In the Assembly —

Republican Assemblymen Mike Villines, Anthony Adams and Roger Niello put up the necessary Republican votes to pass the $14 billion + in new taxes.

Oh — and to make matters even worse, Republican legislators flocked onto measure to place an open primary on next June’s primary ballot. Wonderful "reforms" team — taxes, and then a measure designed to destroy political parties.

I am tired, so you’ll have to wait to get more thoughts on all of this from me.

If you are bored today, you can call the Governor and ask him to veto the taxes that he wants and the open primary that he wants. But it would be a waste of time.… Read More

This weekend the CA GOP will gather in Sacramento for the Spring Convention and the power of the State Republican Parties and the National Committee men and women is made clear in this article just published in Politics Magazine. State and local party members have a real impact in setting our national agenda.

A cloud of potential ruin hangs Republicans and over the Democrats too. State Senator Maldonado’s sucker punch in the gut of organized political parties could destroy our party structure. The ‘top-two’ Primary System could see two Republicans face-off in a General Election.

Expect strong opposition to the measure this weekend.

http://www.politicsmagazine.com/plan-of-steele/… Read More

The following Republican legislators voted to place on the ballot a "reform" of California’s election process to end partisan primary system. Under the proposal that will appear on the June 2010 ballot thanks to their critical votes, all voters may cast their ballots for any candidate, and the top two candidates, regardless of political party, move on to a general election runoff. This system is more or less designed to reduce the influence of the party system, and create more moderate, middle of the road public officials. I would note that it is a certainty, in my opinion, that under this system, we would never again in California have enough conservatives in the legislature to stop routine 2/3rds vote to raise taxes (which, by the way, IF the so-called spending limit that will be on the upcoming special election ballot passes, would also raise the spending cap).

SENATE Roy Ashburn Dave Cogdill Dave Cox Jeff Denham Abel Maldonado

ASSEMBLY Bill Berryhill Tom Berryhill Sam… Read More

The SacBee has a calculator up that will allow you to estimate how much more you own under the New Maldonado Tax Plan.

Check it out.at http://www.sacbee.com/1098/story/1627728.html… Read More

I don't know who the first people to wander through the bloody fields after the battle at Waterloo. But as I board a flight to Sacramento this morning, I feel like I may be one of the modern-day equivalents of those people.

The loosers of this battle — taxpayers, believers in a twop party political system. The winners — Sacramento's special interests who succeeded in driving overspending for years and years, and then were able to get the largest state level tax increase in the history of our nation to boot. A horrible loss for those who champion limited government — and a devistating blow to the GOP — the “promise breakers” in all of this.… Read More

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has put out a statement on the recent adoption of the Big 5/Big Taxes budget: “The budget that was passed by the State Legislature is not the solution. Instead of respecting taxpayers and championing job creation, Sacramento is increasing taxes on the middle class. The proposed budget will kill jobs, hurt families and make future deficits even worse.”

We couldn’t agree with Whitman more. The center piece of this budget deal is the largest tax increase at the state level in the history of the United States of America.

Whitman’s campaign also released a list of her Finance Committee which predictably contains a lot of heavy hitters from the Silicon Valley, as well as from around the state. Our personal favorite: Jenny Craig! (Out of deference to Ms. Craig, we… Read More

The replacement of Dave Cogdill by Dennis Hollingsworth bodes well for California Taxpayers. Here is the question. Now that Cogdill is no longer the leader will he feel comfortable enough to vote the way he knows is right, as opposed to the way he has been convinced is "responsible."

Every Republican knows that the Democrats created this budget crisis by spending like drunken sailors on leave (with apologies to those sailors, since they are at least spending their own money). They then cry about the bankruptcy they have created, and then whine when Republicans won’t raise taxes to cover their spendthrift ways. Unfortunately, in the past, the general Republican response has been to "be responsible" and bail the Democrats out. Democrats are the bad teenagers, enabled by years of Republican indulgence, who have been arrested for breaking the laws of economics, and are asking Republicans to hire the lawyer and post the bail for their irresponsible behavior in the past. Too often, Republicans have indulged this bad behavior because they "cannot let the people" suffer.

First, the people won’t suffer. Some people… Read More

Readers of today’s Flash Report main page probably noticed some articles about the Assembly Judiciary Committee passing an anti-Proposition 8 resolution yesterday, HR 5. This news was probably lost in the intense focus on budget debates, but taxpayers should be outraged about this for two reasons.

First, why on earth is the legislature spending taxpayer dollars to hear a resolution (non-binding pontificating) on an issue that voters decided twice (at great expense to the state already)? Maybe it had something to do with that fact that anti-Proposition 8 organization Equality California had been planning a lobby day for their supporters for months and Democrat leadership didn’t want to disappoint them. (If only conservative organizations could coordinate with the legislature on the timing of our committee hearings!)

Packing committee room 4202 with their supporters, including the ubiquitous attorney Gloria Allred, the Assembly held an… Read More