The Prop 11 folks (Governor, League of Women Voters, Common Cause, et.al) have launched a web-ad that blasts the opponents of Prop. 11 for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state’s prison guard union. Here is the ad… I did note with some consternation that Prop. 11 proponents have listed disgraced, recalled ex-Governor Gray Davis as a supporter of their measure. I find that to be quite odd. You would think that being recalled from office by the voters would buy you a permanent home in the halls of infamy — is Gray Davis on a comeback?… Read More

There are a lot of valid reasons for Republican legislators to be upset with Arnold Schwarzenegger. But while voting to override his veto of the state budget would provide some visceral and potentially justifiable feelings of retribution toward a governor who pays them much less attention than they would like, it's not a valid public policy position for a conservative elected official.

There are understandable reasons for a conservative lawmaker to be tempted by the budget that passed the Legislature earlier this week. It doesn't raise taxes, at least according to some definitions. It does implement some spending reductions. It takes the first tentative steps toward budget reform. Most importantly, the long ugly summer has turned into a potentially longer and uglier autumn, and the service providers and editorial writers are screaming for action.

But none of those are reasons for overriding a Schwarzenegger veto. While it's an adroit political maneuver to point out that the so-called revenue “accelerators” that speed up tax and withholding collections originated in his administration's Department of Finance, it doesn't… Read More

Former Los Angeles Mayor, Republican Richard Riordan has reached to the far left side of the political spectrum to endorse Barack Obama

Here is what Riordan specifically has to say — "I think he [Obama] is a much more open person. He’s young He has more energy, more electricity. When I was Mayor, I had dealings with McCain where I didn’t respect him."

But don’t take my word for it, you can see the video from KCAL9 in Los Angeles here, where Riordan attended Obama’s big bling-bling Hollywood fundraising event with Barbra Streisand.… Read More

Someone asked me this morning if there was any kind "budget deal" that contained a good enough spending/budget reform that would allow me to support a tax increase.

I thought about this for a while, and came to the conclusion that the answer is actually yes. But the spending/budget reform that would get me to that point is hardly something that the liberals who run the legislature would be open to supporting. I would need to have a true "Gann" style cap that places a hard limit on the size of state government — where state income is not allowed to expand beyond a specific formula factoring in population growth and inflation.

Of course this reform requires a vote of the people, so I guess it would have to be tied to the tax increase so that we either got both or nothing.

What is really needed, of course, is the limit, and tax cuts, as we really need to reduce the size of state government. But recognizing politics involves some give and take — this is the limit of my "generosity" on the tax issue.

Today the Governor is meeting with legislative leaders to discuss the budget. Of course, the… Read More

Over the weekend I was in Washington, DC, to attend Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit. Now in its third year, the conference drew over 2,000 pro-family “values” voters from all across America to the Washington Hilton for three days of conservative speakers, networking and informative break-out sessions.

Keynote speakers for the event included Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Sean Hannity, among other conservative commentators, political leaders and policy experts. As a group of credentialed bloggers (new media) typed away in the back of the convention hall, Hannity boldly declared that 2008 is the year journalism officially died in America. “Journalist” Charlie Gibson’s embarrassing gotcha interview of Governor Palin two nights before was certainly the death knell.

As you can imagine, California was the topic of many speeches and private conversations. After all, the most critical battle for traditional marriage is taking place in our state with Proposition 8. In a break-out session about the marriage issue, Alliance Defense Fund attorney (and my Constitutional Law professor in law… Read More

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