Once again all rational people in California cane take a deep sigh – the legislature has finished up it’s regular legislative session. Things can’t get any worse for us. Or can they? The Governor has hundreds of, frankly, very bad bills on his desk and we hope that “Arnold 3.0” will put his veto pen in overdrive (today FR presents its annual Top Twenty Bills The Governor Should Veto column).

As the Governor is busy contemplating of these bills before him, I want to share an observation about an interest group central to many of those pieces of legislation, and an important player in campaigns for Democrats — the unions!

Years ago, a very smart and visionary leader reached out to union and non-union workers and told them that he cared about their jobs and would do all he could to restore America. Working people responded and joined conservatives to elect and re-elect Ronald Reagan.… Read More

This is a short and sweet observation that I will make on a Friday afternoon. People keep talking about “fixing” Californias troubled state government by calling a Constitutional Convention.

Forget it. Drop it. Don't bother.

Until the outrageous and pervasive influence of our state's public employee unions can be curbed, the vast amount of money at their disposal ensures that, relative to a Constitutional Convention, they will either co-opt it and use it to try and further feather their nest, or they will completely demolish the results of the Convention when they are before the public for a vote.

Any time spent chasing this pipe dream (and similar ones) of making state government work again are going to be almost impossible until paycheck protection, or maybe a measure to just outlaw public employee unions altogether is passed. And THAT necessary battle will be WWIII.… Read More

[Cross-posted from RedCounty.com]

Several days ago I learned Steve Greenhut would be leaving the editorial pages of the Orange County Register to take a job with the Pacific Research Institute, a venerable conservative think tank in SanFrancsico. Ididn’t write anything because I thought Steve deserve the opportunity to announce it on his own schedule.

However, the news is already leaking out in the blogosphere, so with Steve’s blessing I’ve decided to let Red County readers know (Steve is going to talk about it in his columkn this Sunday).

I’m excited for Steve — this is a great opportunity for him with a great organization where he’ll be able to work with some first-rate minds (such as Steven Hayward, whose… Read More

Longtime FR friend Chuck Bell is a highly-regarded attorney specializing in political law. He serves as Counsel to the California Republican Party and is currently serving as President of the Republican National Lawyers Association. Bell wanted to share the following with FR readers… Leading National Republican Lawyers Group Calls on HUD & DOJ to Investigate & Defund ACORN By Chuck Bell, Republican National Lawyers Association

On September 15, 2009, the Republican National Lawyers Association filed a formal complaint with the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the… Read More

Gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner has signed the Americans for Tax Reform No New Taxes Pledge — awesome. Before I get to the part of this blog post that is about Poizner challenging his opponents to do the same, let me weigh in on this. Meg Whitman and Tom Campbell should ABSOLUTELY sign the pledge…

We are never going to be the majority party in California, or again nationally, if we cannot clearly articulate basic core differences from the Democrats. One of the essential lines that we need to draw in the sand is that Democrats think that government is too small, and that your taxes should be higher. Republicans think that government is too big, and it should be lower. All of the PR geniuses can talk about how that can be articulated to the voters in "real life" terms that are less ideological and more practical — but it is what it is.

Republicans are going to be fighting a losing battle for the Governorship if we get caught up in an intra-party fight over whether or not we should be raising new taxes. The best way to take that… Read More

One of the benefits of being an NRA member are the Legislative Alerts (orangepost cards)they send when some elected official in your area goes goofy on gun rights.

Well the other day I got an alert that my own Irvine mayor, Sukhee Kang had joined forces with Republican, Independent, Democrat, ???NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) is a front for anti-2nd Amendment forces.

In my weekly column which appears in the Orange County Register’s Irvine paper, I mention it at the end.

In the case of Mayor Kang, I suspect it was a desire to please/curry favor wththe big-city mayor that asked him to join rather than a true deep-seated anti-gun philosophy. But that is no excuse.… Read More

Popular Congressman Ed Royce (R-Fullerton)has already endorsed Linda Ackerman for the vacant 72nd Assembly District seat.Linda’s official announcment is attached below.

Linda’s husband Dick Ackerman held the seat in the 90’s and Linda is well known for being an accomplished fund raiser and GOP activist. She also serves on the board ofthe Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and on several non-profit and corporate boards.

Several other candidates have expressed interest in the seat, but most will defer to Linda.… Read More

The scandal surrounding ACORN has been spreading around the country as videos have been released on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website (based here in California) showing ACORN employees saying all kinds of outrageous thinks to a pair of actors coming into their offices posing as a pimp and a prostitute. The videos are amazing to see, and are definitely newsworthy.

As these videos have been released and the ACORN scandal has unfolded, I have kept an eye (as many California politicos do) on the various main stream media blogs here in the Golden State. While I didn’t see any coverage of the ACORN scandal at the beginning, I figured once the scandal hit California (recent videos expose workers in ACORN offices in San Bernardino and San Diego Counties) that they would write on it for sure, and link the videos (most of these blogs routinely embed videos — especially when they are easy to grab — Breitbart has these on Youtube). Nope. Nada.

In fact, we really didn’t see any California MSM political blog coverage at all until Governor Schwarzenegger yesterday afternoon… Read More