From today’s WSJ Political Diary… (Thanks for the shout-out!)

Governor Moonbeam II

California Republicans met at their convention near Palm Springs this weekend and heard two starkly different messages. Their own "post-partisan" governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, called on them to embrace the fight against global warming, support huge tax increases required by his universal health care plan and otherwise move to the center. Otherwise, he warned, the GOP would be "relegated to the margins of California’s political life."

The governor’s message was received with tepid applause, with some delegates sitting on their hands. The atmosphere dramatically changed only minutes… Read More

**ALERT** Late Session Assault on Taxpayer Rights **ALERT**

The end of session is a good opportunity to amend into bills controversial issues that authors hope will go unnoticed in the hustle and bustle of hundreds of bills. A perfect example is AB 1546 (Calderon).

This is legislation that started off trying to resolve a situation where the state found itself on the losing end of a billion dollar court decision. The court found unconstitutional the LLC "fee" which taxed income from both inside and outside the state. The bill had problems from the start. While it correctly addressed the commerce clause violation by limiting income determination to in-state revenues, it also limited the LLC’s ability to be reimbursed from the state.

Late last week, however, AB 1546 was quietly expanded to limit the ability of all taxpayers — business and personal — to recover fees or taxes that are declared unconstitutional. What this bill means is that if the government of California unjustly taxes your income and it takes five years to have a… Read More

Passing off of the Assembly floor again was the idea of microstamping an ID number on every bullet shell casing as it is discharged by a gun. This as an idea to solve crimes. Never mind that a conviction could never be upheld by finding a shell casing with your ID number on itat a crime scene…I hope.… Read More

Last weekend, about a thousand members, alternates and guests gathered at the California Republican Party Convention at the Renaissance Esmerelda Hotel in Indian Wells in the Coachella Valley/Palm Springs area. As is typically the case, we’ll be sharing some stories and happenings from this event over the next few days. First and foremost, we’re pleased to announce the return of our highly-acclaimed, caddy and pithy "Winners & Losers of the CRP Convention" column, which we should be featuring at the end of this week. While your trusted FR team had many of our team members on the ground, looking over the convention for nominees, we typically get some of our best suggestions from FR readers. If you have a nomination, you can e-mail us here. As always, we ensure the confidentiality of anyone who contacts us. I’ll start by fast forwarding to a couple of results from the weekend that I want especially emphasize. The first is that convention delegates unanimously put the party on record as opposing… Read More

Last weekend, about a thousand members, alternates and guests gathered at the California Republican Party Convention at the Renaissance Esmerelda Hotel in Indian Wells in the Coachella Valley/Palm Springs area. As is typically the case, we’ll be sharing some stories and happenings from this event over the next few days. First and foremost, we’re pleased to announce the return of our highly-acclaimed, caddy and pithy "Winners & Losers of the CRP Convention" column, which we should be featuring at the end of this week. While your trusted FR team had many of our team members on the ground, looking over the convention for nominees, we typically get some of our best suggestions from FR readers. If you have a nomination, you can e-mail us here. As always, we ensure the confidentiality of anyone who contacts us. I’ll start by fast forwarding to a couple of results from the weekend that I want especially emphasize. The first is that convention delegates unanimously put the party on record as opposing… Read More

It isn’t every day you can save $23 billion. But Republicans in the House, in combination with the President, can do it in the next 60 days, if we stay resolved to hold our ground.

The Democrat majority in the House has passed 11 appropriations bills (I voted for one of them) which together spend $23 billion more than the President requested in his budget. The President’s budget request is $22 billion more than last year’s spending amount so it’s not as though he proposed some draconian cut. I led the effort to obtain 146 signatures on a letter assuring President Bush that Republicans in the House would uphold his veto of any appropriations bill that exceeded his budget request. That is the minimum number of signatures needed to sustain a Presidential veto. We obtained 147 signatures on that letter. The president then issued a statement that he would veto the overspending. The Pelosi-led House Democrats, as has been their pattern, ignored the realities of other meaningful opinions and defiantly passed the bills anyway.

But the Senate has passed only 1 of the 11 bills. However, the well- known “cloture” rule requiring 60… Read More

FR Publisher Jon Fleischman is at the California Republican Party’s Fall Convention, and so there is no commentary for today, Sunday. But look back in this spot for a new commentary Monday morning.

Care to read comments, or make your own about today’s Daily Commentary?

Just click here to go to the FR Weblog, where this Commentary has its own blog post, and where you can read and make comments.… Read More

For all you Capitol watchers out there, soon there will be a lot less to watch. Tomorrow could be our last full day legislatin’ plus a half day Tuesday. That’s the best guess floating around "the building." One bit had us coming back for Friday, which is the drop-dead last day for the ’07 portion of this2 year session, but I doubt it.

And then there is the possibility of the Guv calling for a special session to tackle perhaps health care reform [or, a majority couldjust cram an ultimate reformbillthrough during the last 40 hours from now!] or maybe a session tolook at a solution for water storage/Delta problems.

But then the legislature can just show up for the special session call, convene the applicable committee for a few minutes, adjourn, see you in January…we’ll see.

Then in January, in addition to new bill intro’s, all the 2 year bills will be back on the front burner, including stuff you thought was dead, [bills are like Jason-Friday the 13th, they just keep coming back, even after the end of a 2 year session, even when the author is termed out, they rise up and haunt you… Read More