It was supposed to be our salvation. In 1792, the first redistricting process in the United States, Eldridge Gerry figured out how to draw lines to favor his political party. One of his opponents said the districts looked like a salamander. Another said “that is not a salamander, it’s a Gerrymander. And a great political tradition in the United States was born.

The solution? A citizen commission, free from bias, drawing the lines, no politics, no partisanship. It didn’t work out that way here in California. What went wrong?

I supported the idea in the 1990’s, thinking it could work. Then I went through a redistricting process. Redistricting is the most political process there is. Jobs, careers, and power are at stake. I watched as Democrats in the Legislature erased and drew lines in their districts on their desks during session. They were intensely interested in the outcome. David Dreier and Ed Royce lived in Sacramento for a time while the lines were being drawn. Mike Briggs sold his vote on a tax increase for the Congressional seat that he thought would be his, and turned out to belong to Devin Nunez. Republicans in… Read More

Last Friday, a study was released that should have a seismic impact on the debate regarding school funding and, more specifically, how education dollars are spent. I’ve made no bones about the fact that I don’t think taxpayers should be asked for one more penny until it can be demonstrated that the billions we are already putting into our schools are being spent efficiently and for the benefit of students.

The National University System Institute for Policy Research released a study comparing school construction costs with the use of project labor agreements to those using a fair and open competitive bidding process. What they found not surprisingly is that the use of union giveaways results in significantly higher costs for taxpayers. Looking at more than 500 school construction projects over the last decade, the research was able to quantify that project labor agreements save anywhere from 13% to 15% to the overall cost of a project. The project sponsors get extra credit for having the prestigious Keston… Read More

Today, economic issues dominate the scene in America. We have record-breaking, unsustainable deficits and face credit downgrades and a looming debt crisis. We are supposedly in the middle of economic recovery, but no one can really feel it. Unemployment is stubbornly high and shows no signs of coming down any time soon. Inflation is now running over 3%, which is relatively low, but since savings accounts pay essentially nothing, the wealth of Americans is being eroded. Europe and, yes, even China have economic challenges. Decisions about issues as diverse as national defense, the environment and immigration are all now impacted by the economic prospects and our current fiscal situation.

President Obama has been the major contributor to these problems. He has massively grown spending, deficits and debt in a misguided and failed Keynesian attempt to fix the economy. His strong and very liberal ideology continues to churn out job-killing policies in the areas of health care, energy, finance and manufacturing. He claims to love the jobs created by these industries, but his administration does whatever it can to restrict the products that these industries make and to punish… Read More

My friend Allen Hemphill dug this unnoticed factoid out of a recent economic comparison study by CNBC, the economics network of NBC.

Among other things, they rated states for “workforce quality.” Of the top 25 states, 22 were “right to work” states — ALL the 22 right-to-work states.

Unions won’t be citing THIS study!

http://usna1957.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/important-information-hidden-among-the-facts/… Read More

Recently there have been a spate of “studies,” press releases and articles from government apologists (especially CalPERS) about how we all prosper from (primarily government) pension fund investing and pensioners’ spending. Here’s my response:

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Actually, if the Crips and the Bloods had good PR departments, they could put out similar and equally accurate “analysis” and press releases:

The titles could read something like this:

“Crips’ Thefts Stimulate Economy.”

“Bloods’ Blood Money Energizes Commerce”

A thief who steals someone else’s money and spends (or, indeed, invests) the funds is doing just as much for the economy as the taxes confiscated (under threat of force) for the benefit of our public employee aristocracy.

It’s just another example of the “Broken Window Fallacy,” the ludicrous but too common premise that breaking windows increases prosperity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallacy

In this case, the assumption is that if I take… Read More

The switch of the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE editorial slant from moderate Republican to moderate-to-liberal Democrat is finally becoming blatant and public. Today the U-T announced their “Community Editorial Board” made up of what they deem to be a cross-section of local leaders that will help guide the paper’s editorial page and indeed opine periodically. Oh my! http://tinyurl.com/3mp8tq8

Read the U-T write-up on this bunch http://www.signonsandiego.​com/news/2011/jul/24/voices-new-era-meet-community-e​ditorial-board/ and then ask yourself this question — how did they vote on San Diego’s Prop D, the benchmark 2010 city sales tax increase? Probably 80+% voted for it, compared to 62% of the REAL SD community who voted against it.

The new, underfunded, downtown library? Probably 90% of this board support it, while a strong majority of city residents oppose it — which is why the city council refused to let the citizenry vote on this modern day pyramid… Read More

Imagine a credit card, glossed and shiny, embossed with 16 digits and your name across the front; one linked to the benefit of a credit limit and a payment schedule for amounts owed. While this is a simplified illustration, for all intents and purposes, America has maxed out its own credit card and hit its legal credit limit. In the case of America’s credit limit, that amount is a staggering $14.3 trillion.

One might ask how we managed to max out the country’s credit card. We reached the limit because our government has been on a wild spending spree, recklessly handing out money for new government programs, unwilling to make the tough choices necessary to address out of control spending. Now, we have reached the debt limit and in order to avoid damaging the full faith and credit of the United States, the Congress must ensure any action taken to raise the debt limit comes with real and significant spending reform. According to a recent Gallup Poll and a recent CBS News poll, the majority of Americans do not support raising the debt limit, and this isn’t because they want us to default, but it is because they want Washington to stop the spending.

And… Read More

[Publisher’s Note: One would be hard pressed to find two constitutional and election law attorneys who are more well versed and well respected on the Republican side of the aisle than the co-authors of this important guest column. I commend you to take the time to full read this column, which is a bit longer than we normally feature in this space. But it is important — Flash] The Constitutional Role of Partisans in the Redistricting Process By Professor John C. Eastman and Charles H. Bell, Jr.

Summary: The Citizens Redistricting Commission process has gone seriously awry, hijacked by covert Democrat and leftist partisans who have violated open meeting, public records and conflict of interest laws, playing a “shell game” with draft district maps that likely will cement Democrat 2/3ds control of the State Legislature when finalized. Proposition 11 provided a remedy – Republican commissioners can defeat the final district maps if three Republican commissioners simply vote no. Then, redistricting… Read More