When it comes to next year’s 36th Senate District contest (Senator Dennis Hollingsworth will be termed out), it’s pretty well known that Assemblyman Joel Anderson is considering his prospects, although a final decision is yet to come.

Where that leaves Anderson’s 77th Assembly District, two years prior to his six years being up, is in the hands of several possible candidates, each awaiting the decision.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve posed the same question to the "anyone I could think of group," i.e. those that have been talked about in the echo chamber and/or those known to be looking at it themselves. The question, in essence: If (and only if) Joel Anderson seeks the Senate seat in 2010, would you consider running for AD 77?

The responses being gathered were to turn into a "handicapping the field" column — and they still will — but in the meantime one of the prospects appears to be the first to quasi-officially announce her candidacy, given the pending "if" tied to Anderson’s "if."

Christine Ribeiro Rubin, most recently the district director for Senator Mark Wyland,… Read More

I am really sick of reading idiotic reporting on the State budget, and I can’t take it anymore.

There is never, ever any reporting on anything other than a spending comparison to LAST year. I have not ever seen a five or ten year spending trend in the news. This is a deliberate omission which place the entire debate out of context.

The State is still spending more than five years ago and enormously more than ten years ago. This fact cannot be found anywhere.

Also missing from reporting is population, student enrollment, and other factors which need to be considered.

I don’t know if the MSM is lazy, or just disinterested, but as a loose institution it is incompetently reporting the situation in California.… Read More

As I write this, it remains uncertain whether or not we will be voting on the socialized medicine bill next week. Regular readers know that I am a numbers, financial, and economic guy, as betrayed by my CPA certification. As important as these issues are, we are now presented with an issue even more vital. The socialized healthcare bill being considered by the House will likely result in tens of millions of Americans dying sooner than they otherwise would have to.

When the free-market, doctors, and patients are taken out of health care decisions, and the care is paid for by somebody else, the establishment of an organization to ration care is inevitable. In fact, the legislation creates the National Institute of Comparative Effectiveness. As benign as it may sound, this is the bureaucracy that will be used to ration care. A similar institution exists in Britain, and has the rather ominous acronym of NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Experience). Rulings on whether people live or die are made frequently in Britain and Canada, and if you have a pre-existing condition, are elderly, or for some reason deemed ‘unfit’ for a life saving procedure, then your… Read More

Businessman and former Republican Gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon, Jr., has endorsed Meg Whitman in her campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor. Simon will serve as a Co-Chairman of Whitman’s campaign, and as a Senior Policy Advisor.

"Meg Whitman’s success in business crew from her conservative fical principles and solutions-based leadership," says Simon about Whitman. "Meg believes lower taxes and smaller, more efficient and effective government will generate jobs and bring prosperity back to California. Her beliefs and experience make her the best candidate to lead California’s economic recovery."

Simon’s endorsement is most significant because in his campaign for Governor in 2002, he ran in both the primary and general elections as an unubashed conservative, endearing himself to many of the State GOP’s grassroots activists.

In the 2008 GOP Presidential primary, Simon was in the top brass of the campaign of former New York Mayor… Read More

Businessman and former Republican Gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon, Jr., has endorsed Meg Whitman in her campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor. Simon will serve as a Co-Chairman of Whitman’s campaign, and as a Senior Policy Advisor.

"Meg Whitman’s success in business grew from her conservative fical principles and solutions-based leadership," says Simon about Whitman. "Meg believes lower taxes and smaller, more efficient and effective government will generate jobs and bring prosperity back to California. Her beliefs and experience make her the best candidate to lead California’s economic recovery." Simon’s endorsement is most significant because in his campaign for Governor in 2002, he ran in both the primary and general elections as an unubashed conservative, endearing himself to many of the State GOP’s grassroots activists.

**There is more –… Read More

You have to chuckle just a bit when you read about the fact that the Obama Administration and California are at odds over the issue of the ability to use student achievement as a measure for rating the effectiveness of teachers. Apparently at stake are some federal dollars for California’s education system because California is one of a few states that actually has a law (no doubt passed with the considerable helf of one of the state’s largest public employee unions – the California Teachers Association) that actually prohibits using student achievement to rate teacher performance. Read about it in the Los Angeles Times here.

First and foremost, how lame for us here in California. It makes NO SENSE to not have as a factor (and perhaps as the largest factor) in assessing a teacher their ability to sucessful get their students to learn. Do we have a law that says you cannot judge an auto-mechanic based on their ability to fix cars? Or how about determining if an attorney is doing a good job based on whether they win their cases? Oh… Read More

You have to chuckle just a bit when you read about the fact that the Obama Administration and California are at odds over the issue of the ability to use student achievement as a measure for rating the effectiveness of teachers. Apparently at stake are some federal dollars for California’s education system because California is one of a few states that actually has a law (no doubt passed with the considerable helf of one of the state’s largest public employee unions – the California Teachers Association) that actually prohibits using student achievement to rate teacher performance. Read about it in the Los Angeles Times here.

First and foremost, how lame for us here in California. It makes NO SENSE to not have as a factor (and perhaps as the largest factor) in assessing a teacher their ability to sucessful get their students to learn. Do we have a law that says you cannot judge an auto-mechanic based on their ability to fix cars? Or how about determining if an attorney is doing a good job based on whether they win their cases? Oh… Read More

This blog post falls under the catagory, "you can’t make this stuff up."

Apparently a major sticking point in the not-yet-complete budget deal has to do specifically with the education funding component. The "deal" calls for some significant cuts to education spending this year, and a promise to "pay those funds back" to education in a few years.

Whether or not you think that either sides of the education equation (cuts, repay) are a good idea or a bad idea, apparently the way things were set up was that at minimum, these changes would take place in two bills — with the cuts requiring a 2/3 vote (due to "urgency") and the payback side needed to pass on a majority vote. There was some discussion, I am told, that if proponents of the payback side of things could muster up a 2/3 vote in each house, then it could also be passed with urgency (why this is important is unclear to this non-policy guy).

Things start to get a little more sticky at this point. On the natural, it seems to me that you would move this education issue in two separate bills – presumably to allow more Dems to avoid voting for… Read More