From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail… Two California Items..

Facing Fiscal Reality Two well-off communities in the San Francisco Bay area have come up with an imaginative way of cutting spending to cope with the increasing burden of public employee health and pension costs. They are dissolving their police forces and contracting their responsibilities out to the local sheriff’s department. San Carlos, a city of 28,000 in San Mateo County, was the first to try the unorthodox approach last year. It’s been rated a success. The city’s police officers shifted over to become sheriff’s deputies, and felony arrests went up 92 percent in the first three months. Greg Rothaus, the former San Carlos police chief who is now a sheriff’s captain, says the response to emergency calls has been comparable to what they… Read More

If you are driving distance from downtown San Francisco or the South Coast Metro area of Orange County on April 14th or April 15 (respectively), then you have a unique opportunity to share in the grand opening of what promises to be one of the greatest movies ever — Atlas Shrugged, Part I. The event in Orange Our friends at the Pacific Research Institute are holding events in conjunction with the opening of this giant of a movie. The reason you want to attend one of these events if you can is that PRI is holding receptions where you will be able to talk about the film with other like-minded folks!

If you haven’t read the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, I would commend you to immediately order a copy of it online. I actually listened to the unabridged version of it back in my college days as an up and coming leader in California Young Americans for Freedom (thanks again to Ken Royal for loaning it to me – all forty cassette tapes!). There is certainly no… Read More

A core of conservative communities was cut up by redistricting plan in 2001. A district that is much more conservative than Bonnie Lowenthal or Betsy Butler exists in the area around Torrance south of Marina Del Rey. This district does not split any cities except for the City of Los Angeles which will be split many ways as a result of size.

A district like this would elect a Republican under the right circumstances.

I hope that the beach communities are out there registering voters. Bumping this seat up to 38% GOP would make all the difference in the world.

See map here.… Read More

Lake Forest City Councilman Scott Voights, who is a Vice-President of the venerable California Republican Assembly, just shared with me the release of a legal opinion from the Sutton Law Firm, a prominent and very high-quality Republican-oriented election law firm based in San Francisco, that analyzes an emergency "policy resolution" promoted by incumbent CRA President Celeste Greig and former Placer GOP chief Tom Hudson, that would perpetuate them in CRA offices in the face of overwhelming local unit and delegate opposition at the up-coming CRA convention to be held in mid-April. The independent legal analysis concludes that the Greig/Hudson resolution is hyper illegal. The whole situation is quite pathetic for Greig, Hudson and the CRA. It is an invitation for lawsuits. A copy of the legal analysis Scott released is attached.… Read More

Jerry Brown richly deserved his "Governor Moonbeam" moniker in his first incarnation as Governor (in the 1970’s). He emphasized his Zen ways, talked about the "era of limits" (before Reagan blew the top off of those limits in the 1980’s), and, with his unusual style, and odd public pronouncements, left the impression that he had more than his fair share of that "wacky tabacky" the use of which seemed to be on the rise in those days.

Before Jerry Brown was Governor, California had the best school system in the country. California had a freeway system that was envied throughout the world. 80% of Californians could afford a median price home. Gasoline was 22 cents a gallon, and water was prevalent, and cheap. Farmers didn’t worry about Delta smelts or fairy shrimp. We weren’t a welfare magnet, and bruceros crossed the border to work legally in the fields, and then went home. The state budget was $8.6 billion general fund. Things weren’t idyllic, but they weren’t bad.

After he left office, the state’s general fund spending had nearly tripled.… Read More

As has been anticipated the last couple of days, Governor Brown has declared the three-year long drought in California officially over. With the state’s reservoirs quite full, and the snow pack in the Sierras at 165% of normal, ending the drought declaration is probably a good idea.

Hopefully the readily available supply of water will translate to some reductions in water rationing and perhaps the lowering of costs for end users (one can but hope).

But there is certainly one very bright, positive political aspect to California’s drought being over — it means that it will be harder than ever for the massive $11++ billion water bond package, due to appear on a 2012 ballot near you, to go down in defeat.

The "Water Porkulus" bond package, as I called it when it was being crafted by the legislature a couple of years ago, is literally 3 or 4 times bigger than what is actually needed to responsibly address our state’s water infrastructure issues (it depends on whom you speak, as to exactly how "too big" it is). The process of watching sausage get made is supposedly very gross and… Read More

According to the Tax Foundation, California’s Tax Freedom Day won’t come until April 16 this year, a full two days later than last year and four days later than the average state.

Tax Freedom Day, calculated annually by the Tax Foundation, is the day Americans have earned enough money to pay their… Read More

The annual convention of the California Republican Assembly is scheduled for next month, where a new leadership election is scheduled. CRA is and always has been, since the 1930s when it was founded by among others former Governor Earl Warren, the most important Republican volunteer organization in the state. Almost all the leadership of the California Republican Party have had a run threw the chairs of CRA. But while the recent election of leadership in the CRP was quite harmonious, the situation in CRA is hardly the case. Just after the "record date" closed this last week for selection and disclosure of delegates to next month’s convention, the current leadership group, lead by President Celeste Greig, former Barbara Alby aide Tom Hudson, and Orange County volunteer Craig Alexander, apparently determined that they were destined to be turned out of office; so in what would have been their limited time left on the CRA board, they have concocted an emergency "bylaw" amendment that will disenfranchise scores of delegates to the convention and thereby, they hope, perpetuate what has become a very pathetic term of office for all three. An unusual, and… Read More