How ironic that successful international movie star and businessman Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is literally volunteering his time as Governor of California, has overnight become the largest donor to the campaign to pass Proposition 14, the "Top Two" initiative, which purports to somehow make things work "better" in Sacramento.

The reason for the irony is that Proposition 14 is truly the "wealthy, special interests empowerment act" where the vastly wealthy people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the vastly wealthy special interest groups that dominate state capitol politics (starting with the public employee unions and big business) will significantly increase their influence.

Why is this? First and foremost, Proposition 14 makes it a whole lot more expensive to campaign for public office, while doing nothing to make it any easier for a candidate to raise money. So this really advantages those players in system who have money to spread around.

Let’s also remember that the stated purpose of this measure is to decrease the role of "ideologues" in the legislature. This will play right into the hands of the… Read More

Fighting LA traffic to voluntarily step foot on the University of Southern California campus aside (sorry Dan Schnur), I'm looking forward to testifying this morning before the Fair Political Practices Commission's Subcommittee on Whether and How to Regulate Political Speech on the Internet (ok, that's my title).

I will try to avoid using the opportunity to rage against Constitutionally questionable laws that restrict and contort the free speech rights of citizens, who should be free to give of their property freely to political candidates or causes of their choosing. These laws, among other flaws, lead to more and more vastly wealthy candidates or candidates promoted by special interests emerging as candidates as severe limits make it more and more diffucult for an average person to raise the funds necessary to wage a competitive campaign.

Anyways, I digress. My testimony this morning will focus on the challenge of trying to restrict or regulate paid political speech in a dynamic and quickly evolving arena – the Internet. Oh, I have faith in the government to try and slap reporting requirements and an ID number on more and more… Read More

You can follow my tweets @flashreport or click on the Twitter Feed button on the main page.… Read More

Quote of the day: "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." – Theodore Roosevelt, April 23rd, 1910

Now what?: Unless you have been hiding somewhere for the last 24 hours, you know that ObamaCare passed late last night. So now what?

First of all, lawsuits are already being filed by states and others challenging the constitutionality of various provisions in the bill. The provision attracting the most attention is the one… Read More

For those sifting through blog-land, make sure you visit FR’s main page today. Not only do we have original columns from Congressman Devin Nunes, Attorney General Candidate John Eastman, and HJTA President Jon Coupal — you can also check out Steve Poizner’s newest television spot…… Read More

Former GOP 2002 Gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon has endorsed Tom Campbell for the U.S. Senate. Simon, who campaigned for Governor as an all-around conservative has taken to endorsing social moderates/liberals — he backed Rudy Giuiliani (citing an old, personal friendship) for President in 2008, and Meg Whitman for Governor this year. Now he’s endorsed Tom Campbell.

Check out the video…

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As a legislator, I am often asked by reporters how I can, in good conscious, oppose tax increases when the state is broke. My answer is simple: The state isn’t broke because of an anemic revenue flow; it’s broke due to poor decisions made by over-spending Liberals – like the $17,000 per year we spend on each California prison inmate and the gold plated compensation packages afforded to education bureaucrats instead of investing money in the classrooms (just to name a few budget problems). And now the California Taxpayers’ Association just released a report that reveals nearly $20 billion in state government waste, fraud and mismanagement in just the past decade alone! Cal-Tax President Teresa Casazza puts this gross mismanagement of taxpayers’ dollars into perspective: “Every penny of waste that is stopped is like a penny of new revenue that can help students, provide health care to the poor and keep convicted felons behind bars.” This report is further proof that shaking down taxpayers is not the… Read More

Supervisor John Benoit’s office just shared the details for the upcoming Memorial Service for Barry Nestande, who passed away last Friday… Services for Barry Nestande are as follows: Friday, March 26 at 10:00 AM Memorial Service in the Main Worship Center at Southwest Community Church in Indian Wells. Reception immediately to follow. … Read More