In a move that will be wildly popular on the heels of the Prop 1F passage, the California Citizens CompensationCommittee will reduce salaries by 18%, reducing the legislators grosssalary from $116,208 to $95,291. Under Prop112 passed by voters in 1990, the Committee sets salaries of legislators and higher offices. [Prop 140 later eliminated retirement benefits for legislators as well as installing term limits] Under the rules the cuts cannot take effect until Dec 2010. Prop 6, passed in 1972, prohibits reduction of pay during a legislators currentterm. Incoming and re-elected Senators and Assembly representatives will see that cut then.

The new lower salary will actually be less than the salary was back in 2004, when it was $99,000. The Committee then saw fit to hike it 3 times in 2 years as I recall to about $111,000, then $113,000 and finally the current $116,208 figure [leadership gets a higher salary] Taxpayers Ihappened to talk to aboutthis today laughed when I told ’em of this news. "Pay for performance" one told me. As a whole, yep!… Read More

Yesterday, the voters sent a strong message to the California Governor and Legislature – enough is enough! Taxpayers have done their part and will continue to pay their fairshare of taxes to the California treasury.After all, California taxpayers pay some of the highest taxesin the nation. Now it’s the time for politicians to give taxpayers something in return: Like topnotch, efficient services and the best value for their tax dollars. We must stop wasteful spending, end programs that don’t work and adjust spending to the revenue stream – that’s what hard working Californians do in their household and business budgets and that’s how their state government should operate.

Taxpayers are willing to pay for education, but they don’t want to pay for increased spending in public school, whichhas ballooned more than $11 billion in the last six years despitea declined enrollment of75,000 students. Especiallywhen test scores and drop-out rates have remained stagnant and these problems continue to go unaddressed.

Californians want improved infrastructure, but they are sick and tired of paying for the construction of… Read More

What happened yesterday was a good thing. For too long, Sacramento has acted with contempt for the will of the voters, forgetting that the one-fortieth or one-eightieth of the state the Democrat legislator represents, after having been elected by less that 30% of the voters in that district (usually in the party primary) is not a mandate to expand government. Voters hit the limit, and said so in resounding tones.

But this is no time for those of us who believe in small government to gloat. We have not yet made our case that more government spending does not make for better government. We do not have the money that the government unions have. They are going to spend that money over the next six weeks to beat back any proposed cuts that are sure to come, and we dont have the resources to counter their propaganda. The war is not over for them. It never is. We have won nothing yet.

I have been through election wins that were squandered when we fell asleep. This is the time to wake up. We have awoken the electorate. They are ready to hear our message. We need to double down now. We need to step up our actions and activities. We need to get… Read More

I wrote this column for The Fox Forum on why Props. 1A through 1E went down to ignominious defeat:

California voters have overwhelmingly rejected the 5 “budget reform” propositions cobbled together by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic legislature, rejecting them by 30-point margins. Even in leftist bastion of San Francisco, these tax-and-borrow initiatives are going down.

The focus of voter ire was Proposition 1A, a soft-spending cap that also extended a massive, two-year tax hike for an additional two years. The tax extension was a partly successful bid to buy public employee union support.

The “Yes” and 1A-1E campaign possessed all the conventional advantages of winning a statewide initiative campaign: favorable ballot descriptions written by the legislature rather than, as is customary, by the Secretary of State; the support of nearly the entire ruling class from the governor… Read More

Now is the time for Republicans to claim a victory inthe defeat of the Proposition 1A tax increase, and learn a lesson to begin the resurgence of our popular appeal in California. StateSenate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, and AssemblyRepublican Leader Sam Blakeslee, now have a choice of a lifetime in politics: they can actually lead, and exercise their offices to set the future of our party on a path to broader victories statewide. Or they can blow it all, let the Democrats dominate the agenda once more, andallow for more of the sameunforced errors leading to "circular firing squad"opportunities against Republicans byopportunistic radio personalities.

On Tuesday, Californians resoundingly rejected the Democrats solution to our state budget crisis: tax increases. California taxpayers demonstrated they are sick of taxes and spending. While the politicians in Washington and Sacramento consider the next bailout measures, the citizens of California took control on Tuesday and gave themselves the only bailout theycould – a tax cut. They did it themselves, with the opposition of their Republican governor,… Read More

This just came in from longtime FR friend Bruce Bialosky… Give Them More Money? by Bruce Bialosky It is difficult to determine whether to give more money to our friends in Sacramento. This dilemma was no more apparent than during my just-completed road trip. I flew to Kansas to drive my son back from college for the summer.

We drove Interstate 40 through five states. We started with Oklahoma – the state… Read More

10:20am UPDATE: The Governor’s office has clarified that the first item I mentioned is on his agenda — getting a waiver for the stimulus bucks. But the other stuff is not… (At least today, eh?)

As part of his "Get As Far Away From California When My Ballot Props Flame Out Tour, " Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today will meet with California’s entire Congressional Delegation – Republicans and Democrats. I found this out when talking to Congressman and FR blogger John Campbell last night.

Undoubtedly he will be talking about a waiver to allow California to get stimulus dollars despite the SEIU’s so-far successful lobbying to get the Obama Administration to condition those funds on undoing cuts to pay for unionized home-care workers that took place last February. That’s a good idea.

He’ll undoubtedly have some bad ideas on his agenda too — like asking Uncle Sam to guarantee California’s bonds (dumb) and asking for more federal bailouts for California government (dumber) — and maybe he will… Read More

This column was submitted by FR reader Eric Wickland. Wickland is a recently retired urban planner and building official. He is a former director of the California Association of Professional Employees, CAPE, AFL-CIO. Wickland serves on the Executive Committee of the California Republican Party, and is a member of the Lincoln Clubs of Los Angeles County.

The Case For Taxation With Representation by Eric Wickland Tomorrow morning, after California voters’ rejection of budget balancing propositions 1A-1F, Governor… Read More