Yesterday the California legislature reconvened after a weeks-long recess. After their floor session in a closed-door meeting Assembly Republicans refused to toss embattled Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes (“R” – Yucca Valley) out on the spot, but did decide to hold an open election for Leader a week from today.

But it didn’t take Mayes long to log another entry into his “I am going to be disingenuous and disrespectful to the grassroots activists in my party” log book.

With nothing else more pressing to do the State Assembly brought up a resolution on climate change, authored by liberal Democrat Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez-Fletcher (D-San Diego), and co-authored (by among others) Mayes.

You can read the entire resolution here, but let me pull a few excerpts from it for you that are especially relevant for my commentary that continues below:

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WHEREAS, California has been a leader on climate change for more than a decade through the enactment of landmark legislation, such as the… Read More

Members of the Assembly Republican Caucus will soon gather to decide whether or not to remove Chad Mayes as their leader. Enough has been written elsewhere about why Mayes should go, but even though there haas been a truly unified statewide movement within Republican donors and activists around California calling for his resignation or removal, Mayes has signaled that he has no plans of leaving of his own accord. He is unrepentant with regards to his deeds.

If Mayes is removed or resigns as the GOP Leader in the Assembly then healing can begin. It will start with a dialogue, led by a new leader, about how we can be sure we won’t end up back in this same situation in the future.

But if Mayes refuses to resign and a majority of the caucus will not remove him — then it is an indication that the problem is a much broader, and deeper one. It means that at least a majority of Assembly Republicans endorse what he did. It means that there is a cavernous and perhaps catastrophic difference of opinion that will likely manifest itself in the elections next June. At a minimum Mayes’ continued service as Leader will mean a California GOP that will sink… Read More

For California Republicans, very few litmus tests remain.

Issues like abortion andtraditional marriage, even the second amendment and property rights, in many cases no longer define the credentials of many Republican politicians in this state; certainly they aren’t issues upon which GOP legislators have any influence.

In California, where it’s been over two decades since Republicans controlled even one house of the state legislature (and then only for a few months), and in more recent years where Democrats have controlled roughly 2/3 of both houses, those traditional “red meat” issues are often either off limits or a luxury for even the most socially-conservative politician.

Yet, most assuredly, the one issue that could easily be described as a remaining core litmus test for California Republicans is that of higher taxes.

The basic reason GOP activists throughout the state, even more moderate ones, feel so strongly about that one issue is because taxation is philosophically far more significant than simplythe level of taxes we all pay.… Read More

“Temporarily” exempting “veteran” teachers (more than 5 years working as a teacher) from paying the CA state income tax is the logical extension of our state’s treatment of government workers as aristocracy. In CA the public employee pay is far higher than what public employees make in the other states, the underfunded opulent pensions are unsustainable, and now the legislature is considering removing “public servants” from the tax rolls.

Once one public employee group is removed from the tax rolls, the other CA state and local government workers will yell “unfair”– insisting on a “level playing field” (among CA state and local employees). First to insist on “equal treatment” will be police and firefighters, and the rest will shortly thereafter get the same subsidy.

A “temporary” exemption from paying taxes? We all know what happens with such “temporary” taxes and tax breaks. Later it will become permanent. And guess which unions will be tirelessly campaigning to again raise the income tax — this time on the under-$100,000 taxpayers foolish enough to… Read More

Much has been said already about the betrayal by Assembly Republican leader Chad Mayes, pushing for enough republican members to pass Jerry Brown’s cap and trade extension. He’s been trying to justify the vote and coercion of fellow republicans ever since, mostly with a ‘it could have been worse; it’s insurance; California needs to lead’ theme. Mayes claims he’s just doing the right thing, but fails with doing the thing right. Most of the recent debate is centered on the existential threat to the Republican brand in California. Calls are increasing for Mayes to resign his Assembly leadership slot or face removal, up to calls for him to resign his Assembly seat. In deciding which side is right, I looked to see what Mayes did and why. Was there any logic to reneging on his campaign promises and Republican principles?

First is Mayes lie that “things would be worse”, under an inevitable… Read More

With 2/3 Democrat majorities, the California two state legislative houses theoretically can pass any bill they want — veto proof. Here’s one of the more bizarre bills they’ve come up with this year.

EXCERPT:According to the text ofSB 219, titled the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Long-Term Care Facility Resident’s Bill of Rights, “it shall beunlawfulfor a long-term care facility or facility staff to…. willfully and repeatedly fail to use a resident’s preferred name orpronounsafter being clearly informed of the preferred name… Read More

My 2016 article,Why Can’t California Farmers Get the Water They Need?, exposed Gov. Brown’s shadow government appointees at the State Water Resources Control Board that ordered the release of massive amounts of water from the New Melones Reservoir and Lake Tulloch, to save a dozen fish, and how Gov. Brown systematically booted a number of qualified people off of the California Water Commission, the body that is deciding how to spend $2.7 billion in public funds for Prop. 1 Water Bond water storage projects.

Also revealed was Gerald Meral – a shadowy figure continuously involved in a series of dubious parks, natural resource and water bond ballot initiatives. Meral is also the highly controversial Natural Resources deputy secretary who famously claimed, “BDCP [Bay Delta Conservation Plan ] is not about, and has never been about saving the Delta. The Delta cannot be saved,” as, in April 2013, he directed the BCDP for Gov. Jerry… Read More

Following the Assembly vote in July on the Governor’s bill extending the California Cap and Trade program, Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes participated in a “bipartisan” press conference with Governor Brown and Democrats. During his time at the podium, he announced his pleasure at being there since Republicans don’t get many chances to stand with the Governor in his press room.

In response to questions about why he and his fellow Republicans “jumped ship” to give the Governor his needed 2/3rds vote, thereby protecting Cap and Trade from further legal challenges, Leader Mayes reportedly said, “California Republicans are different than national Republicans.”

While Mr. Mayes may have had a point at that moment in time, it wasn’t long until Republicans in Washington proved that turning into useful idiots of the Democrats was far from just a “California thing.” A couple of weeks after Mayes serenaded a third of his caucus over the regulatory/taxation cliff in support of an unelected bureaucracy, Republicans in the U.S. Senate voting on Obamacare repeal also proved to be as feckless as the Mayes posse in California.

These events,… Read More