One of the challenges to people who have spent too much time in politics is they develop an inflated sense of their ability to spin themselves out of anything.

Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, former California Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, and now Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee all appear to suffer from this condition.

Faced with imminent defeat at the ballot box, each of these three men switched from the Republican Party to independent, and then switched again to join the party of Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale and Barack Obama. Each time, the move was promoted as one rooted in a grand concept of “principle,” suggesting it was compelled by a personal moral drive to realign their affiliations better with their “principles” and philosophy.

This is the kind of nonsense that comes from politicians with a bloated sense of their own political skills.

These men did not switch party affiliation for lofty philosophical reasons. They did so out of desperation. While they can spin justifications for their switch all day long, they’re… Read More

This morning the California State Senate will finish up the (painful) process of passing out legislation out of the upper house, as the deadline for passing bills out of their “house of origin” is upon us.

Of of the handful of remaining bills to be voted on today is SB 405, authored by Los Angeles State Senator Alex Padilla, that would ban every single grocery store in California from using plastic bags for customers to carry home their purchases. I wrote about this bill at length last Friday, and you can read that here. There are a LOT of sound policy reasons to oppose this legislation. One of the reasons is that it a job-killer. Many of the plastic bags used by Californians are made right here in California. Obviously such a ban would end the jobs of those who currently make them.

So it is with some cynicism that I heard through the grapevine that one of the Senators leaning towards supporting this extreme environmentalist legislation is none other than State Senator Richard Roth. Roth, who one a hotly… Read More

Sometimes being in the room helps get the story straight. Orange County lost its case to retain $73 million in property tax revenue, in a legal decision stemming from the 2011 state budget deal. The decision will be appealed, as County Supervisors struggle to fill the gap which will decrease employment and services dramatically, if we lose the appeal. Reports as to how and why we got into the mess are becoming skewed.

In 2011 in order to punish a Democrat Senator for not casting a tax vote, the Governor and/or his Finance staff decided to find a way to unwrap $40+ million in additional funding the Senator was granted in 2009. Voilà! They discovered that when Orange County was refinancing debt related to the 1995 bankruptcy workout (to repay the debt faster and cheaper) there was an uncrossed “T.” To explain, the County had, at the request of the bondholders, swapped a portion of its property tax revenues for vehicle license fees it was sending to the state to provide “collateral” so to speak for the bond repayment. In the 2007 refinance the County neglected or decided not to get the Legislature to reauthorize the swap. So in 2011, Brown merely took… Read More

My friend James O’Keeefe over at Project Veritas (known for his breaking video work in taking down ACORN working with Andrew Breitbart) decided to send a video crew to the home of Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, who was a supporter of Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s Homeless Bill of Rights. His video crew — was dressed up as homeless people… Check out what happens. Also see what happens when the same crew visits the office of Ammiano… Priceless…

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An incoming email responding to last week’s commentary, “Los Angeles Police Union Attacks Messenger Rather Than Confront Pension Crisis” included the following statement:

“While you profess not to dislike public employees, it is clear that you disliking public employee unions. Interesting—so you might like a public employee or two individually, you just dislike when those individuals organize to work for better working conditions or pay. Which goes hat in hand with your desire to make public employee pension plans seem so expensive that they are terminated.”

This invites a response.

Our concerns about public employee unions are primarily based on the fundamental differences between unions in the public sector vs. unions in the private sector. There’s nothing wrong – in principle – when “individuals organize to work for better working conditions or pay.” But if those individuals work for the government, there are plenty of problems. We are seeing the result of this throughout California… Read More

[Publisher’s Note – We are pleased to offer this column penned by longtime FR friend David Wolfe. Wolfe is the Legislative Director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. We found it “fun” that liberal State Senator Leland Yee is carrying a piece of legislation sponsored by HJTA. What is it? Read on! — Flash]

Earlier this year hundreds of Los Angeles County voters filled the Hall of Administration to protest a proposed $280 million/year storm water fee, or “rain tax” as it had become known. They were angry about the new fee that could, for some, amount to thousands of dollars. Adding insult to injury, the notice mailed out by the county, which was supposed to advise property owners of their right to protest the proposed fee, was made to look like a community newsletter touting the virtues of clean beaches and streams.

Most who received the notice, and the protest form buried inside, considered it junk mail and threw it away without reading it, unwittingly forfeiting the chance to have their objection counted before the county… Read More

This next week in the State Capitol will be an ugly one for taxpayers. Pretty much any legislation that could have brought relief has already been slaughtered in the policy committee process, where any meaningful legislation authored by a Republican was decimated with the efficiency of a shredding machine slicing and dicing a piece of paper. In the midst of all of the bad bills that each legislative chamber will attempt to pass, there are two that are particularly insidious. Assembly Bill 8 and Senate Bill 11 are almost identical bills that each contain a massive $2.3 billion car tax increase. Running along-side this column is one from Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that goes into the details of why these bills are very bad public policy. I’m going to write about why Republicans supporting these two bills is bad politically, both for those members who might be tempted to support the bills, and for the Republican Party itself, and crucial efforts to pick up GOP seats next year.

Virtually every Republican legislator ran for their… Read More

This week, the California Legislature will consider Assembly Bill 8, a massive $2.3 billion car tax increase. In better days, a tax increase this large and this unpopular would stand little chance of passage because virtually all Republicans and a handful of moderate Democrats could be counted on to stand up for taxpayers.

But things are not as they once were. Up to a dozen Republicans have already signaled support for AB 8 or its companion measure in the Senate, SB 11. Some of these members, including a few who have previously received an “A” grade on HJTA’s report card, tell us that the nine year tax increase is the best “deal” for taxpayers they can get. It is not. There is always the choice to stand and fight for taxpayers rather than capitulate to government bureaucrats and rent seeking business organizations who rarely advocate for the broader interests of taxpayers.

The crux of the matter is this: should unelected government entities like the California Air Resources Board (CARB) be able to impose strict mandates on diesel truckers and the petroleum industry and then force all taxpayers to pay for them? AB 8 would increase by millions of… Read More