When it comes to public employee pension reform, San Diego’s city management needs to take a lesson from the U.S. Marine Corps and lead by example.

Let me explain. The pension initiative on the June ballot is an absolutely vital reform to put our city on a long-term path to fiscal health. With $2.1 billion in debt promised to current and past city employees, but no funding stream to pay for it, our pension obligations are cutting into funding for basic government services such as road repairs and maintenance of parks. The reforms being put before voters — asking city employees to pay a greater portion of their own pensions, capping the amount of an employee’s salary that counts toward a pension, and transitioning from defined benefit to defined contribution plans — are all the right thing to do. But there is more we can do.

As mayor, I will take pension reform even further.

In the Marine Corps, the commanding officer leads by example, never asking the troops to perform a task he or she is not willing to also perform. In this way, the commanding officer sets the standard and defines the culture for the entire organization. I will bring that… Read More

The California Fair Political Practices Commission has prepared a new four page “fact sheet” on its required advertising disclaimers, and the electronic version has hyperlinks to an additional four new “Disclaimer Charts” that go into detail on requirements for candidates and ballot measures, including independent expenditures. The FPPC can impose a penalty of up to $5,000 per violation for campaigns that fail to place the required notices on political advertising. Attached is a copy of the new fact sheet.

FPPCPoliticalAdvertisingDisclaimersFactSheet… Read More

It probably is counter-intuitive to the casual observer that it is newsworthy that the House Republican Whip, Kevin McCarthy, has endorsed one of his colleagues for re-election. After all, incumbent protection is a big part of the Beltway culture. That having been said, when Gary Miller announced his candidacy for reelection in the 31st Congressional District, which is adjacent to the geographical turf he has represented in his current district, he rolled out some big endorsements like Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Pete Sessions, the Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. One name that was missing at the time was… Read More

Yesterday I blogged about how my friend and fellow conservative Matt Harper had decided not to run in the race for Assembly in the 72nd District in West Orange County. This left Los Alamitos Councilman Troy Edgar and County Board of Education member Long Pham in the race. Shortly after I blogged about this I heard that another Republican, Travis Allen, had jumped into the race.

I’ve met Allen before — I’ve run into him in political circles. He’s into wealth management, and as I have found with 90% of the people I have met in that business, he’s very gregarious and outgoing. Still when I heard about his candidacy I did what I usually do — some online research. The first stops that I always make on the web are to the Secretary of State’s Cal-Access website to check on someone’s political donations to state candidates (when the site is working) and to the FEC website to check on someone’s federal political giving.

When I punched in Travis Allen, it was not his contributions to Republican candidates and PACs that caught my eye. That isn’t unusual, especially for people who are looking to run for… Read More

Over the past week I have gotten a couple of phone calls and a few e-mails from elected members of the San Diego Republican Party Central Committee. While none have been identical, the subject matter of the calls has been the same – the candidacy of former San Diego City Councilman Brian Maienschein for the State Assembly. The context is this – Maienschein, a Republican, is running for what is, in essence, the Assembly seat currently held by Nathan Fletcher. Tomorrow the San Diego GOP is considering potential party endorsements in many legislative races, including this seat, at a special meeting. Maienschein has a Republican opponent, Dustin Steiner, who works for Supervisor Bill Horn. Apparently Maienschien is a controversial candidate because, while on the San Diego City Council, he voted for a lot of the public employee pension boosts that have led that city to being ground-zero for pension reform.

While I counseled those people who contacted me privately, I thought that I might address this issue publicly as well. I don’t know Maienschien personally. I have met him a few times over the years, and said hello to him at last weekend’s big… Read More

About a month ago we broke the news that Los Alamitos Mayor Troy Edgar was dropping his bid for Congress, and instead would be running in the West Orange County 72nd Assembly District, which has no incumbent. At the time Edgar shifted his sights on the state house, it looked like his main opponent would be Huntington Beach Councilman Matt Harper. Westminster Councilman Tyler Diep, as we predicted, dropped out of the race shortly after Edgar’s move.

Today we are breaking the news that Harper has decided not to run for the State Assembly. Instead he will stay on the Huntington Beach Council, where he is in the middle of his first term. In departing the race, Harper told me that he is endorsing Edgar’s Assembly bid.

Harper enjoyed a wide swath of endorsements from prominent conservatives. But according to Harper his motivation to run was lessened after sitting down with Edgar, and realizing that the two of them shared very similar political views. No doubt another factor was Edgar’s ability to self-fund a race while… Read More

This weekend about 5,000 Republican leaders, made up of every member of the State GOP Central Committee and every elected member of each of the state’s 58 County GOP Central Committees from around California, should have been gathering in Sacramento to consider whether the California Republican Party will endorse a candidate for United States Senate. Instead, as few as 24 individual members of the CRP’s Board of Directors will meet in a room at a hotel in Burbank this Sunday, where as few as 16 votes may make a decision that previously had been reserved for millions of Republican voters statewide.

Last month at the California Democrat Party convention/freak show, you may have noticed that they held regional caucus where local party leaders gathered, by district, to determine who would get the CDP endorsement in all of the state’s Congressional, State Senate, and State Assembly Districts. On the Republican side, while County GOP Committees in some cases have given their local endorsements, those same 24 CRP Board Members will gather and will decide on behalf of all California Republicans who the CRP… Read More

Regular readers of this site know that I frequently pan public opinion polling because the results of such surveys are so easily manipulated by factors such as how a question is framed, how it is asked, and to whom it is asked. All of these variables can skew the results of any survey.

That caveat having been given, I take it as an outstanding development that in the Public Policy Institute of California survey released last night that the sales and income tax increases proposed by Governor Brown have plummeted around twenty points since the last time the PPIC asked for public opinion on this topic. Brown’s measure now stands precariously at a bare majority of voter support, 52% — and any student of California politics will tell you that this is not where you want to be.

That having been said, this is the first time the PPIC has been able to use the actual Title and Summary assigned to the tax increase proposal in their questions, which one can presume make these numbers a bit more realistic than the earlier one.… Read More