Over on the venerable Sacramento Bee Capitol Alert blog, they have posted up an easy to read spreadsheet of all of the claims paid by the State of California as a result of accidents with state-leased vehicles assigned to legislators. In many instances the claims indicate that a spouse or child of the legislator was behind the wheel. Nice.

The link is here. Check it out.

It’s just as well Governor Brown has decided to just ask the legislature to increase taxes, without waiting for a vote of the people. Because I can only imagine the cynicism of the electorate as they absorb the fact that California is the only state in the country where legislators get state-leased vehicles (let along two — yes, unless the legislator drives to work from nearby, there is a second state-leased vehicle parked under the Capitol for the use of each legislator).… Read More

Of Shutdowns and Budgets: The press coverage of the potential "shutdown" and of the deal that averted it has been immense. So, I don’t think I need to bore you with any more information on what happened around here last week. But, I will give you my thoughts. I won’t actually see the final "deal" bill until sometime Monday night. Then, we will have 3 days to review it before we vote on it. This was one of the legislative process reforms put in by the new Republican majority to avoid the sort of things that Pelosi and Reid did, like putting up a health care bill that no one had read or had time to read. +

Subject to my final review of the bill, I intend to support it. Not because I think it reduces enough spending. It does not. But, because I think it was probably as good a deal as John Boehner could get, given that Barack Obama is president and Harry Reid is Senate majority leader. I opposed the original $61 billion in cuts because I thought we should have started higher. You cannot make your first offer also your last offer. Given that we started at $61 billion, $39 is probably as much as we could… Read More

The Democrat who was supposed to go point-counterpoint with Campbell was a no show — so here is about four minutes of the Orange County Congressman giving his take on the budget deal (which is to say the spending authority for this fiscal year)…

… Read More

I happened to run across this article today about Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R), Palm Desert, and her "on the fence" position regarding Republican Congressman Paul Ryan’s 10 year budget plan. If her position is indicative of the GOP House Caucus, we’re in big trouble already.

First of all, I cannot imagine anyone being undecided about the Ryan budget on the grounds that it goes too far. It actually doesn’t go anywhere close to where we need to go in terms of deficit and debt reduction. Ryan compares his plan’s 10 year benchmark with Barack Obama’s, and claims some great victory for only increasing spending $4 trillion instead of the $10 trillion proposed by Obama. This is conservative?

For a Republican member to actually believe the Ryan budget goes too far is evidence of a fundamental lack of understanding of basic economics and mathamatics, as well as international finance, and perhaps even politics.

First of all, we’ve raised the… Read More

Everyone, regardless of their political persuasion, will agree on one immutable fact: California state government is in a world of hurt. The state’s recession has walloped what once were sky-high tax revenues, and now the state has a massive budget shortfall. This tragic situation shaped much of the Governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and has completely dominated the first 100 days of Jerry Brown’s third term as Governor.

It is somewhat amazing that in the context of this crisis, that next week a group of California legislators are headed abroad to of all places – Ireland. The Los Angeles Times has reported that one of the purposes of this legislative international journey is, according to the Times, “ to study how to turn sewage and wind into energy.”

Seriously.

Democrat Assemblyman Steve Bradford (who along with his Democrat colleague Fiona Ma are the only two legislators named as… Read More

Today Governor Mitt Romney announced his official exploratory committee for President. In doing so he released the video below…

… Read More

In talking to my friends in Orange County there appears to be some misunderstanding of how large the Latino population is. I hear comments about the possibility of the redistricting commission somehow eliminating or dramatically changing Senate District 34. That is not going to happen.

The Voting Rights Act protects the ability of certain communities to be grouped together in redistricting process. That will continue to happen in Orange County.

The attached document will give you an idea of the magnitude of the population densities in Orange County.

The minimum for the County of Orange will be one district in the State Senate that will likely be held by a Democrat (the replacement for Senator Lou Correa), one Congressional seat (held by Democrat Loretta Sanchez), and at least one Assembly seat (currently held by Assemblyman Jose Solorio).

The real question is what districts are drawn beyond these minimums. I actually think we could see more.

Consider this, most people think of Assemblyman Chris… Read More

Everyone, regardless of their political persuasion, will agree on one immutable fact: California state government is in a world of hurt. The state’s recession has walloped what once were sky-high tax revenues, and now the state has a massive budget shortfall. This tragic situation shaped much of the Governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and has completely dominated the first 100 days of Jerry Brown’s third term as Governor.

It is somewhat amazing that in the context of this crisis, that next week a group of California legislators are headed abroad to of all places – Ireland. The Los Angeles Times has reported that one of the purposes of this legislative international journey is, according to the Times, “ to study how to turn sewage and wind into energy.”

Seriously.

Democrat Assemblyman Steve Bradford (who along with his Democrat colleague Fiona Ma are the only two legislators named as… Read More