A brief commentary on the state budget, and the request of Governor Brown for a GOP term sheet… (Disclaimer: This is only my second attempt to cut video at my desk.)

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With a h/t to commenter Colin Parenton a blog post over at the venerable SD Rostra website, we present to you the banner across the top of Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher’s official website — containing a tremendous panoramic view of the San Diego city skyline! Of course, downtown San Diego isn’t exactly a stone’s throw from Fletcher’s home and his Assembly District. Yet another sign that a run for San Diego Mayor is in the cards for the second-term Assemblyman…

We’re actually not compulsive-obsessive about Nathan’s future plans here at FR, we just thought it a fun observation, and a great way to give a shout out to the Rostra.… Read More

Assembly Speaker John Perez is a product of his environment. He spent his entire adult life working full time for labor unions (most recently the United Food and Commercial Workers) before being elected to the legislature (he never even lived in his Assembly District until he moved there to run). If you look at his voting record, he votes the left-wing/union position 100% of the time.

As the Speaker, Perez should be focused exclusively on figuring out how to resolve California’s short-term and long-term state budget mess, right? Wrong. (Apparently).

While I won’t criticize him for his odd habit of collecting ducks (seriously), it seems like every legislative session he introduces a bizarre, obscure piece of legislation about which he becomes… Read More

This column appears today in Capitol Weekly… GOP Convention: Opposition to Special Election Taxes By Jon Fleischman Last weekend about 1,500 Republican leaders from all around California gathered at the Hyatt Regency Hotel across the street from the state Capitol for our biennial organizational convention. As is pretty much always the case, if you read the headlines blazing across MSM newspapers and reporter blogs, you might think that the convention was a bloodbath of epic proportions. It was not, of course. I spent a lot of time at the convention talking to delegates… Read More

U.S. Representative Tom McClintock has sent the following letter to President Obama concerning recent U.S. military actions in Libya… March 23, 2011 The Honorable Barack Obama President of the United States The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Mr.… Read More

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If there is at least one good thing that has come out of the Governor’s bargaining with the Legislature over tax and budget issues, it is Jerry Brown’s call for closing down the redevelopment agency scam that has allowed tax-and-spend Councilmembers and City Managers in local cities like pristine Mission Viejo to declare themselves ‘blighted communities" and then setup new taxing and spending authority to build corporate welfare edifices such as shopping centers anchored by up-scale stores like Williams-Sonoma and Nordstrom’s. It just doesn’t make economic sense for taxpayers, especially most taxpayers, who shop at WalMart, not Restoration Hardware.

Republican Assemblyman Chris Norby is a fighter against the redevelopment scam, having countered the policy on the Fullerton City Council, as a County Supervisor, and now in the Legislature. He is willing to be one of the just two votes the Governor needs to knock out this bad policy and save our budget millions in useless tax and spending authority.

The… Read More

In redistricting some districts draw themselves. The population and geography just work out that way.

Consider the City of Sacramento. The incorporated area is 814 people more than the ideal population for an Assembly District.

This district would place two newly elected Members of the Assembly together in the same district. Assemblyman Richard Pan and Assemblyman Roger Dickinson both live in the incorporated city so one would have to move or they would have to run against each other in this Democrat controlled district.

The other thing that this would do is pack most of the solidly Democrat areas into one district. The other two districts that are likely to come from the remainder of Sacramento would at least be competitive for Republicans.

I plan on publishing a number of maps in the coming weeks but this is the first one.… Read More