There has been a lot of commotion lately over this year’s legislation that would ban plastic grocery bags, and impose a tax on paper bags (read about it here, watch more here). You’ll recall that it already passed out of the Assembly (barely) with the Speaker’s vote making the difference (this legislation, if passed, would force a manufacturer of plastic bag in his district to lay of a few hundred people). This bill would outlaw plastic grocery bags, and would then create a mandatory per-bag fee on paper bags of at least five cents. It is worthy of note that the hundreds of millions of bucks that would be collected through this mandatory fee, according to the current language of the bill, would go not into a government program, but – get this – into the pockets of the grocery store owners (in most cases, very large mega-chains like Safeway, Ralphs, Pavillions and such). It is no wonder that the California Grocers Association, who has opposed the bag-ban in previous years, suddenly has come out in full support of this bill. One can picture the sign at the grocery check-out line, “We apologize for this new bag fee,… Read More

With the State GOP Convention quickly approaching, the following letter was sent out to delegates from the Yes on 22 campaign. Proposition 22 would block the state legislature from taking funds traditionally used to fund local government services to use for other purposes…

Dear California Republican Party Member: We are writing to urge your strong support for Proposition 22 at the California Republican Party convention this month. Prop. 22 would stop the fiscally irresponsible practice of state legislative raids of local government funds. And Prop. 22 would prevent the State from taking gas taxes that… Read More

This just in from longtime FR friend Grover Norquist, who calls on Sam Blakeslee to sign the No New Taxes pledge signed by virtually every other Republican officeholder in California…

Blakeslee Can Protect Taxpayers And Unify The Party By Signing The Pledge Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform All Republicans in the state Senate have signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. In doing so they have sent a clear message to legislative Democrats and the rent-seeking lobbyists trolling Sacramento that they will not vote for net tax increases on already heavily-burdened California families and… Read More

Quote of the Week: "No man’s life, liberty or property is safe when the legislature is in session." – Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) August Recess: The tradition of the August Recess dates back to the very first Congress in 1790. Washington has miserable weather in August with high temperatures and high humidity. It is 96 degrees with humidity to nearly match as I write you this. Abraham Lincoln famously hated DC in August and would have gotten away but for that little matter called the Civil War. In any event, Congress has rarely been in session in August and in 1970, the August recess was actually codified. Very rarely has Congress been called back into session during that period absent declared war or a natural disaster of some kind.

But Nancy Pelosi’s Congress is different. We were called back into session this week for a very important purpose – to spend, borrow, and tax even more than we already are. Yes only in this Congress does spending more money, borrowing more money, and increasing taxes become a national emergency.

The bill that we were… Read More

We are pleased to offer this guest commentary from longtime FR friend Rob Stutzman, who is a senior advisor to Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman…

Surprise! Liberals Oppose Whitman’s Plans for Job Creation, Tax Cuts By Rob Stutzman The liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) out of Washington DC released a “report” yesterday that unsurprisingly attacked Meg Whitman’s plan to create 2 million jobs in the next 5 years. Just who are the people behind CAP? Its main funding source is none other than billionaire liberal political activist George… Read More

Today, in what was a widely anticipated announcement, conservative Assemblyman Ted Gaines official entered the special election race for the First State Senate District. Last month, after a lengthy battle with cancer, State Senator Dave Cox passed away. Governor Schwarzenegger quickly called a special election in this very Republican district. The "primary" for the special election will take place Tuesday, November 2nd (consolidated with the General Election) with the runoff (if no candidate get’s over half of the total vote) to take place in January.

There is no doubt that Gaines is the instant front-runner in the race to succeed Cox. By all of the standard measures, Gaines is a very strong candidate. His 4th Assembly District has around 34% of the State Senate District’s likey voters within it (Assemblywoman Alyson Huber’s district comes in a distant second with around 20% of her district overlapping). Gaines has been a strong fundraiser, already posting big bucks in his account for a strong GOTV program. Finally, and perhaps most significantly in this district, Gaines has a solid voting record on… Read More

Listening to the torturous half-hour in-studio interview of Meg Whitman on the John and Ken Show last week was not easy to do. At first blush it would seem difficult to imagine a candidate with so much money and so many consultants doesn’t understand the electorate or John and Ken.

Whitman supporter Ventura County Supervisor Peter Foy published a thoughtful column in the San Diego Union Tribune explaining some of the problems with her campaign’s strategy, which appeared on the same day of the John and Ken interview debacle. And he was on the mark. But there is more.

It amazes me that up in Sacramento, where many of the consultants live, they just don’t understand the phenomenon of the Los Angeles based-John and Ken. Before I became a “spokeshole” (A John and Ken term), I had several opportunities to be on the show and actually did on-site shows in various locations to gather petition signatures on the issue of illegal immigration.… Read More

One aspect of the Democrats’ most recent budget proposal that hasn’t gotten much attention is that they seem to be on the exact same page as Governor Schwarzenegger and Republicans when it comes to pension reform. Look at what Kevin Yamamura wrote yesterday on the Sacramento Bee’s website:

“ … in order to make their new budget balance, Democrats are counting on $822 million in savings that depend upon 15 bargaining units negotiating the same type of tentative agreements that six other units have reached with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration. The savings is located on page 9 of Assembly Speaker John A. Perez’s budget outline. “If that were to occur, the remaining 15 bargaining units would agree to increase employee contributions to pensions and take one unpaid leave day each… Read More