According to the Los Angeles Times, Governor Jerry Brown is “leaning against” a proposed deal to bring an estimated 7,000 Amazon.com jobs to California. The Governor is concerned that a deal would somehow cost the state revenue.

If the Governor truly believes the ‘Amazon Tax’ is going to generate millions in revenue for the state this year, he’s mistaken. Board of Equalization staff have determined that the projected $200 million in revenue will not materialize this year.

As of today we’re not aware of a single online retailer that has registered with BOE to collect sales tax because of AB 28X. According to Board of Equalization staff, the number of out-of-state registrations in July 2011 was actually lower than July 2010.

Additionally, should a referendum qualify for the ballot, the law would be suspended until a vote of the people in June or November of next year. That would mean the ‘Amazon Tax’ would be a guaranteed money loser this fiscal year, since terminated affiliates will pay… Read More

My good friend Rex Hime recently penned a column for the Flash Report citing several instances where conservatives in other states supported “e-fairness” legislation.

That’s an interesting debate for another day. The issue before us today is not about the “Amazon Tax” itself—that bill already passed the Legislature this summer with only one Republican vote.

The issue before us is whether or not Republican lawmakers should support Assembly Bill 155—a blatant attempt by Democrats to block California voters from holding a referendum on the “Amazon Tax.” By cementing this failed policy into law with a 2/3rds vote of the Legislature, California voters would be denied the opportunity to overturn the “Amazon Tax.”

AB 155 is a slap in the face to the nearly one million California voters who have already signed petitions calling for a referendum of the “Amazon Tax.”

The Democrats know California voters aren’t on their side on this issue. A recent… Read More

The congressional approval rating recently hit a rock-bottom 12%. The Tea Party movement was founded on the public’s dissatisfaction with elected leaders and the growth of government–particularly its inefficiencies. This discontent signifies a deep-rooted disconnect. Voters feel more than ever that their voices aren’t heard in the halls of power. They think their votes don’t matter. And they think that no matter what they do, their leaders won’t listen to their concerns. The contentious townhall meetings last summer and simmering public rage that boiled over are just one example of this growing sentiment.

It’s this disconnect between the public and its government that led Orange County entrepreneur Tim Yale to found a new social network called TellDC.com (I am excited to be doing some professional work with Tim.) The site allows members to join for free and then post either written or video questions on their representatives’ profile pages. To get an answer, the question must meet a certain threshold of votes… Read More

How will parents react when they find out they will be expected to provide workers’ compensation benefits, rest and meal breaks and paid vacation time for…babysitters? Dinner and a movie night may soon become much more complicated.

Assembly Bill 889 (authored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano of San Francisco) will require these protections for all “domestic employees,” including nannies, housekeepers and caregivers. The bill has already passed the Assembly and is quickly moving through the Senate with blanket support from the Democrat members that control both houses of the Legislature – and without the support of a single Republican member. Assuming the bill will easily clear its last couple of legislative hurdles, AB 889 will soon be on its way to the Governor’s desk.

Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated… Read More

Lest we be accused of not sharing all perspectives on an issue, FR friend Rex Hime, President of the California Business Properties Association, sent this my way and I thought it worth sharing… This concerns the so-called “Amazon Tax” that would require online retailers doing business in California to collect sales taxes and provide them to the state…

Republicans and conservatives from across the country oppose giving special treatment to a handful of online-only retailers like Amazon. A level playing field that gets government out of the business of picking winners and losers is the best strategy for growing small businesses and creating jobs.

Republicans across the nation have recognized that e-fairness is about creating a fair competitive market, and providing all businesses – large and small – opportunities to remain a cornerstone for American entrepreneurship.

In fact, when Governor Rick Perry signed the law and an overwhelmingly number of Texas Republican legislators passed e-fairness, the Texas Conservative Coalition went so far as to say in their … Read More

In response to Jon Fleischman’s August 23rd column entitled “AB 1215 – Mandating That a Fee Cannot Be Called a Fee – Seriously”, I would like to offer a different opinion. Although I’m a four-term Congressman, in a prior life I owned and operated a number of new car dealerships in California and am very familiar with California’s “price control” on the amount a dealer can charge to perform a host of work required by the state.

AB 1215, a bill currently before the California Legislature, would for the first time in 5 years raise the statutory cap the Legislature imposes on private dealer businesses to perform state-mandated title and registration paperwork, in addition to a plethora of other state-mandated requirements (for example, providing consumers “free” credit scores, other credit disclosures, tire chain notices, license bracket notices, etc.). Even with the increase, California would still have the second lowest cap in the country – most states have no cap at all. California imposes no such… Read More

We need to fundamentally change the way the state conducts its business. Today the Assembly passed legislation I was proud to be the principal co-author of dealing with performance-based budgeting. We must make state government more accountable, more transparent and ultimately, more effective.

I am the proud principal co-author of Senate Bill 14 (SB 14) that will put in place performance-based budgeting. Currently, the state budget operates on the principle of baseline budgeting. Many programs take the previous year’s amount and factor in an automatic increase. So what is often discussed in public as a cut is, in fact, simply a reduction in the rate of growth. This not only confuses the public, but also shifts the debate. Instead of focusing on whether a program is working efficiently or is even needed, the entire discussion becomes about the size of the increase.

The baseline model does not facilitate discussion or agreement on priorities. Instead, it needs to be about goals and desired results. Under the baseline model, state officials do not have the necessary information to determine which programs are really working. Baseline budgeting does not… Read More

The latest move by liberal Democrats to disenfranchise Californians from their right to petition government is a move acknowledged by State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg that would push all such initiatives off the June 2012 ballot and consolidate them on the November ballot. And what reporters like Dan Walters are missing in their pieces on this last minute sneak attack on the franchise in the Legislature is what the November 2012 ballot would actually look like if Steinberg is successful. Ugly is the word, and according to most people who study the relationship between ballot size and voting, the result will be less public participation and significant voter “fall off” from voting.

This is because every scientific study that exists of voter attitudes demonstrates that the more information that is placed into voter pamphlets and the longer the ballot becomes by adding more measures, the… Read More