This morning at a conference room across the street from the State Capitol, advocates in the campaign against Proposition 93 (the Nunez-Perata Term Limits Weakening Measure) will hold a press conference — the star attraction? California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. While nothing "official" has been announced, we are just hours away from a likely formal commitment from Poizner that he has not only signed the official ballot argument against Proposition 93, but that he will be playing a key role in opposing 93, including a starring role for Poizner’s checkbook. For those who are unaware, before his entry into politics, the soft-spoken Poizner was very successful as an entrepreneur and inventor in the Silicon Valley. His company developed some technology that has been incorporated into virtually every cell phone on the planet, and in selling this technology to one of the largest communications firms in the world, Poizner came away with a net worth approaching a billion (with a "b") dollars. Poizner has already shown a willingness in the past, separate from his own campaign for office, to donate from… Read More

This morning at a conference room across the street from the State Capitol, advocates in the campaign against Proposition 93 (the Nunez-Perata Term Limits Weakening Measure) will hold a press conference — the star attraction? California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. While nothing "official" has been announced, we are just hours away from a likely formal commitment from Poizner that he has not only signed the official ballot argument against Proposition 93, but that he will be playing a key role in opposing 93, including a starring role for Poizner’s checkbook. For those who are unaware, before his entry into politics, the soft-spoken Poizner was very successful as an entrepreneur and inventor in the Silicon Valley. His company developed some technology that has been incorporated into virtually every cell phone on the planet, and in selling this technology to one of the largest communications firms in the world, Poizner came away with a net worth approaching a billion (with a "b") dollars. Poizner has already shown a willingness in the past, separate from his own campaign for office, to donate from… Read More

How would you like to open your local newspaper, and have a sealed condom fall out of it and onto your lap? If you are a student over at my alma mater, California State University, Fullerton, this could have been your fate… But for the well timed complaint of a few students, everything was in place to fold thousands of condoms into issues of the Daily Titan. With a h/t to the Orange County Register’s Marla Jo Fischer for the ‘heads up’ on this story, check it out. And this is in conservative Orange County. Lord knows what’s been distributed to students up at U.C. Berkeley via the Daily Californian paper. Seriously, we don’t want to know…

P.S. If you are a Titan, and still want your free condom, they’ll be putting coupons for free ones in the paper…… Read More

The Sacramento Bee, which is not generally friendly to Republicans, did a recent profile of County Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan and her husband, County GOP Chair Craig MacGlashan. (Disclaimer: Roberta is a client)

Roberta recently came under fire from left-leaning columnist Marcus Breton for daring to suggest that the County of Sacramento should not be providing free healthcare for residents of other countries (read her opinion attached to this post) has become the conservative conscience of the Board of Supervisors.

She’s earned kudos from conservatives and taxpayers — and criticism from liberals — for standing up to… Read More

In the real world (that means outside of Washington, DC), productivity is measured by comparing the output received to the effort/cost expending to produce something or perform a task. Or, as the dictionary describes it, "rate of output per unit of input." So far, the House of Representatives this year has taken over 1,000 separate votes, which has surpassed the most recorded votes ever in the history of Congress. We also have been "in session" voting for 146 days so far, which is also headed to a record number of days in Washington, DC. So, that’s the input. But what about the output? So far, only 107 bills have been signed into law. Over half of these were either naming something (like a post office) or extending an existing law that was scheduled to expire. Several more were simple land transfers from government to government. National Review has suggested that there has been only one piece of legislation of any significance that has passed and been signed into law which was the increase in the minimum wage. This Congress is on track to pass the fewest bills since electronic records have been kept. Furthermore, Congress has… Read More

As California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring is fond of saying, in order for Republicans to take back our majority, we need to present a positive, contrasting message to that espoused by the other party. There is no part of the GOP’s message that is more important to that ‘contrast’ than the idea that Republicans stand for fiscal prudence, and sanity when it comes to spending. Unlike our Democrat counterparts, whose unfettered and free-spending ways are consistent with their view of a massive role for the United States government, Republicans should be able to coalesce around the idea of cutting federal spending, which happens to be consistent with our party’s long-time view that the federal government is too big, and spends too much. We’ve made no bones about it here on this page that we wish that President George W. Bush had made significantly more use of his veto pen since his first election to the White House in 2000. Some significant and important vetoes during his first term would have really put the brakes on a lot of the increases in spending that ultimately played a significant role of the GOP’s loss of the… Read More

As California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring is fond of saying, in order for Republicans to take back our majority, we need to present a positive, contrasting message to that espoused by the other party. There is no part of the GOP’s message that is more important to that ‘contrast’ than the idea that Republicans stand for fiscal prudence, and sanity when it comes to spending. Unlike our Democrat counterparts, whose unfettered and free-spending ways are consistent with their view of a massive role for the United States government, Republicans should be able to coalesce around the idea of cutting federal spending, which happens to be consistent with our party’s long-time view that the federal government is too big, and spends too much. We’ve made no bones about it here on this page that we wish that President George W. Bush had made significantly more use of his veto pen since his first election to the White House in 2000. Some significant and important vetoes during his first term would have really put the brakes on a lot of the increases in spending that ultimately played a significant role of the GOP’s loss of the… Read More

There is a war against direct democracy brewing behind the scenes in California, and advocates of the initiative, referendum and recall process (the same process that helped elect our current Governor and oust Gray Davis) need to wake up and take action before the war is lost! To wit:

1. The "Ballot Initiative Strategy Center," a liberal think-tank that is the darling of Legislative leaders, has taken aim atreducing the influence ofdirect-democracy in California (and thereby furtherempowering the Legislature) by issuinga 64-page report criticizing the initiative process and making recommendations for changes. These recommendationswill serve as a pretext forthe Legislature to enact"reforms" that will only expand their power vs. the people’s power. Thereport includes adhominen criticisms of alleged misrepresentations by signature gatherers in trying to persuade voters to sign petitions, and leverages these occasional problems (which can otherwise be dealt with enforcing rules already on the books, and the fail-safe method of the voteractually reading the petition’s short official Title and… Read More