared on the subject. When I read the news, I reached out to Nathan directly.

Since Nathan’s announcement, I have been deluged with queries from fellow activists, party leaders, and a lot of folks in the media, asking me for my thoughts. With the exception of a call from one reporter whom I have known for over two decades, I have declined to really speak to Nathan’s decision — struggling to figure out exactly what I think about it, and how to put those thoughts into the written word. I have started that column four times now, and I keep stopping. This is not the first time that I… Read More

I respect Nathan Fletcher, he’s served honorably and put his life on the line in defense of our county – we all owe him a debt for that service. He has been an able and conscience Assemblyman. And, he’s been effective, successful Republican.

But, Nathan spent much of his adult life as GOP insider, fighting and taking sides as a Republican staffer, activist and elected official. He promoted and helped Republican candidates – supporting those he thought were the “better Republican.”

A short time ago he was fighting to become the Republican standard bearer in the race for San Diego Mayor. Only after the San Diego Republican Party said “we like you, Nathan, but we think Carl is a better choice for Mayor” did he suddenly find a moral imperative to abandon the party. I don’t know what is in his heart, but I cannot help asking if this was a crisis of conscience or simply raw political opportunism.

Rather than “rejecting division,” the moves strikes me more of embracing the politics of personality over principle. To me, it screams that he values his personal success more than the ideas all of us… Read More

It’s budget week here in Washington.

That means we are debating the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. There are proposals and amendments and such.

I’ve linked a 5 minute video clip of a response I gave to another (sigh) proposal to “tax the rich more” to this post. I received a number of accolades on this speech, including many from Democrats. I hope you enjoy it.

By the way, the amendment was defeated.

Click HERE to watch my Budget Committee remarks.… Read More

Recently Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg talked about pulling the massive $14++ billion water bond off of the November ballot, and pushing it to a future election. His concern is that its presence on the November ballot could endanger the passage of the Governor’s proposal to increase income and sales taxes. I have written a lot about the “porkulus” so-called water bond that was the subject of a bi-partisan lard-fest in late 2009. In this article in the San Jose Mercury News, former Assemblyman Chuck DeVore suggests that the bond should be cut in half — and that most of the remaining borrowing would be repaid by those using the water. That would be a great idea. Short of that, if you can believe it or not, I’m with the Sierra Club’s Jim Metropulos: “If the legislature won’t repeal it, I want to see an up or down vote in November.”

The campaign of Presidential aspirant Mitt Romney released their statewide campaign leadership. Honorary State Chairs are former… Read More

The Center for Education Policy and Law/U-T San Diego poll released the following finds earlier this week in re the San Diego Mayor’s race:

Carl DeMaio: 24%

Bob Filner: 20%

Bonnie Dumanis: 10%

Nathan Fletcher: 10%

Undecided: 35%

This poll confirms almost exactly a Competitive Edge poll taken for the San Diego Republican Party a couple weeks ago.

Carl Demaio: 25%

Bob Filner: 20%

Bonnie Dumanis: 11%

Nathan Fletcher: 11%

Undecided: 31%

Carl DeMaio is a client of REVOLVIS.… Read More

The Californian initiative process pains me.

Great idea on paper, but in reality – we’ve allowed idle lawmakers to relinquish responsibilities to the public, which supposedly hired them for the job.

Yet, even when voters “decide” (measure proponents love to say that), it’s rarely the end of the discussion.

Days, weeks or months later, a psuedo-lamaker legislates from the bench and we’re back where we started with just a dash more bitterness.

It’s a wonder voters show up at all anymore.

In good old San Diego, there’s an epic battle playing out over an initiative that’s got all the makings of a daytime drama.

The initiative proposes reforming the City’s guaranteed pension system and replacing it with a 401(k)-style plan for “most” new hires.

Basically, the so-called “comprehensive pension reform” eliminates pensions in favor of 401(k)s for all new hires but police officers (one of the proponents, Mayor Jerry Sanders, is a former police chief) and proposes a five-year hold on current employee salaries used to calculate future pensions.

A… Read More