*FR Exclusive* "CA Forward" Legislative Proposals Seek GOP Votes To Eliminate Taxpayer Protections By Assembly Republican Leader Martin Garrick This morning in a Capitol press conference, legislative Democrats and the political reform group California Forward announced bill proposals to weaken long-standing taxpayer protections. While there are parts of this proposal that might take legislative reforms a step forward, the package would send California… Read More

Why do people keep coming back with this dumb idea that if a budget is not passed on time, legislators should not be paid?

This kind of proposal presupposes that a bad budget is better than a late budget.

I obviously look at ideas like this through the prism of a conservative — but if I have like-minded legislators in Sacramento who are holding out against a bad budget (a myriad of things, like tax increases, could be what makes a budget "bad"), why would I want them to get pressured into voting for it by preventing them from paying their mortgage or rent?

These kinds of "sounds good" proposals aren’t going to solve our problem in Sacramento.

The reality is that the biggest problem that we have in the State Capitol is not structural, it is ideological. For decades now, liberal Democrats have been in charge of the State Legislature and they have over-spent us into oblivion.

The "reform" we need is pretty obvious – Republican majorities!… Read More

The following is a continuation of my interview with Charles Moran, national spokesperson for the Log Cabin Republicans:

Hesperia School Board Member Anthony Riley has picked up the endorsement of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. A big coup here and of course are the recall committee far behind? HJTA supported the recall of Assemblyman Anthony Adams. Three more candidates have taken out papers from the San Bernardino side. Tim Donnelly from his website is running as a constitutionalist. Very Similar to the message that Ken Hunter has. been spreading. Hunter announced his race before Adams announcement. Iver Bye. For those of you without long memories, Iver Bye ran for Los Angeles County District Attorney in 1988. I think I voted for him. He was a Deputy District … Read More

This week, we took the first steps to put in place policies that will better protect our children and put an end to the failings in our criminal justice system that allow violent sexual predators to slip through the cracks.

During an announcement at my office, a representative from the Chelsea King Family read a statement from Kelly and Brent King asking me to join them and lead the legislative effort to enact real changes to better protect our children and our communities from violent sex offenders. I am humbled and honored to work with them to create Chelsea’s Law.

This joint effort between my office and the King family will seek changes in the law to protect California’s children from violent sexual predators. Our goal is simple – to make sure that no family has to go through what the King and Dubois families are experiencing right now.

There is not a person in our community who hasn’t been touched by this tragedy. As a father and husband, I can’t imagine the pain felt by Kelly and Brent King and Carrie McGonigle and Moe Dubois. I know every parent out there is worried about the… Read More

Having gotten to know many of the members of the press corps that cover California politics, I have found them to for the most part be pretty fair and balanced. There is always an occasional example of some liberal reporter going too far — but generally, for our part here in the Golden State, we’ve got a good crew of reporters (almost all of whom invariably voted for President Obama – but then again, so did most Americans).

There is no good reason for Meg Whitman and her campaign to go through Herculean efforts to avoid meaningful dialogue with the California press corps. All it does is feed speculation that she has good reason to do so, when I don’t think that is the case. I have heard Whitman in intimate campaign settings, and have myself sat down with her on more than one occasion writing for this website. I’m confident that she would do just fine in media interviews.

As a Republican Party officer, who is neutral in this primary and is waiting on the proverbial "50 yard line" to help our nominee win the office in November, I really do believe that practice makes perfect where it comes to media interviews.… Read More

Here’s the piece. I’m sure it deserves some analysis. But who has time for that? I guess I will leave it to readers to decide whether a Constitutional Officer who has CHP protection should be reimbursing taxpayers for that protection when it is provided at campaign events….

… Read More

In the wake of Senator Ashburn’s arrest last week, I found myself actually hoping for communication from the CRP. Those are the moments when leadership is needed, and the party needs a positive and unified message. But unfortunately, the CRP was deafeningly silent when the Senator was arrested.

So I called my friend, Charles Moran, who ran media for the California delegation at the RNC convention in 2008, to find out what the Log Cabin Republicans think about Senator Ashburn’s predicament. And as you will see below, there is a good reason why Charles is the national spokesperson for the Log Cabin Republicans…he is excellent at communicating on subjects that can be very difficult. I appreciate what he had to say.

JIll: Generally speaking, what was your reaction to the news regarding Senator Ashburn’s arrest for DUI, and the mention that he was driving from a gay bar?

Charles: The first reaction was one of concern of the safety of the pubic – drinking and driving is a grossly irresponsible and dangerous practice… Read More