This morning the Senate Education Committee passed Mark Leno’s SB 572, legislation that will require the governor to declare every May 22 Harvey Milk Day. The bill specifies that school children should participate in activities commemorating the life of Harvey Milk during their school day. Those familiar with California politics will remember Harvey Milk as the San Francisco County Supervisor who was gunned down by a fellow supervisor following a political dispute. Earlier this year a biopic on Milk won several Academy Awards, thus bringing more attention to Leno’s controversial bill.

The fact that SB 572 is sailing through the legislature isn’t shocking. In fact, the bill passed the legislature last year and was justly vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger who explained that Milk should be honored in the community where he had the most impact: San Francisco. The problem is the behavior of Republican turncoat Abel Maldonado during the hearing this morning.

My boss, Karen England,was testifying against the bill when Maldonado decided to go after… Read More

Instead of a written commentary, today we offer you a special FlashReport video… Enjoy!

**There is more – click the link**

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When voters reject the ill-conceived ballot measures in a couple of weeks, there will be an immediate need to work through yet another massive overspending-created budget shortfall of close to $15 billion (give or take).

First and foremost, the rejection of the measures by the voters should be seen as a rejection of the idea that in a recession, taxpayers should be forced to pay more.

Beyond that, I believe it should be seen as a rejection of the “Big 5” system of budget negotiations that delegates to a small number of people all of the responsibility to come up with a budget solution. On top of it, Big 5 clearly ends up being focused on wheeling and dealing, and literal back-room politics.

I will let others give advice to Democrats, but I would strongly counsel Senate and Assembly Republicans to reject the “Big 5” budget process as a failure, and offer to facilitate public meetings with their selected budget team (note that I suggest that each Caucus be represented by a group of conferees).

Frankly, the budget committee process would be useful and helpful as a vehicle for ongoing dialogue and decision making… Read More

As we often say here on the FR Blog, we really aren’t in the practice of writing about the internal politics of legislative caucuses. That having been said, it’s been reported by Capitol Weekly and the SacBee’s Capitol Alert that tomorrow Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines will step down. This, of course, follows a tremendous amount of internal and external pressure to see a change in this position after Villines negotiated and provided one of the key votes for the largest tax increase in California history.

Capitol Weekly is reporting that Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee of the Central Coast will be the next leader. Blakeslee is a close ally of Villines, and we can presume that his taking the helm would be as a result of a "friendly hand off" by Villines, who probably realized that his days as leader were numbered (especially if, as expected, the ballot measures… Read More

This just in from conservative Assemblyman Martin Garrick:

[Cross-posted from Red County.com]

I’d heard over the weekend that Assemblyman Van Tran would announce formation of a congressional exploratory committee later this month.

"Later" has come early, as Van announced today he’s formed his exploratory committee to take on Rep. Loretta Sanchez, according to Total Buzz.

Van will be the first real opponent Loretta has had since, arguably, her 1998 re-match with Bob Dornan (although few doubted the outcome of that race. In the meantime, she had benefited from a strong of underwhelming or downright weird GOPgeneral election nominees — much like Bob Dornan benefited from a string of underwhelming and downright weird Democratic opponents before newly-minted Democrat Loretta Brixey… Read More

Assembly Republicans are to be commended for withholding their votes yesterday to ratify a new contract for state workers in SEIU 1000, the largest state public employees union. The Schwarzenegger Administration came to terms with union officials on this deal – but a 30,000 foot view of the contract makes it a head scratcher. This is not a “severe recession” contract that gives the state the kind of flexibility it needs to potentially implement workforce reductions as part of reducing state spending down to a level that reflects plummeting state revenues.

So that FR readers are clear, in order for the State of California to approve a union contract, it must be approved by the State Legislature. So in that regard, the Governor and union negotiators have to “bring back terms” to get approved – the union by its membership, and the state by the legislature.

This contract was negotiated with a hope and expectation on the part of the Governor and union leaders that the May 19 “burrito” package of special election measures, including 1A with its trigger of $16 billion in new taxes, would be passed by the electorate. That outcome is looking… Read More

Over on our favorite hard-left blog, the California Progress Report, they featured an interview with Democrat State Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez.

If readers of the FlashReport didn’t already have enough reason to vote down the ballot measures on the May 19th ballot, look at what Flores sees coming down the pike…

CPR: "What happens on May 20?"

FLORES: "May 20 is really clear to me, it’s an all-cuts budget, period. There’s not one more Republican in that house that is going to vote for a tax increase. We lose twenty billion dollars plus in taxes. May 20 is an all-cuts budget, period. I expect it to be a quick budget because we’re not going to have to convince a Republican to vote for this one because there will not be a tax increase in it. It will be the most painful quick budget in California history.

I… Read More