The buzz in the capitol is that Governor Schwarzenegger is going to announce his veto of the budget passed early this morning by the legislature. We’ll find out at 3pm when he holds a press conference. There’s probably a legislative override coming if the veto does happen. Maybe if the governor knew the names of the Republican Caucus members he could call them to find out just how firm they were on their budget votes…

Watch the press conference live here.… Read More

In the wee hours this morning, the California State Assembly, following behind the Senate who had done so hours before, passed along to Governor Schwarzenegger a budget that represents the collision of two immutable forces — Democrats who simply refuse to reduce state spending to a reasonable amount, and Republican legislators who finally have said "enough is enough" and refuse to raise taxes any longer to feed the overspending.

The result is, as Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association calls it in a column on the FlashReport today, a budget that is ugly, but holds the line on taxes. And we agree, this budget is an unfortunate one, because it doesn’t represent what Californians deserve, but it likely represents the best that they are going to get, given the dominance of the radical left in the building.

It is widely accepted that one of the items that actually moved the budget negotiations away from a "Democrats with Arnold" model to a "Big Four" legislative leader model… Read More

In the wee hours this morning, the California State Assembly, following behind the Senate who had done so hours before, passed along to Governor Schwarzenegger a budget that represents the collision of two immutable forces — Democrats who simply refuse to reduce state spending to a reasonable amount, and Republican legislators who finally have said "enough is enough" and refuse to raise taxes any longer to feed the overspending.

The result is, as Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association calls it in a column on the FlashReport today, a budget that is ugly, but holds the line on taxes. And we agree, this budget is an unfortunate one, because it doesn’t represent what Californians deserve, but it likely represents the best that they are going to get, given the dominance of the radical left in the building.

It is widely accepted that one of the items that actually moved the budget negotiations away from a "Democrats with Arnold" model to a "Big Four"… Read More

If you need the case for reforming the budget-drafting process, then take two minutes to read the budget bill here. Good luck though, it would take a seasoned state policy expert a much longer time to even delve into this document. And it doesn’t even include the 27 trailer bills.

If the process is working correctly, authentic budget negotiations (you know, between Republicans and Democrats) would take place in the normal Budget Committee process. But of course that doesn’t happen now, as the majority party rams through "their" budget through committee on a majority vote — disregarding the fact that it takes a 2/3 vote to pass the budget in each chamber. It’s worthy of note that Senator Jeff Denham introduced legislation to do just this — which was voted down by Democrats.

So now just about everyone has to play "catch up" and figure out what the heck is in this mammoth and recently released budget language.… Read More

Legislative Democrats for about two minutes today were given a big disincentive to override a pending Gubernatorial veto of the just-passed state budget. Just minutes ago the Governor made it clear in prepared remarks at a press conference that he will not sign a budget that is absent real structural budget reforms. Of course we here at the FlashReport feel that we need a true Gann-style spending cap in place if we are going to have real reform. While legislative Republicans support that, it has not been introduced by the Governor. But even the "lite" version of budget reform, championed by the Governor, was gutted by the Democrats.

The Governor actually said that if the legislature overrides his veto (which can be done with the same 2/3 vote in each house that just passed it), that he will respond by using his veto pen on all of the nearly 900 pieces of legislation sitting on his desk! This really throws down the gauntlet at Perata, Bass and their other Democrat legislators, since virtually any piece of meaningful legislation on the Governor’s desk is something they put there.

My mind started to race… Republican legislators… Read More

I am pleased to announce that today we the FlashReport Website on California Politics is launching FRMobile, a version of this website that is optimized for use with your Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). Whether you are using a Blackbery, iPhone, Treo, Palm, Q or other mobile platform, you will now be able to enjoy some of the main feature of the FlashReport with ease! For the thousands (and we have heard from many, many of you) who have tried or who have struggled with trying to read the FR on a PDA these past nearly three years, we commend you for your patience, but we dedicate this new easy-to-download, easy-to-read FRMobile platform to you…

While not every aspect of the FlashReport is optimized on FR Mobile, we have placed FR’s most popular features there. When you go to the site with your PDA, you will get the FR main news page.… Read More

From reading MSM reports this morning while putting together the website, it sure sounds like there is a budget deal, although details have yet to be presented by the "Big 4" to their respective caucuses. It sounds like this deal can best be summed up as "No new taxes, mostly, and not enough cuts."

On the new taxes side of things, NOT in this plan based on what I have read are the outrageous proposals by Democrats for a massive income tax hike, or the disappointing proposal by the Governor for a massive sales tax increase. Still present, however, and quite disturbing is a de facto tax increase on California businesses (an estimated $300 million++ bit) reducing their ability to write off losses.

According to reports, it would appear that while the best interests of California would be to have more cuts in state government, such as proposed by legislative Republicans, this budget comes up with a myriad of various one-time accounting gimmicks and other "creative ideas" to close the budget gap — so there will be a game of "kick the can" to the upcoming state budget (which will… Read More

I am pleased to announce that today we the FlashReport Website on California Politics is launching FRMobile, a version of this website that is optimized for use with your Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). Whether you are using a Blackbery, iPhone, Treo, Palm, Q or other mobile platform, you will now be able to enjoy some of the main feature of the FlashReport with ease! For the thousands (and we have heard from many, many of you) who have tried or who have struggled with trying to read the FR on a PDA these past nearly three years, we commend you for your patience, but we dedicate this new easy-to-download, easy-to-read FRMobile platform to you…

While not every aspect of the FlashReport is optimized on FR Mobile, we have placed FR’s most popular features there. When you go to the site with your PDA, you will get the FR main news page.… Read More