We’re all familiar with the expression, “snatching victory out of jaws of defeat” — well, on March 16th of this year, I was in shock as I watched Republicans legislators in the State Assembly amazingly do the opposite as they, “snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory.”

On March 16, the Democrats brought up their preferred state budget, including a bill to place billions in tax increases onto what would have been a June ballot, Republicans unified to oppose both the budget and the attendant attempt to hike taxes. That’s the good news — and GOP legislators continue to deserve praise for staying unified against punitive levies on California taxpayers in the midst of a recession.

That said, amidst the many bills brought up for a vote that night was Senate Bill 77 — legislation that would, if passed, effectively end local Redevelopment Agencies (RDAs). This legislation was not “tied” to any other bills, and thus if Republicans voted for it (which they should have overwhelmingly), we would have grabbed a significant public policy victory for the evening — picking the flower out of the bouquet of stinky… Read More

As the lead legislative intervenor challenging an August 2009 federal court order reducing California’s prison population, I am dismayed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today in Brown v. Plata.

The decision to force California’s prisons to release 46,000 convicted felons is a historic attack on the constitutional rights of states and the liberty of all Californians.

By flooding our neighborhoods with criminals, the Court will make one of highest taxed states in the nation among the most dangerous as well, further tarnishing the California dream.

At a time when law-abiding Californians cannot find jobs, it’s hard to imagine how convicted felons will do anything other than return to a life of crime.

But at least Justice Kennedy can sleep easier at night knowing that none of these dangerous felons will be released in his neighborhood.… Read More

“While working families are suffering, Jerry Brown and tax-grabbing lawmakers are cutting sweetheart deals with union bosses who contributed millions of dollars to their political campaigns…”

I am very pleased to share with FlashReport readers that today the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association announced a significant radio ad buy to alert Californians to Governor Brown’s plan for massive tax increases.

Californians deserve to know what is going on here in Sacramento. These taxes are yet another assault on working families in California, and we are not going to sit by while the state continues to be destroyed from the inside by the career politicians, tax-grabbers, and their government employee union cronies.

The radio spot highlights the State’s status as “worst” in many categories – including “worst place to do business” in America, among the worst tax climates, worst housing market, worst unemployment rate, and the list goes on.

The spot will run statewide in targeted… Read More

[Publisher’s Note: As part of an ongoing effort to bring original, thoughtful commentary to you here at the FlashReport, I am pleased to present this column from Kevin Dayton, State Government Affairs Director for the Association Builders and Contractors of California – Flash]

Culture Clash: The “Bakersfield Oil Field to Berkeley Sports Field Tax” By Kevin Dayton

On Monday, May 16, in front of sizable crowds of oil and gas industry workers, the California State Assembly’s Committee on Revenue and Taxation considered a tax bill that reflects the disdain of California’s coastal state legislators for the city of Bakersfield and its industrial base.

Assemblyman Warren Furutani (D-Long Beach) has introduced Assembly Bill 1326, the so-called “Fair Share for Fair Tuition Act,” which… Read More

Thursday night’s San Diego County Taxpayers Association Golden Watchdog and Fleece Awards dinner proved itself again to be one of the area’s premiere annual political events. As Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox accepted a stuffed sheep to add to two previous city “awards” for fleecing taxpayers, she took a few seconds to rebut the honor, then ended her acceptance speech with “I’m going to take my sheep and get the flock out of here!”

Attendees watched a video of Cox, Oceanside City Councilman Jerry Kern, and San Diego Councilmembers Carl DeMaio and Kevin Faulconer — the latter two likely to vie for mayor next year — wake up in hotel room with a live chicken, but no memory of how they racked up a $130 million bill the size of the San Diego deficit. The ensuing Las Vegas romp was very loosely patterned after the movie “The Hangover.”

Here’s some coverage, including the “San Diego Hangover” video:

SD Rostra: Winners named at Golden Watchdog & Golden Fleece… Read More

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Yesterday the online investigative website California Watch broke a story that has stunned the political community of the Golden State. They published a story, complete with documentation, proving that the Speaker of the California State Assembly, John Perez, for nearly a decade made assertions that he was a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, when this simply was not true. Perez attended Cal, but never graduated. In his biography he boasted graduating, and subsequently news stories and political journals printed that he was a graduate as fact, which he did not dispute or seek to correct.

Suddenly the lie become, for Perez, the truth. At least until his lie helped him to establish bona fides that helped him to get elected to the State Assembly in 2008. Only after his election to the legislature is there an apparent effort to scrub biographies and put the falsehood in his past. All day long Perez’s office ignored the story. I spoke late yesterday afternoon with Lance Williams, the reporter who penned the story for California Watch — he told me that neither Perez nor his office would give him a comment.

Late last… Read More

Earlier today, the California Assembly passed the National Popular Vote (AB 459) on a 47-21 vote, and inflicted another tear on the great and frayed founding document of our Republic, the Constitution.

NPV reduces the Electoral College to mere window dressing and substitutes the direct election of the president – an idea the Founding Fathers explicitly rejected — in its stead. it amends the Constitution without bothering to amend the Constitution. To quote veteran conservative writer Quin Hilyer of The American Spectator, it is “an absolute disaster of an idea.”

I expect liberals to ignore the clear intent of the Founding Fathers and weaken the Constitution. But it’s deeply dispiriting when Republicans help them do it. These four GOP Assemblyman voted with the Democratic majority to toss the Electoral College into the garbage can:

I had a chance to sit with Art Laffer, Sally Pipes and a few supporters of the Pacific Research Institute Wednesday after lunch and Art and I shared some “old times” from the 1978 Proposition 13 campaign, when he began a strong association with Howard Jarvis as a rising star in economics, and I was serving as Jarvis’ lowly but eager assistant, carrying his brief case from speech to speech. There was never much reading material in Jarvis’ briefcase, but Laffer offered that he really was a genius, a guy with guts and native intelligence who never gave up trying after several failures to reform California’s skyrocketing property taxes.

It is not confidential that right after Proposition 13 passed by a landslide in June, 1978, that Jerry Brown called Art Laffer and they spent several days together in conference about how to implement it and what to expect in the economy. It is also no secret that Jarvis and Laffer both subsequently endorsed Democrat Jerry Brown for Governor because of his pledge to fully implement the initiative, which he honestly did do. (Jarvis also endorsed the Republican candidate, but the commercial he cut for Brown was… Read More