When the Wall Street Journalbellowsthat the "Budget Deal Gives Boost to California Republicans", you know the Party has finally turned the the corner.

Senator Dennis Hollingsworth whose initial ascent gave hope to Republicans, that Republicans would behave like Republicans instead of accommodationists for bankrupt [literally] union legislative spending.The prior leader was woefully out of his depth. Let’shope that he is thelast of the ‘let’s get along crowd’ that has dramatically tarnished the Republican brand, hurt CRP fund raising and discouraged conservatives.… Read More

For FlashReport readers with a strong constitution and about seven extra minutes to spare, check out this video of State Senate President Darrell Steinberg. Within the first minute of his remarks of this afternoon, he starts railing on the 2/3 vote requirement to raise taxes and to pass a budget. It is a theme that he echoes over, and over, and over again. The voracious appetite of liberals to overtax the people is just stunning — and serves as a reminder of why the supermajority vote requirements are there. It is abundantly clear that Democrats want to end those requirements so that they can ratchet up a redistribution of wealth scheme that will leave our state floundering with an even worse economy.

Oh well, here is the whining of the Senate President…

(At the tail end, Steinberg talks about pushing a vote tonight or in the early hours. I sure hope that State Senate Republicans block such a manuever. Shame on them if, when it is over, they never gave conservative policy experts outside of the building a chance to review the documents and give substantive input.)… Read More

Yesterday afternoon a group of prominent California conservative leaders (including yours truly) sent an open letter to the 120 members of the state legislature urging them not to vote on or for any proposed budget deal until all of the text of the proposed legislation has been available to the public for 72 hours… One of the flaws of the tragic February budget deal was its secrecy and lack of transparency. In a representative democracy, the people have the right to understand what is being voted on, and to have enough time to give input and feedback to their elected legislators…

Here is the letter…

An Open Letter to Republican Members of the California State Legislature: July 22, 2009 … Read More

Professional distractions have kept me from writing here lately, but isn’t our Governor doing a wonderful job of facing down the union bosses on our state budget?! I believe that this is truly Arnold’stime, theopportunity to establish the definingmoments of his term in office, and his firm stand on the budget is fantastic.

At the same time, SpeakerKaren Bass is proving to be an unmovable and largely irrelevant but willing captive of thefrightening bizarro worldsought by theService Employees International Union, whose best shot recently is to muster a press releaseclaiming credit for a new budget, and blaming the structural deficits she and the Legislature’s Democrats have caused on the "national economic recession" (read: George W. Bush). [It took the national Democrats over ten years to stop blaming the Reagan budget cuts of the ’80s for everything in the ’90s, I imagine Obama and Bass will be dumping on George Bush in the same manner thru the 2020s.]

On a few other topics, we note Nativo Lopez, as predicted here, pled… Read More

I see U.S. Representative Darrell Issa as a combination of a stinger missile and the Energizer Bunny. As the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, FR friend Issa has been relentless at holding the feet of the Majority Party to the fire — over and over and over…

Now Issa has confronted a controversial issue – Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise? A new report released today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Republicans presents evidence that ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in racketeering, and created a conspiracy to defraud the United States. ACORN’s ability to flaunt the law is made possible by a complex structure that hides illegal uses of funds and positions low-level employees to take the fall when it gets caught for illegal acts. Federal taxpayer dollars continue to flow to ACORN – this report explains in great detail why Americans should be outraged by taxpayer… Read More

“Transparency” is a great sounding word. It probably polls well, but what does it mean? In the context of the budget deal, at this point, it really means having the final language of the bills in the package in print and available to legislators and the public. But it is more than just having the information available, transparency is enhanced by having it available to DO something with it.

I am sure that many GOP legislators recall the chaos and confusion that surrounded the final days and hours of the ill-fated February budget deal. I can't tell you how many Republican legislators who have privately told me that in retrospect, they wished they had voted different. Most of them cited the rushed process and lack of detailed information as contributing to votes they now regret.

I can tell you from my perspective, as an “interested-party-not-in-the-Capitol” that my experience with that February deal was not good, but instructive.

I along with many people I know were assured that the language in Prop. 1A was a spending cap. And when I say assured — I mean over and over. Assurances came from some legislators… Read More

This just off the transom…

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association Political Action Committee announced today it has formally endorsed the recall of Anthony Adams, an Assemblymember who brazenly violated his pledge to his constituents not to raise their taxes.

Adams, who represents parts of Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties, cast one of the deciding votes that imposed the highest tax increase in the history of all 50 states.

HJTA-PAC President Jon Coupal said the PAC's action is based both on principle and on the practical.

“Voters have every right to toss out politicians who lie in order to gain office and who demonstrate they have no intention of defending the interests of those who elected them,” said Coupal. “Blocking further damaging tax increases requires we have lawmakers the taxpayers can trust, and Adams has proven he cannot be trusted.”

In February, thanks to Adams, the Legislature imposed higher sales taxes, already the highest in the nation; higher income taxes, already the highest in the nation; higher car taxes, now the highest in the nation and increased taxes on… Read More

What California needs is a release of middle management prison bureaucrats. Instead of pushing a plan of early release of tens of thousands of convicted felons from our state prison we ought to be looking for savings by cutting the fat out of CDCR.

The Governor’s prison budget savings plan would release nearly 30,000 prisoners into our communities. Senate Republicans have a safe and sane plan to achieve the same level of savings without any early release of prisoners, and it’s in writing.

See the "Corrections Budget Reductions" document below.

California has virtually the same number of prisoners in state prison than it did ten years ago, while the state population continues to increase. The number of individuals in state prison in California is roughly average per capita in the US, why the rush to release.

We should cut the fat instead of releasing dangerous felons into our neighborhoods.

Corrections Budget Reductions

Summary of conflicts between Democrat and Administration’s jointly proposed cuts to Corrections and Senate Republican… Read More