Last week, the House voted down a debt limit increase without any conditions by a vote of 97-318. Not a single Republican voted for it. Then, last Tuesday, the President invited the entire Republican caucus to the White House for a discussion on the debt limit. Frankly, all the President succeeded in doing was angering us. His arrogance, haughty nature and his unwillingness to say anything other than his campaign talking points left us all quite discouraged about any potential agreement. Still, the debt limit looms. Treasury Secretary Geithner says that we have already technically hit the ceiling, but that he is raising cash using “extraordinary measures” until August 2nd, at which he point he predicts we will be at the end of our financial rope and run out of cash. Conveniently, that day is just a couple of days before the House and the Senate are scheduled to go on summer recess. The potential to have to cancel that recess will focus negotiators in Washington.

So, what happens if we breeze past August 2nd without increasing the debt limit? Virtually every media outlet would have you believe that we will default on our debt. Even the… Read More

On Tuesday the voters of San Juan Capistrano went to the polls, actually only2,000 went to the polls – the other4,700 voted by mail and approved Measure B. B was a referendum on a retail development,meaning the council hadapproved the project anda NIMBY citizen groupcollected signatures, got it on the ballot, andlost –56% of the voter sided with the council and the developer.

The developer had the help of veteran political consultant Eileen Padberg. But there was also a robust independent expenditure funded by the Orange CountyAssociation of Realtors (Dave Stefanides) and run by political consultant Brandon Powers.

The campaign stuck to basic messages and they won, which is not easy in party of South Orange County where development can meet with strong opposition.… Read More

I have spent some time in the vineyards of California Republican politics. I have had two main goals over time: (1) to promote solid conservative principles; and (2) to expand the conservative base, that is, to find ways to change how conservatives do what they do, in order to persuade people that conservative principles in politics are what is best for them. When a majority of Californians believe that conservative principles are what is best for them in their life, Conservatives will win elections. Until the majority of Californians believe that, conservatives should (and will) lose elections. The job to persuade people is up to conservatives, and no other job is more important in politics than the work of persuading people of that fact.

I don’t believe we should change our principles to win, but we do need to work. Changing our strategies and our tactics is critical, changing principles is nonnegotiable. When conservatives win elections, we should have the power of majority opinion behind our victory. That has been a major motivating factor behind all of my, sometimes lonely, fight in politics. Some of my Republican friends think only victory… Read More

The statutory remedy for most common “Brown Act” open meeting violations is a simple “do-over” of the meeting in public. But if the government agency won’t acknowledge a violation, another feature of the Brown Act is that if you have to take them to court to prove the violation, and you win, a judge can order the “do-over” and you can get an award of attorneys fees for your trouble of having to bring the case. Or the DA can self-institute a criminal proceeding. I know a little about the Brown Act – I won a two-day trial against the Mission Viejo City Council years ago for clients for Brown Act violations the City would not acknowledge, and I won a contested attorney fee award, too. I also sued the Capistrano Unified School District a few years ago for a client on a Brown Act violation claim, held a deposition and did other discovery to prove the case, and was able to settle the case out of court, winning a court-approved stipulation agreement that Capo would record closed session meetings for a certain time period. I also was awarded attorney fees in that case. In those two cases, if the government agency had just… Read More

Speaker John Perez is on a jihad to obliterate the City of Vernon, home of the world famous Dodger Dog, quite literally. His legislation to literally abolish the city has garnered much attention, and has already passed out of the Assembly. While some serious legal questions have been raised about whether Vernon can be obliterated in such a manner, the underlying question is should Vernon be a city at all? In my mind, there are really three issues at hand here.

The first is whether it is appropriate to have a city whose only real function is to serve as an incubator for its local business community. At less than a hundred residents in an area of roughly five square miles, that is home to businesses that collectively have more than 50,000 employees, you can kind of get the picture. Vernon was not started as a residential community. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Vernon has been a magnet over the decades for every kind of gross, smelly and loud business that you could think of – incinerators, slaughterhouses, and the like. Frankly, I’m surprised it has even the few residents that it does. Vernon has no parks, no libraries, and no infrastructure… Read More

In aneffort to push for greater transparency in Congress, my colleagues and I aregoing head-to-headin a New Media Competition. Thanks to your support, I have advanced to the Top Eight and this week I am fighting for a spot in the Final Four.

By “liking” my Facebook page, “following” me on Twitter, and viewing my latestYouTube videos, you can help my online communications efforts in a meaningful way.

I am constantly striving to find new and improved ways to connect with all of my constituents. I am here to serve you and hope to provide you with the greatest transparency to my work in Congress.

With the strong emergence of New Media, I am able to give you a more personal look into my work days in the 25th District of California and in Washington, D.C. By “liking” my… Read More

The message that we at the FlashReport have for the small band of GOP legislators who think that it’s “cool” to go “rogue” on their party, and usurp the process of permitting the Republican Leaders in each chamber to be responsible for negotiating on a budget, is to just STOP.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Democrats outnumber Republicans in Sacramento by a considerable margin. If you look back at policy-making in the Capitol over a great many years, history is replete with GOP legislators who couldn’t play team ball. It is these specific legislators who have done two things well, collectively, over time. The first is to render moot the 2/3rds vote requirements on many issues that would allow the GOP to stop the big government agenda of the liberals who run the Capitol – in its tracks. The second is to put a Republican patina (or worse) on all of the terrible things that have been done to this state by unholy alliance of the elitist left at the state’s public employee unions.

We all know that the allure of being the decision makers is great — and “negotiating a deal” would fill anyone… Read More

With apologies to Mark Twain and his definition of golf as “a good walk spoiled,” last Thursday, Assembly Republicans took a highly routine walk off the floor of the Legislature, only to have it spoiled by the heavy hand of the ruling party. Several newspaper articles have offered explanations for this; all of them that I have seen got it wrong. Here’s what happened.

By way of background, keep in mind that both parties have left the floor before during debate. It’s called a caucus and, typically, the parties have afforded each other the privilege of caucusing whenever they want. In fact, caucus requests, in the memory of those currently serving in the Legislature, have always been granted unanimously. But not last Thursday. The Speaker of the Assembly himself, in a highly unusual move, took the gavel and objected to a routine request by Republicans to caucus.

Unanimous consent denied, GOP leader, Connie Conway, then made a motion under the Assembly’s rules to recess for a caucus. Those rules provide that a caucus can be called on a simple 41 vote majority. Now, Republicans have only 27 votes in the Assembly, and thus needed 14 of our Democratic… Read More