Those who have talked to me about it know that I have been stewing for a few weeks now about the vote of Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack in support of the national energy tax bill ("cap and trade") that narrowly passed through the House of Representatives. Astonishingly and in a most disappointing development, Republican Members of the House provided the margin of passage for what was hailed as Nancy Pelosi’s most important legislative achievement as Speaker. Because my brain is hard-wired to California politics, my angst is largely directed to Bono Mack, the only California Republican to vote for this terrible piece of legislation. The state budget crisis has provided me with a little bit of a distraction, and spared Rep. Bono Mack, thus far, of a pretty hard-hitting commentary from this website publisher.

That said, this morning I was perusing the Red County website, and came across what I would call a "must read" column from FR friend Chip Hanlon. Chip, a conservative who "gets it" has been providing solid leadership in my home county of Orange for many years, and I am pleased to say that he has started to provide some… Read More

Mr. Fleischman poses an interesting question in his post two below, specifically: Is there any statewide group out there that represents cities besides the League of California Cities? Let me attempt to answer.

Jon, although there are no other statewide groups that represent cities of which I am aware, there are a number of groups across the state that do in fact represent individual cities.

They are called city councils.

However, all too often these bodies and/or their individual members seem to march lockstep, herd mentality, with the consistent pro-tax philosophy of the "League."

All the more ironic, in that the League itself really doesn’t represent any taxpayers, at least not directly, while the city councilmembers most certainly do.

The reason I mention such heresy, is that I know there are dozens and perhaps hundreds of locally-elected city officials from throughout California that do in fact understand and realize the duplicityof a statewide association that admittedly does a pretty decent job in protecting… Read More

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

Arnold Wins a Round

… Read More

Unfortunately I can’t "leak" a memo from Senate Republican Dennis Hollingsworth. In addition to being a fine conservative, he is a personal friend. I wouldn’t risk my friendship by leaking private correspondence that he generates.

That said, Capitol Weekly doesn’t have the same chains on them. They have a "leaked" memo from Hollingsworth to Senate Republicans that is worth a read.… Read More

Is there any statewide group out there that represents cities besides the California League of Cities — I would like to know? I just got a press release on League letterhead that some local elected officials are protested the raid on local government dollars in this budget deal.

Where were they during the last budget deal, which “raided” the pockets of taxpayers (their constituents) with billions in higher income, sales and car taxes?

While I appreciate the policy reasons for why the raid on local government funds is a bad idea, I am having real troubles building up sympathy for politicians that protest this under the banner of the pro-tax increase League of Cities.

The League needs some new political leadership — that will push for smaller state government — not look out for its narrow interest by supporting tax increases on city residents.… Read More

It appears that the back-room negotiated budget deal has hit a snag. Apparently in the area of cuts to the Department of Corrections, the Big 5 agreed in concept to an overall amount of cuts, but not in any degree of specificity to the exact cuts. As we all know, there has been a wide disagreement between the left and the right about how to make cuts (or whether to make cuts) to this part of the budget — Dems favoring reducing the prison population, some Republicans calling for other cuts in the Agency that don't impact prisoner population.

Apparently the thought was the the “epic debate” over this issue would be sorted out sometime after the rest of the deal was adopted.

From what I understand, word started to spread around the Capitol that Democrats were planning to, in fact, not leave these cuts “to be named later” and put up the cuts for a vote that would lead to over 30k inmates being released from prison earlier than the end of their sentences.

The bad news is that this puts a serious pause in the budget negotiations — but the good news is that the marketplace has rooted out a flaw in the plan. It… Read More

This is a great presentation from Dr. Sally Pipes, President of the Pacific Research Institute, which is headquartered right here in California. Anyone concerned about the health care issue should take the time to watch it… … Read More

Is it just me, or is the California Teachers Association just a body of ignorant fools? They are running ads against the Governor for "cutting education spending". I guess the same people who fail to teach our kids to read shouldn’t be faulted for not reading themselves, so let me help. California is out of money. This has been in the news now for a couple of years now, in case they missed it.

The CTA demands to be "repaid" $12 billion that they are "owed" in Prop 98 money even though public school enrollment is plummeting and the increased spending on public education since Prop 98 passed has produced almost no improvement in public education. But hey, we’ve go the highest paid teachers in the nation now!

Republicans have nothing to lose by ridiculing this band of intellectually dishonest union leaders and exposing them for what they are – an interest group that is bleeding the State dry without getting the results we need for all the extra money we’ve already invested in the black hole of public education.… Read More