I supported the 1990 term limits law until I returned to the Assembly in 2003. I served when the law had not yet taken full effect, and I saw the impacts of that law after it was fully implemented. The Assembly in 2003 was at least two term limit generations away from the Assembly of 1992-94. I was shocked at what I saw.

If you are a student of the Federalist Papers, specifically Federalist No. 10, you know that Madison commented that natural tendency of special interests (factions as he named them) is to take over the levers of government and use those levers to their advantage. Those in government generally rely on those special interests to keep their power, so a symbiotic relationship is formed. The special interests press those in power to cede the power of government to the agenda of the special interest, and to stay in power, the government officials (whether they are politicians or bureaucrats) agree to do so, in order to keep their job and stay in power. It is rare for a politician (particularly) to say no to a special interest, because of that symbiotic relationship.

I put this principle in more common terms. The hardest thing for a politician to… Read More

I enjoy watching Dick Morris on the Fox News Channel. He’s a very clever, interesting analyst who always finds a way to keep the audience engaged on the topic of the day.

Unfortunately, in his most recent assessment on the state of the Republican nominating contest, Morris continued perpetuating a factual error about California’s June 5 presidential primary.

For some reason, in recent days I’ve seen an unusual number of factually incorrect press reports erroneously stating that California’s Republican presidential primary is “winner take all.” This is not correct.

When California allocates its 172 delegates following the June 5th primary, it will do so by Congressional District. Each district will send three delegates and three alternates to the national convention. The candidate who wins the plurality of the vote in a Congressional District will win the three delegates and three alternates from that district.

Only the state’s 10 at-large delegates are awarded “winner take all” to the candidate who wins the plurality of the statewide vote… Read More

Many people think that California is still a “winner take all” state for the Republican Presidential primary. We are not. But we are also do not award our delegates proportionately, as many states do…

By the time California Republicans for their pick for President in 2008, Senator John McCain had pretty much sewn up the nomination. McCain won the statewide vote in the California primary. But he did not get all of California’s delegates. A group of them actually went to Mitt Romney that year because in California, almost all of the delegates are awarded based on the winner in each of our 53 Congressional Districts. To be precise — California will send 172 delegates to the Tampa Convention this August. 159 of them will be awarded, three apiece, to the candidate that gets the plurality of the vote in each U.S. House district. 10 delegates will go to the candidate that wins the plurality of Republican votes statewide. The remaining 3 delegates will be our RNC members, who are not bound to any particular candidate. In California, each candidate will submit a list of 169 potential delegates (a big project since delegates must be… Read More

We are facing some of the most challenging times that today’s generations can remember. Here at home in California and across the country, people can’t find work, families are struggling to make ends meet and foreclosure signs are now littering once booming developments.

For over three years now, our nation’s unemployment rate has been at or above 8%. In the 25th Congressional district, where I serve, the unemployment rate is much higher.In the areas of Palmdale, Littlerock, Lancaster and Lake Los Angeles, it is actually double that or more. Everyone is aware of these statistics, and all of us know someone who is unemployed and desperately seeking employment.

To make matters worse, dysfunctional leadership in our nation’s capitol and crippling budget deficits are creating an environment of uncertainty for many companies who want to hire people, but are afraid to do so. Capitalis stagnant and unattainable, frozen by an over swing of regulation. We want to get America working again, yet many of our wounds are self inflicted, as Washington bureaucrats go to work every day piling more regulations and taxes onto the very businesses we ask to grow and… Read More

As noted last week, communications strategist Tony Manolatos is doing a series of interviews with the City of San Diego Mayoral candidates for San Diego Rostra.This is the secondin the series, runninglast weekend (here is the Rostra post):

DeMaio: ‘My real opponents are the government employee unions and powerful downtown interests’ by Tony Manolatos

We bring you exclusive Q & As with San Diego Mayoral candidates Carl DeMaio, Bonnie Dumanis and Nathan Fletcher.

We kicked off the series last week with Fletcher. We determined the order based on when the responses to our questions were received — first in, first up. Despite repeated attempts, no one from Bob… Read More

In a decision that can only be described as absurd, the Newport Beach City Council has unanimously decided to remove decades old fire pits from the beach. Citing complaints from residents, environmental hazards and health risks a collection of Nanny State Republicans have decided to ruin a unique recreational area of the beach.

For those readers unfamiliar with the Newport fire pits, they are located in a remote southern section away from the larger more populated main beach area. No reasonable argument can really be made for this decision other than pure government control on a local level. The fact that residents “complained” about the fire pits is even more absurd of excuse being cited. The resident complaint excuse is not even worthy of being described by the term NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) at least traditional NIMBYs are complaining about something that will be built, not something that was constructed decades ago.

Though this decision is outrageous and I could rant for pages about reasons these fire pits should remain, there is a silver lining. As I previously mentioned, the vote was of this ban was unanimous. That means that Councilwoman… Read More

Many of us have heard rumors about polling in the San Diego Mayors race. Some campaigns even claim to be surging based on rumors of polls. Here’s some legitimate, new polling in San Diego Mayor’s race:

Competitive Edge (March 1-4, 603 likely voters, +/-4)

Carl DeMaio 25

Bob Filner 20

Bonnie Dumanis 11

Nathan Fletcher 11

Other 2

As interesting, Carl DeMaio leads with Republicans, Decline to State voters, conservatives, and moderates.

Disclosure: Revolvis works for the DeMaio campaign.… Read More

Try to explain to a person on the street that Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown is captive of special interests that are out there to the left of him, and you are likely to get a look of pure disbelief. Yet, with the news today that Governor Brown stands ready to abandon his already massive proposal to increase sales and income taxes, and will instead work with the ultra liberal California Federation of Teachers on a measure that represents even more massive increases the size and duration of proposed tax increases (the CFT has been working to qualify their own tax increase measure that was larger than the one originally proposed by Brown) it’s pretty clear that this is exactly what is going on.

In what is being dubbed “compromise” by our friends in the main stream media, this new deal between “left and lefter” modifies Governor Brown’s previous proposal as follows (to quote Steve Harman of the Bay Area News Group) — “Brown’s revised plan would put a larger burden on individuals who earn $500,000 a year — raising their income tax rate by 3… Read More