It has been some time since we here at the FlashReport have bestowed the infamous “Golden Trashcan” award. As long time readers know, it takes a particularly onerous piece of legislation, or in this case a regulation, to “get the can” – but the dubious honor goes to the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) proposal to ban big screen televisions.

If you are like me, you may have heard a rumor about this, and dismissed it as being nonsensical. That’s what I did after I read a brief item written about this by Orange County Register editorial writer Steven Greenhut back in March. In his posting, Greenhut cited a statistic that under the proposal, as many as 25% of big screen televisions today would no longer… Read More

UPDATE: Congresswoman Mary Bono’s strict overlaps with much of the districts of Senator Benoit and Assemblyman Nestande. She has been a leader in the Whitman Campaign for some time now. We asked her for comment on this latest news… "I applaud the decision by Sen. John Benoit and Assemblyman Brian Nestande to endorse Meg Whitman for Governor. Their endorsements show that support for Meg Whitman is coalescing from all segments of our party, and that her ideas to return California to its rightful place as a land of opportunity and prosperity resonate with voters and members of our party across our great state."… Read More

Today the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is launching a new website focused on the state budget crisis. Their site launch comes at a key time as Democrats in the State Capitol seem intent, once again, to penalize California taxpayers for the state’s budget shortfall. Below is information on HJTA’s site launch! BUDGETFIGHT.COM LAUNCHES ON DAY OF BUDGET VOTE New Web site highlights tax increases and accounting shenanigans in latest proposal Sacramento, CA — Today, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA) released a new website BudgetFight.com to keep California taxpayers and the Media apprised of the higher… Read More

2 for 2. June’s school tax elections in Los Angeles County continues. Palos Verdes Peninsula’s Parcel tax passed with 68% of the vote. Los AngelesCounty voters love passing bonds and taxes for localschools. Only one of the four scheduled for June may fail. Locals feel they get value eventhough they reject taxes at the state level.… Read More

This photo, taken by one of FR’s state legislator friends in the Capitol, clearly shows a sign for a committee meeting that was canceled by the Democrats. The lost words make the sign VERY appropriate indeed, and more correct. If you don’t think that liberal policies coming out of Sacramento are "canceling jobs, economic development and the economy" — click here.… Read More

Yesterday was a pretty good day. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a charter amendment I wrotefor the City of Newport Beach in a unanimous decision. The charter amendment locates the future City Hall building on city-owned property adjacent to the Newport Beach Central Library at Fashion Island.

Initiative proponents William Ficker, Jack Croul and Marian Bergeson were responsible for qualifying the initiative for the ballot in February, 2008, but were opposed in the campaign by a majority of the City Council, who had other ideas about where the City Hall should be.STA Campaignsmanaged the effort for the proponents. After a spirited campaign, the voters decided by a 53% to 47% vote to pass the initiative. Opponent Allan Beek, an "open space" advocate,waged the campaign against the measure, and filed pre-election and post-election Superior Court challenges, losing on all counts. He then took his appeal, and now the decision of the three-judge panel at the Court of Appeals willmost likelyclose this chapter in Newport Beach history.

The Court’s memorandum on the decision has some… Read More

I missed the original report last week but was a little surprised that Mark Jacoby, who ran a business that focused on increasing Republican voter registration, plead guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced for filing a "false" voter affidavit in Los Angeles when he actually lived elsewhere. The two concepts of "domicile" and "residence" that appear in the California Elections Code have always had a little fuzzy correlation, allowing some wiggle room, but with the heat on ACORN and other liberal groups for vote related fraud issues across the country, last fall in the closing weeks of the 2008 general election, Jacoby became sort of a "fall guy" for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office and Secretary of State Debra Bowen. The back story is officials employed a fleet of local police squad cars to arrest this fellow at a temporary residence in the Inland Empire,creatinga prosecutorial media event in late October. And the irony was that amid national claims againstliberal groups for fudging the election for Obama, that California was prosecuting a Republican on seemingly similarclaims.

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Rep. John Campbell penned an excellent op-ed last Friday for the Investors Business Daily, in which he discussed the comparative chances entrepreneurism vs. Obama-Pelosi statism for reviving the American auto industry. Campbell, naturally, comes down on the side of liberty and common sense — which unsurpor5isiingly dove-tail with his 25 of experience in that industry:

INCYMI: Entrepreneurs Will Reinvent GM’s Castoffs

By Rep. John Campbell

Before I lost my mind and entered politics, I was in the car dealership business for 25 years. In fact, I was the first Saturn retailer chosen back in 1988, and served on the Franchise Operations Team. I opened one of the first 25 stores in 1990 and eventually owned and operated five Saturn Facilities in Orange County, Calif.

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