The Citizens Redistricting Commission that resulted from the passage of Propositions 11 and 20 is close to completing their work. Yesterday they released a set of maps for Congress, State Senate, State Assembly and Board of Equalization that they are likely to vote in favor of putting out for official review later today.

To view the proposed maps please go to Meridian Pacific’s website at www.mpimaps.com FR friend Chandra Sharma has set up a wonderful website that allows all of us to see the districts, key cities, and past election outcomes.

The Commission is likely to spend a good portion of the today patting themselves on the back for a job well done. They certainly do deserve credit for spending as much time as they did on this project over the past eight months, and it does appear that their just is, well, just about done. However, the process was not a smooth one at all.

First, it is clear that some of the Commissioners focused on their own personal agendas. Why is it that San Joaquin County is whole in a Senate (SD 5) and Congressional District (SD 9)? That would be because Stockton was lucky enough to… Read More

You all know how the limbo dance works, right? The bar keeps going lower and lower until the eventual winner wins by passing under it at a heighth that no one else can. Contrary to the beliefs of many in the Republican Party, our position in this debt limit fight is mostly over how low we can set the bar for ourselves. Insiders look at the “Boehner” plan and see a great compromise. “At least they didn’t raise taxes” becomes our self congratulatory mantra. Instead, because I guess we’ve lost all ability to remember an election that happened less than a year ago, we’ve become so clueless we cannot even do basic math. The Boehner plan gives the Democrats 90% of what they want even as they protest that it’s somehow unfair.

So here’s the deal. Obama and the Democrats, when they had the entire government, raised the annual federal spending baseline over a trilion dollars. Over a ten year period, that is $10 trillion. What happened after that was the greatest mid term election defeat in modern history, a historic loss of House seats by the same Democrats responsible for the pillage. The Tea Party… Read More

Here’s a depressing but documented comparison of California taxes and economic climate with the rest of the states. The news is breaking bad, and getting worse (I keep updating this fact sheet):

California has the 3rd worst state income tax in the nation. 9.3% tax bracket starts at $46,766 for people filing as individuals. 10.3% tax starts at $1,000,000 LINK

Highest state sales tax rate in the nation. 7.25% (as of 1 July). 7% is next highest (does not include local sales taxes) LINK Table #15

California corporate income tax rate (8.84%) is the highest west of the Mississippi (our economic competitors) except for Alaska. LINK #8 — we are 8th highest nationwide.

California’s 2011 Business Tax Climate ranks 2nd worst in the nation. LINK

Fourth highest capital gains tax 9.3%… Read More

On my vacation this summer this is my reading:

Listening to America (Bill Moyers). Yeah he’s an annoying liberal but I read the first chapter and couldn’t put it down. Gives someone who didn’t live through the 1960’s a good feeling for what people from a variety of backgrounds thought about the social change.

Before the Dawn (Gerry Adams). Figure I should at least hear the other side.

Basic Brown (Willie Brown). Can’t believe I haven’t read it yet. Hey I don’t come out of the progressive Republican wing of the GOP. I think organizations provide better representation than civil servants.

The Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett). I just can’t believe I haven’t read this before. Sam Spade. Classic but is it good?

The Thin Man (Dashiell Hammett). One of my favorite movies… I had no idea it was a book.

All The Kings Men (Robert Warren). Read it several years ago it needs another round. This is the fallback book.

Plus I saved up a couple weeks of The Economist and the New Yorker… Read More

In the ultimate reminder that elections have consequences, today liberal Democrat Governor Jerry Brown nominated liberal Democrat professor Goodwin Liu to a spot on the State Supreme Court. No doubt that all of the very valid and important reasons for why conservatives rallied to oppose confirming Liu to the U.S. Court of Appeals (he was nominated by President Obama, but has failed to gain confirmation by the U.S. Senate). Who can blame conservatives or moderates for opposing Liu? After all his record reads more like that of a political activist than a law professor.

From our friends at the American Conservative Union…

Liu has made it clear that he believes the Constitution is merely a guide to judicial decisions and that what he calls “our collective values,” “evolving norms” and “social understandings” should be the key to judicial decisions. Liu has backed race-based admissions to our universities in an amicus brief regarding a Seattle school district case. Liu’s views on criminal law have drawn the extraordinary opposition of 42 of California’s 58 county district attorneys. Here is what they had to say… Read More

The public worker pension debate rages on. And “rage” is the operative term when the unions and their allies discuss switching to 401-k plans from their current guaranteed defined benefit plans.

Carefully selected sob stories are popping up to justify continuing the public worker guaranteed pensions that are roughly three to four times what private sector workers can expect to receive upon retirement.

Rather than rehash the usual talking points, I’d like to here list what I consider some key oftenUNSTATED (and false) assumptions underlying the labor unions’ pitch:

1. “A government worker should be able to retire comfortably with their pension alone.” No need to otherwise save or invest. No stocks, no savings, no IRA’s, no home equity build-up, no payoff of mortgages and no inheritances. In the private sector, we look to these and other sources for improving our retirement years.

2. “City workers get zero social security.” Often that is not the case, as over their lives they earn sufficient credits in… Read More

House Speaker John Boehner just hit a homer on national TV in his well stated response to President Barack Hussein Obama’s speech on the debt limit tonight. He hit all the points, including that the House already passed a debt limit bill that doesn’t raise taxes, that the media is pretty much ignoring. Obama’s class warfare politics, yelling about “corporate jets” needing to be taxed, sounds more like Trotsky than John F. Kennedy. I imagine many of those jets fly to Las Vegas and I can’t imagine Obama winning Harry Reid’s Nevada in 2012!… Read More

It was supposed to be our salvation. In 1792, the first redistricting process in the United States, Eldridge Gerry figured out how to draw lines to favor his political party. One of his opponents said the districts looked like a salamander. Another said “that is not a salamander, it’s a Gerrymander. And a great political tradition in the United States was born.

The solution? A citizen commission, free from bias, drawing the lines, no politics, no partisanship. It didn’t work out that way here in California. What went wrong?

I supported the idea in the 1990’s, thinking it could work. Then I went through a redistricting process. Redistricting is the most political process there is. Jobs, careers, and power are at stake. I watched as Democrats in the Legislature erased and drew lines in their districts on their desks during session. They were intensely interested in the outcome. David Dreier and Ed Royce lived in Sacramento for a time while the lines were being drawn. Mike Briggs sold his vote on a tax increase for the Congressional seat that he thought would be his, and turned out to belong to Devin Nunez. Republicans in… Read More