This afternoon I was listening to Neil Cavuto interview New Jersey Governor Chris Christie while in my car (love XM radio). Christie, as the new Governor of the Garden State, has been taking a lot of slings and arrows from public employee unions because of his strong position that given the sorry state of New Jersey’s state finances, that the unions need to step up and participate in solving the problems (salary reductions, reductions in retirement benefits, and so on). To date, Christie continues to hammer the unions, especially the state’s teachers association, because has has, "yet to see them come to the table with any ideas that put aside their own bests interests in pursuit of the common interest."

Powerful words from New Jersey’s new Republican Governor. Christie pointed out that while the downturn in the economy has hit private sector taxpayers hard, public employee union members have been largely shielded.

Move 3,000 miles West and we have a state budget situation that makes the 9 billion dollar New Jersey problem look like chump change. But similarly, we do not see the state’s major public employee unions… Read More

Ireland is my kind of country. Literally. My dad’s dad’s line traces 11 generations to the family crossing to America in 1634. And his grandmother through his mother was born on the Emerald Isle. So I’m here enjoying a vacation and a pint of Guinness while doing some ancestry research at Trinity College in Dublin. Now is a good time to be here. The weather is great, everybody is excited that England made the soccer finals, and the Irish guy who won the U.S. Open last weekend in California’s Pebble Beach just made a triumphant return yesterday and is all over the news. And they love Americans. Yesterday my driver from the airport made a big deal of congratulating me on America’s World Cup victory over Algeria. I diplomatically accepted the congrats on behalf of all Americans but I’m glad he didn’t ask me the name of the striker that scored the winning goal. I love the Irish because they are such rebels, and I identify with that characteristic. A story in the Irish Times today discusses a planned visit of the 84 year old Queen of England later this year, which would be the first visit ever of a British monarch to the Irish… Read More

Republican Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee came oh-so-close to winning the special election in State Senate District 15 outright tonight — capturing 49.7% of the vote. However, because Blakeslee did not win an outright majority, he will be in an August run-off that will feature himself, Democrat John Laird, and two third party candidates — a Libertarian and an independent. Blakeslee is well poised for an August victory, but it will be an expensive endeavor, to be sure. But given how close the Democrats are in the State Senate to the 2/3rds vote to raise taxes, it will be a very expensive loss for all California taxpayers should Laird somehow prevail.

You can read a lot more detail on the results in this Capitol Weekly story. (I guess one should add the caveat that there are invariably some absentee and provisional ballots outstanding, so it’s not impossible for Blakeslee to close in… Read More

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I am sure that the coalition of big labor unions that has and is going to fund most of the effort against Republican Meg Whitman’s campaign for Governor had this "vision" that they could attack and pummel Whitman, and that she would sit idly by. Umm, no.

Today the Whitman for Governor campaign launched their first piece exposing Jerry Brown for the long time, problem creating politician that he is.

Here is the ad…

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From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…… Read More

In my campaign for the State Assembly, we made a promise to the Director of San Diego’s Partnerships With Industry that if elected, our office would employ an individual with a developmental disability. We kept that promise and are proud to take part in First Lady Maria Shriver’s WE Include Program, which focuses on opening doors to employment for individuals with developmental disabilities In April of 2009, Jay Bariuan joined our team. He came via a referral from Partnerships With Industry—an organization that pairs developmentally disabled adults with good jobs in the San Diego area.… Read More

Another one for the "you just can’t make this stuff up" files… Democrat legislator Curran Price has introduced legislation that would explore requiring California automobiles replace their existing unobtrusive license plates with electronic signs — mini billboards. The state would then sell advertising on them. In the proposal, the ads would only pop up if the car was stationary at least four seconds.

Are you kidding?

My car is my car. I don’t want a billboard on my car. Period. Never mind the fact that I might not like a particular product (or political candidate?) advertising on my car’s mini-billboard, the bigger issue is that I don’t want an advertisement on my car at all.

Look, I "get it" that the right-sizing of state government to what can be afforded through the existing state tax code — it’s not easy for all of those people in the private sector to have to make cuts in their spending, either.

I also don’t want to discourage creative and "out of the… Read More